5e Wizard - God tier? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Zilong

2018-01-16, 11:42 PM

For the most part, they aren't unless you're playing at level 15+. Even then it's not nearly as much of a headache as it used to be.

Most of the more ridiculous combos have been toned down for all the full casters. This is, in no small part, thanks to the concentration mechanic which significantly limits the number of ongoing effects you can have at one time.

At high levels there are some weird mechanic interactions: simulacra+wish loops, warlock-sorcerer resting shenanigans, but those really only come into play if table has a very broad reading of the rules. Plus, this edition gives the DM much more authority to quash those cans of cheese.

Don't get me wrong, full casters are still nice to have. Just as its nice to have a paladin friend or a fighter face-smasher. They just aren't the (theoretically) omnipotent gods they were in 3.X.

prototype00

2018-01-16, 11:55 PM

Also I get the impression that white room DPS, the Sorceror actually does better than the wizard for a variety of reasons.

Just versatility vs power, like in 3e, only y’know, for actual reals and not just an empty slogan.

the secret fire

2018-01-17, 12:22 AM

strangebloke

2018-01-17, 12:41 AM

Wizards dominate spellcasting, much as they did in 3x. They have (most of) the best spells, the most day to day versatility, and a huge number of subclasses. If your concept is 'spellcaster' and nothing beyond, you're looking at the right class.

Do they dominate the game?

No.

They are the best spellcaster, but that isn't as important as it one was. Every other class gets loads of very useful features that make them on par with a wizard at most levels, including the full casters.

Sorcerers have few spells known, but have metamagic and can Nova seriously hard.

Bard has a crappy list, but they are great skill monkeys and aren't shabby in melee.

Clerics can hold their own in a melee or ranged Battle, and they get other good resources.

Etc. Etc.

The wizard can break the game with ninth level spells and a permissive DM. That's about it. Yes there are still things here can do that the rest of the party can't... But he's also not very good at other things.

It's nice.

mephnick

2018-01-17, 12:47 AM

Full casters are still the strongest classes, but they can no longer dominate every role at the same time. They actually need their party members, unlike 3.5

strangebloke

2018-01-17, 12:49 AM

Full casters are still the strongest classes, but they can no longer dominate every role at the same time. They actually need their party members, unlike 3.5
They also tends to be a lot weaker if you actually follow the suggested combats per day, which many DMs don't.

So warlocks are often seen as bad and Paladins and wizards are seen as godly.

Unoriginal

2018-01-17, 01:50 AM

Hey guys, (hopefully) quick question: how hard are Wizards (and, for that matter, clerics and sorcerers as well) dominating the game?

They aren't.

Naanomi

2018-01-17, 02:10 AM

They still have access to most of the ‘changes the scope of the game’ spells like long-range teleport... but at higher levels than they used to for the most part

Unoriginal

2018-01-17, 02:22 AM

They still have access to most of the ‘changes the scope of the game’ spells like long-range teleport... but at higher levels than they used to for the most part

Being the team's designated chauffeur when you need to go fast/in weird places make you useful, but doesn't make you dominate.

Malifice

2018-01-17, 02:25 AM

Full casters are still the strongest classes

Yet hillariously its feats like GWM and SS (martial stuff) that get all the grief.

Waazraath

2018-01-17, 04:20 AM

Vaz

2018-01-17, 06:29 AM

Nope. And even in 3.x , where there was a power disparity, it was exaggerated on optimization boards. Up to level mid-high levels (+/- 12), there weren't real problems in most campaigns.

Sleep, Rope Trick, Color Spray?

jojo

2018-01-17, 06:33 AM

The concentration mechanic and the fact that save-or-suck spells now largely suck (most of them allow a save each turn) has toned down the wizard quite a bit in comparison to previous editions to the point that they do not feel OP until you reach high level (and I'd argue that an archmage should wreck house, so that's fine). Wizards in 5e are great. They are fun from 1st level because of at-will cantrips (as opposed to old-school "I take out my crossbow" wizards), but take much longer to wreck the game than they did in 3.x.

Sounds like you talked to a Sorcerer trying to pass for a Wizard. Pro-tip, look for a pointy hat. Anything else is just pretending.

Here's an alternative take:

Firstly many of the utility spells that could save the day or unravel the mystery have been converted to rituals. Key spells like Identify, Detect Magic, Comprehend Languages, Water Breathing and a host of other ones - particularly Find Familiar no longer have to be prepared to be used.
This is part of a broader trend away from spell-to-slot preparation which even with the broken mechanics in 3.5 and other editions could render a Wizard entirely useless for days at a time.
The ability to cast spells at higher levels means that you can cast more spells than ever before because there will always be something useful.
Then you get to signature spells and what not, which give any Archmage a huge advantage.

Secondly the wizard's best spells don't generally force saves or deal damage, they modify the battlefield. For instance, Grease well applied can give the party a full round of attacks with advantage which can immediately turn a "Difficult" encounter into a cake-walk, not the least because if the enemies don't die immediately the Wizard can torch them next round with a fire-bolt, or have their familiar drop a torch to accomplish the same thing, or another party member could set the fire.

That's just one particular example, there are dozens of threads with many more.

Unoriginal

2018-01-17, 07:03 AM

And nothing about that makes the 5e wizard super-powerful.

Grease in particular is a peculiar exemple to use. It's a nice spell, no doubt, but giving other people advantages is pretty easy, and it doesn't deal much fire damage if set ablaze (assuming your DM rules that you can do that). Plus it has a Dex save, and will at max affect 4 Medium opponents. It will make it hard for everyone to move in the area, true.

Again, it's a nice spell for its level, but if you want to demonstrate that Wizards are super-powerful...

Gardakan

2018-01-17, 07:40 AM

In term of spellcasting diversity the Wizard is still the best.

The class still has access to a lot of ARCANE spells. Spells that Cleric, Druid or Bard don't have. Warlock and Sorcerer hovers a bit around of them (especially Counterspell).

The god tier isn't a thing I'd refer to when trying to assess classes. Wizards are good.

Still, they don't have Metamagic or Invocations. A level 5-6 Wizard can't Twin a Haste like a Sorcerer. But the Wizard will have access to a vast array of other spells.

Compare it like this

A level 5 Wizard might know around 11-16 spells (depending on copy + starting Int bonus)

A level 10 might have 25-30. A Sorcerer would have 11 spells besides cantrips (12 as a Divine Soul !!!)

The Sorcerer compensate with Sorcery Points. I still believe that to compete the sheer amount of power a basis Wizard has in versatility, a Sorcerer has to be quite refine. It's not a trap class, but making a good Sorcerer is tricky, a Wizard can afford to take spells without much caution has he had lot of them available.

I recently had to make a choice between a Wizard support or a Divine Soul sorcerer support. I relied on the second one, here's the spelllist I'm using as of now with a level 6 sorcerer 5/bard 1.

Sorcerer 5 (Twin, Extend, Divine Soul) / Bard 1 (Human Variant in Adventurer's league)

1 - Bless / Dissonant Whispers / Healing Word / Sanctuary / Shield

2 - Aid / Blindness-Deafness / Misty Step / Prayer of healing

3 - Haste / Hypnotic Pattern

Specter

2018-01-17, 07:59 AM

Gardakan

2018-01-17, 08:04 AM

Wizard's strenght is not raw power, as it used to be, but rather versatility. With many prepared spells and even more spells known, they can be efficient in every encounter, and solve almost any problem outside of combat. Bards are pretty much the same, but they have a smaller list of known spells.

Bards have abilities to support allies. Wizards are just powerhouse of versatility. They can have access to so many spells. I'd still take a Twinned Haste over a huge amount of spells known if I intend to concentrate on Haste at specific levels (and Polymorph at level 4 opens up other possibilities).

Zanthy1

2018-01-17, 08:09 AM

From my experience, any full caster is powerful, but not broken. 9th level spells are a little ridiculous, but thats a small percentage of game time spent at such high levels, at least for me.

Gardakan

2018-01-17, 08:20 AM

From my experience, any full caster is powerful, but not broken. 9th level spells are a little ridiculous, but thats a small percentage of game time spent at such high levels, at least for me.

How many times have I seen spellcasters ran out dry because they spammed spells at an early level. Too much ha ha.

It's hard to balance out the right number of spells, I see some who wants to drop everything and there are others who know how to manage ressources. Playing casters is a tricky game.

Zanthy1

2018-01-17, 08:28 AM

How many times have I seen spellcasters ran out dry because they spammed spells at an early level. Too much ha ha.

It's hard to balance out the right number of spells, I see some who wants to drop everything and there are others who know how to manage ressources. Playing casters is a tricky game.

Agreed. My players know nothing of resource management. What my intention of the post was to say that aside from 9th level spells, full casters are perfectly solid choices and not overwhelmingly game breaking. Wish being the most dangerous one I feel, but there are others. I've run 20th level encounters before, and I was not prepared for my PCs. 9th level spells melted everything i threw at them.

Naanomi

2018-01-17, 09:23 AM

Being the team's designated chauffeur when you need to go fast/in weird places make you useful, but doesn't make you dominate.
I would argue that they change the field of what adventures are possible or impossible and open up access to resources in ways that few other classes can (and none so easily)... not a raw power boost, no, but changes the nature of the game when present compared to when it is not.

Sigreid

2018-01-17, 09:25 AM

I would argue that they change the field of what adventures are possible or impossible and open up access to resources in ways that few other classes can (and none so easily)... not a raw power boost, no, but changes the nature of the game when present compared to when it is not.

It does, but at that point you are essentially the party's miscellaneous magic item.

Naanomi

2018-01-17, 09:32 AM

It does, but at that point you are essentially the party's miscellaneous magic item.
Maybe. The ability to planehop back to the one magic item market you ever had in your campaign to restock after any fight is something other classes cannot do, just as one example.

By scope changing, I mostly mean about adventure design stuff. When there is no one who can teleport or planehop, the GM can still make an adventure about rescuing the princess and braving the sea on a ship full of treacherous pirates while sailing through kraken infested waters even at high levels... once someone can teleport, you have to start fiating in anti-magic fields and the like to even tell that story anymore.

Opening up travel, including planar travel, when the GM was going to do that in the story anyways (with a magic item or whatever) isn’t what I mean, it is the ready access to it and that you then need to have it in mind for every adventure design from that point on... something you don’t have to do with high level clerics or barbarians

Specter

2018-01-17, 09:36 AM

Bards have abilities to support allies. Wizards are just powerhouse of versatility. They can have access to so many spells. I'd still take a Twinned Haste over a huge amount of spells known if I intend to concentrate on Haste at specific levels (and Polymorph at level 4 opens up other possibilities).

Sorcerers can reinvent spells, but these abilities are mostly combat-oriented. A wizard can frustrate the DM in and out of combat. Not that i prefer Wizards, but...

Unoriginal

2018-01-17, 09:46 AM

Maybe. The ability to planehop back to the one magic item market you ever had in your campaign to restock after any fight is something other classes cannot do, just as one example.

Well that would require using your one 9th level spell slot to cast Gate. I think it's a fair trade off.

By scope changing, I mostly mean about adventure design stuff. When there is no one who can teleport or planehop, the GM can still make an adventure about rescuing the princess and braving the sea on a ship full of treacherous pirates while sailing through kraken infested waters even at high levels... once someone can teleport, you have to start fiating in anti-magic fields and the like to even tell that story anymore.

They facilitate transportation, yes. But it doesn't make them dominate the game.

Also, teleportation's not an easy thing to succeed, even if you actually have seen the place. For somewhere you've never been?

All in all, teleport will often lead to different "you've gone to the wrong place" shenanigans.

Opening up travel, including planar travel, when the GM was going to do that in the story anyways (with a magic item or whatever) isn’t what I mean, it is the ready access to it and that you then need to have it in mind for every adventure design from that point on... something you don’t have to do with high level clerics or barbarians

Well, I would argue that having a Cleric also require the DM to take into account how available you make some spells, like the ones that bring people back to life ("and so, the Count lays down, a pool of blood under him from from the fatal blow" "Alright, I cast Resurrection") and that the Barbarian changes what the enemies can do to the PCs ("No way you can break those chains." "Oh yeah?").

mephnick

2018-01-17, 10:47 AM

Yet hillariously its feats like GWM and SS (martial stuff) that get all the grief.

I think the difference is that GWM and SS overshadow all the other martial options, whereas the full casters are all pretty similar to each other. So they aren't unbalanced in the sense of the overall game, just to anyone who doesn't take the feats. Makes them "mandatory" for martial builds and that isn't good design balance. Wizards aren't leagues ahead of Druids, but a SS Battlemaster is leagues ahead of a non-SS Battlemaster.

IMO GWM is fine and SS is the only one that needs a bit of a nerf because of how powerful ignoring cover is on top of the power attack + archery style, but I think these feats have been beat to death.

Potato_Priest

2018-01-17, 10:54 AM

They facilitate transportation, yes. But it doesn't make them dominate the game.

Also, teleportation's not an easy thing to succeed, even if you actually have seen the place. For somewhere you've never been?

All in all, teleport will often lead to different "you've gone to the wrong place" shenanigans.

Most wizards I've ever known keep a rock collection. One rock from each location they want to be able to teleport back to, and bam, you've got yourself a 100% success chance.

Teleport is also an amazingly good panic button, because it's an action to cast and you can take the entire party with you. Unless the wizard gets paralyzed on the first round of combat and remains so for the rest of the battle, you should never expect a lvl 15+ party to actually die.

mephnick

2018-01-17, 11:03 AM

Also, teleportation's not an easy thing to succeed

Plane Shift too. You basically can't use it until you've already been to that plane if you actually follow the rules. You need a tuning fork attuned to a specific plane.

So unless you somehow found a dozen specifically attuned tuning forks, you aren't going where you want. Yet every caster I play with seems to think they get to plane hop as they please.

Naanomi

2018-01-17, 11:10 AM

Well that would require using your one 9th level spell slot to cast Gate. I think it's a fair trade off.
Planeshift works just fine

Also, teleportation's not an easy thing to succeed, even if you actually have seen the place. For somewhere you've never been?
The tail end of every adventure becomes 'and we teleport home'... no epic journey home, no sneaking out of the enemy territory. And climbing the deadly mountain of doom is as easy as having a spyglass and a good vantage point

Well, I would argue that having a Cleric also require the DM to take into account how available you make some spells, like the ones that bring people back to life ("and so, the Count lays down, a pool of blood under him from from the fatal blow" "Alright, I cast Resurrection") and that the Barbarian changes what the enemies can do to the PCs ("No way you can break those chains." "Oh yeah?").
Resurrection yes (although there are more ways to 'soul kill' in canon that don't need to be fiated in like teleportation bans if you really want to tell that story)... but I don't personally put 'can break a really big chain with a DC set by the GM in the first place' in the same category as 'lets take our long rest in the heavenly peaceful safety of Byopia!' level of game modification

Unoriginal

2018-01-17, 11:12 AM

Plane Shift too. You basically can't use it until you've already been to that plane if you actually follow the rules. You need a tuning fork attuned to a specific plane.

So unless you somehow found a dozen specifically attuned tuning forks, you aren't going where you want. Yet every caster I play with seems to think they get to plane hop as they please.

True. Though you could probably be able to find such a fork in the Material Plane if you consult experts or spend effort and money to search for it

Whit

2018-01-17, 11:23 AM

It really depends on what level your playing.
The best thing is the can trip attack like fire bolt witch as stated above no more crossbow. Which was lame.
Low level few spells and how you want to pick spells all add to it. Do yuh want to support role or Attack role. Both are options or a little of both. At lvl 10 or more some creatures can make saves or have resistance and your damage output drops far below a physical attacker. But I do think it’s fun to play but not op

Willie the Duck

2018-01-17, 11:53 AM

Hey guys, (hopefully) quick question: how hard are Wizards (and, for that matter, clerics and sorcerers as well) dominating the game?

I was pretty used to how they were ridiculously op in 3.5 (in comparison with t3-6 classes). Are they still that good in 5e? What are the op stuff they are doing in this edition?

The are definitely not the class that got the proverbial shaft for this edition, by any respect. However, by any commonly held definition of dominate, they... simply don't. They do not make unimportant any other role, and there are no other similar classes whom you wouldn't ever play because wizards exist.

Comparing them to 3e, where you might ask "which of the many ridiculous exploits do I as the DM need to ban this time?," there's really only one you need to flat out exclude: wish+Simulacrum.

Sigreid

2018-01-17, 12:15 PM

The are definitely not the class that got the proverbial shaft for this edition, by any respect. However, by any commonly held definition of dominate, they... simply don't. They do not make unimportant any other role, and there are no other similar classes whom you wouldn't ever play because wizards exist.

Comparing them to 3e, where you might ask "which of the many ridiculous exploits do I as the DM need to ban this time?," there's really only one you need to flat out exclude: wish+Simulacrum.

Still maintain that if the simulacrum loop requires more that asking your wizard to not be a d@!k, you need a different group.

Willie the Duck

2018-01-17, 02:33 PM

Still maintain that if the simulacrum loop requires more that asking your wizard to not be a d@!k, you need a different group.

Wish abuse* is such a time-honored tradition in D&D that I'd be genuinely surprised if they ever made it not be a headache (or at least something that requires DM intervention, and people on forums use it as evidence that the version of D&D in question is 'broken'). It is the Kobayashi Maru of D&D -- if you're not up to making rulings against wish abuse cheese, you shouldn't be DM-ing.
*be it infinite wish loop, finding a way around the consequences of wishes, or the TSR-era gem of just plain wishing for the world on a silver platter, but doing it with so many loopholes tied up that your DM throws a fit.

Sigreid

2018-01-17, 02:37 PM

Wish abuse* is such a time-honored tradition in D&D that I'd be genuinely surprised if they ever made it not be a headache (or at least something that requires DM intervention, and people on forums use it as evidence that the version of D&D in question is 'broken'). It is the Kobayashi Maru of D&D -- if you're not up to making rulings against wish abuse cheese, you shouldn't be DM-ing.
*be it infinite wish loop, finding a way around the consequences of wishes, or the TSR-era gem of just plain wishing for the world on a silver platter, but doing it with so many loopholes tied up that your DM throws a fit.

It's more than that. A percentage of players get their kicks breaking the game and ruining everyone else's fun. These are the same people that use exploits in a multi player game to dominate those around them. I recommend simply not playing with these people.

the secret fire

2018-01-17, 02:46 PM

Wish abuse* is such a time-honored tradition in D&D that I'd be genuinely surprised if they ever made it not be a headache (or at least something that requires DM intervention, and people on forums use it as evidence that the version of D&D in question is 'broken'). It is the Kobayashi Maru of D&D -- if you're not up to making rulings against wish abuse cheese, you shouldn't be DM-ing.
*be it infinite wish loop, finding a way around the consequences of wishes, or the TSR-era gem of just plain wishing for the world on a silver platter, but doing it with so many loopholes tied up that your DM throws a fit.

Word.

The Wish spell is basically a negotiation between the DM and the archmage PC. It is only as game breaking as the result of this negotiation permits.

Specter

2018-01-17, 04:19 PM

Let's not forget that Sorcerers and Bards get access to Wish as well, so it's not a 'Wizard problem' at all.

Jakinbandw

2018-01-17, 04:44 PM

Let's not forget that Sorcerers and Bards get access to Wish as well, so it's not a 'Wizard problem' at all.

And Clerics get device intervention too, which is similar.

mephnick

2018-01-17, 04:59 PM

And Clerics get device intervention too, which is similar.

I thought device intervention was the rogue's job?

Unoriginal

2018-01-17, 05:38 PM

I thought device intervention was the rogue's job?

Nah, it's the Cleric's. The IT guys are pretty much miracle workers.

Tanarii

2018-01-17, 05:52 PM

Most wizards I've ever known keep a rock collection. One rock from each location they want to be able to teleport back to, and bam, you've got yourself a 100% success chance.It must either be a collection of items near the places they're in regularly anyhow, or they spend a lot of their downtime hopping around to refresh the collection every 6 months.

Plane Shift too. You basically can't use it until you've already been to that plane if you actually follow the rules. You need a tuning fork attuned to a specific plane.Nothing about "A forked, metal rod worth at least 250 gp, attuned to a particular plane of existence" specifies that the rod needs to have ever been on that plane prior to the first casting of the spell. In other words, "attuned" doesn't imply a requirement that the rod be on the plane when it's attuned.

mephnick

2018-01-17, 06:14 PM

Nothing about "A forked, metal rod worth at least 250 gp, attuned to a particular plane of existence" specifies that the rod needs to have ever been on that plane prior to the first casting of the spell. In other words, "attuned" doesn't imply a requirement that the rod be on the plane when it's attuned.

How do you attune it to a plane it's not in contact with? Yes, I realize there is no real answer to this, just looking for ideas.

In my campaign there's like one dude you can buy these off.. a plane hopping gnome merchant. They are very expensive.

Tanarii

2018-01-17, 06:16 PM

How do you attune it to a plane it's not in contact with? Yes, I realize there is no real answer to this, just looking for ideas.
Magic.
Attune to the planar resonance frequency.
Attune it at a local planar portal.
Attune it in a temple using the assistance of a Deity.

Off the top of my head.

Telwar

2018-01-17, 06:21 PM

Magic.
Attune to the planar resonance frequency.
Attune it at a local planar portal.
Attune it in a temple using the assistance of a Deity.

Off the top of my head.

Well, there's this rumor about a society of plane-hopping folks who knew the harmonic frequencies of the multiverse and could, generally, make the appropriate tuning forks mathematically. Sure, they've been lost for generations, and nobody's gone to their ruined chapter house two provinces over in a while...

Tanarii

2018-01-17, 06:47 PM

Well, there's this rumor about a society of plane-hopping folks who knew the harmonic frequencies of the multiverse and could, generally, make the appropriate tuning forks mathematically. Sure, they've been lost for generations, and nobody's gone to their ruined chapter house two provinces over in a while...Mainly because it randomly appears and disappears. Of course, it just so happens the PCs have found a hint and deciphered an underlying pattern to the timing of the shifts ... :smallamused:

Naanomi

2018-01-17, 06:47 PM

They are very expensive.
They are by definition 250g...

Even if teleport were just ‘go back to anywhere you’ve been before or in line of sight’ it is incredibly powerful as an adventure warping tool

Asmotherion

2018-01-17, 07:42 PM

It's pretty much as it used to be, with the power gap being less considerable at high levels due to Bounded Accuracy+Non existance of Save or Die spells (with the exceptions still being kinda pointless and not really 1-hit KOs).

Levels 1-4

Typically a Wizard is a weak character to play at those levels. I say typically, as in, most non-gish builds won't have more than 19-22 HP on a high Con score. We are also looking at an average 15-16 AC in Mage Armor. You will hope to be ranged most of the time, thus you won't really be able to profit of AoEs like Burning Hands most of the time, relying more of Magic Missile, and your ever faithful cantrips like Firebolt for Damage, wile Martials are already dealing dX+Modifier damage in melee. At Level 3 you get your first 2nd level spells, adding some synergy, but you'll really be able to use them at level 4.

Level 5-10

Now you're talking. By the time you hit level 5, not only do you get game changing AoE spells like Fireball, but your Cantrips also become more powerfull, dealing an average damage of 2dx. As you gain levels you get more synergic spells, becoming more and more powerful and versalite. At level 10, you can cast the ultimate 5th level spells.

Some typical spells of those levels:

Counterspell, Dispell Magic, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Blink, Fly, Haste, Major Image, Animate Dead, Fire Shield, Greater Invisibility, Polymorph, Wall of Fire, Cone of Cold, Bigbi's Hand, Animate Objects, Telekinesis, Teleportation Circle, Hold Monster, Wall of Force, Wall of Stone, Dominate Person.

Level 11-16

Your cantrips become even more powerful, and you can now casts spells of a level even half casters can't dream of. Some can literally obliderate your enemy in one failed save; Others are more subtle, and can give you the upper hand in battle. Your spells are now beyond the mortal concepts of magic, and are something supernatural even for a magical concept.

Typical Spells are Similacrum, Clone, Disintegrade, Finger of Death, Plane Shift, Teleport and Globe of Invulnerability

Level 17-20

This is the level you gain access to Wish. This sums it up pretty much.
The other things you gain worth mentioning are:

-Meteor Swarm, if you have to kill an army inside their castle, and burn their bodies just in case a Necromancer/Lich is lurking nearby to make them undead servants.

-Gate, if you really have to take your whole town to an other plane (you might suspect someone will cast Meteor Swarm), or if you know the true name of some guy (probably from the Nine Hells/Abyss), and really have to summon him and other summoning spells you know won't be powerfull enough for him. Preferably in a reverced Magic Cyrcle, and with Planar Binding ready to be cast at 8th level.

-True Polymorph, is practically as valuable as Wish. They compliment each other nicelly.

-Foresight is practically cheating.

mephnick

2018-01-17, 07:44 PM

They are by definition 250g...

They are by definition at least 250g. Just happens all mine are much more.

Unoriginal

2018-01-17, 08:17 PM

-Meteor Swarm, if you have to kill an army inside their castle, and burn their bodies just in case a Necromancer/Lich is lurking nearby to make them undead servants.

Sorry, I might be too tired for this, but are you sure Meteor Swarm works on people who are inside a building?

Also, should precise that cantrips are still globally inferior to a Martial using the Attack action, at every level.

Naanomi

2018-01-17, 08:59 PM

Also, should precise that cantrips are still globally inferior to a Martial using the Attack action, at every level.
Huh? Ranger attacks twice doing 1d10+5 X2 (an average of 22), and the wizard casts Toll the Bell doing 4d12, an average of 26? Not all martial attack actions are created equal

Phoenix042

2018-01-17, 09:08 PM

Hey guys, (hopefully) quick question: how hard are Wizards (and, for that matter, clerics and sorcerers as well) dominating the game?

I was pretty used to how they were ridiculously op in 3.5 (in comparison with t3-6 classes). Are they still that good in 5e? What are the op stuff they are doing in this edition?

As a DM who carefully plans my adventures to include 6-8 combats per day with limited rests in between (as is the intended norm), I can attest that normally, wizards (and other full casters) tend to feel really, really cool when they burn their resources, and take a bit of a backseat in other encounters. In almost no case does a full caster obviate the other members of his party, who often have unique ways to take advantage of the action economy (rogue cunning action and fighter action surge) plus cover a breadth of useful skills and abilities that even a well prepared wizard can no longer hope to match.

This is exactly what the designers intended, and in this case, you can really feel the effect of playtesting at work; the system does what they wanted it to do.

Phoenix042

2018-01-17, 09:15 PM

Huh? Ranger attacks twice doing 1d10+5 X2 (an average of 22), and the wizard casts Toll the Bell doing 4d12, an average of 26? Not all martial attack actions are created equal

What self respecting ranger has that for their typical attack action at 17th level?

Hunters mark should be up, at the very least, or swift quiver if they're in a serious fight.

Also sharpshooter, although I've recently heard that apparently some people ACTUALLY consider feats optional!?!? (Who knew?!?!) And that not every ranged attacking ranger takes sharpshooter (But WHY, though?!)

And while many DM's don't dole out magic items like they did in 3.5, I suspect you'd be hard pressed to find a Ranger without some kind of magic bow or set of magic arrows by 17th level that in some way change that attack routine.

To be fair to you, though, yes rangers still have the worst attacks by far. And the worst base feature list.

Naanomi

2018-01-17, 09:33 PM

What self respecting ranger has that for their typical attack action at 17th level?

Hunters mark should be up, at the very least, or swift quiver if they're in a serious fight.
Because we were talking specifically about options that don’t expend resources? If the ranger gets to use swiftquiver, the wizard also gets to use the spell slots it got at 17th level

TheUser

2018-01-17, 10:42 PM

Beelzebubba

2018-01-17, 11:22 PM

Plane Shift too. You basically can't use it until you've already been to that plane if you actually follow the rules. You need a tuning fork attuned to a specific plane.

Nothing in the spell description, flavor, or rules presumes you have to go to the plane to attune it. It *does* mean you have to plan ahead, spend the money, and unlock each plane you travel to via a 250gp material component. So it's not something done spur of the moment, or for free.

But, anything else, from 'they need to use a specific material for the fork' to 'they need to research the tuning fork for weeks in a city of large size' to 'during forging they need to touch the red-hot tuning fork to the naked wang of someone who's already been to that plane' is all 'rulings not rules' to give DMs flexibility to gatekeep access to other planes. That's fine, but there's nothing in the rules about it, so own up to it - you want to limit planar travel and took stronger measures to do so.

How do you attune it to a plane it's not in contact with? Yes, I realize there is no real answer to this, just looking for ideas.

No, you're not looking for them, you're having them.

A DM could just as easily say 'the spell itself gives you a vision of what the tuning fork has to be. You describe that design to a craftsperson, who makes it for you - the quality and workmanship are why it costs so much - and then you attune it yourself with the casting of the spell'. That is the closest reading in RAW.

It's fine to add home brew. No need to say 'just looking for ideas' to equivocate. Own it!

In my campaign there's like one dude you can buy these off.. a plane hopping gnome merchant. They are very expensive.

A nerf is a nerf. Delivering it via a cool DM NPC is basically putting honey on a turd.

Psikerlord

2018-01-17, 11:25 PM

Wizards are few average in 5e. They are largely buff bots/utility merchants. Fun enough in their niche. For a time.

strangebloke

2018-01-18, 02:11 AM

People here are clueless.

Anyone who thinks Wizards aren't overpowered hasn't touched the scope of a necromancer.

A level 6+ Necromancer Wizard can and will overshadow an entire party if you let them. At level 6 a single cast of Animate Dead can re-assert control over 4 skeletons with bows. That's 4 attacks at +4 to hit doing 4d6+20 damage (edit: total) and all it cost you was a level 3 slot once per 24 hours.

You can lower a target's AC with the slow spell or grant advantage with web, blind, hold person, evard's black tentacles, or any number of abilities your allies might wield. The point is that while they certainly are vulnerable to attack and they don't have the best bonus to hit they can quickly add up to a force so strong your party is just sort of a tag along to the necromancer.

DM's can say that "towns don't accept undead" forcing you to dress them up in hoods, block their entry with magical detection etc. or any other number of stonewall tactics but at the end of the day, if the DM has to actively concoct countermeasures for a class veiled as "narrative reasons" it's because the base class is so powerful it literally creates armies (to say nothing of the fact it's still a full fledged wizard).
Yeah yeah yeah we all know that having zombies around is great. But this is a niche thing that you have to do intentionally, and there are so many reasons why it can be a bad idea that while, yes, it's op, is also just... Not that big a deal.

Realistically, you're going to lose 1-4 of them every day, either to that miniboss with a breath weapon, that sudden flood you got trapped in, attrition damage, or an enemy who deals radiant damage.

So whenever you lose a zombie, suddenly that's two third level spells a day. You lose two, that's three third level spells. Those zombies are fireballs or hypnotic patterns that you could be casting.

Necromancy is highly efficient for the first day after a long period of downtime. Otherwise zombies are basically just hirelings that cost a third level spell instead of gold.

Meanwhile, you're pissing everyone off because your turn takes forever, you need to do all kinds of shifty nonsense to replace your body count, and you've got all sorts of 'fun' roleplay opportunities like, "talk the party out of handing you over to the nice Knight who is investigating all the grave robberies in the area."

It's good. It's not "make your party irrelevant" good.

Unoriginal

2018-01-18, 05:40 AM

Willie the Duck

2018-01-18, 07:25 AM

And you know what also allows you to run roughshod over a single party's combat contribution?-- convincing the bodies you are talking about turning into zombies or skeletons to fight on your side before they end up dead. Saves you spell slots and their combat stats might be higher.

BobZan

2018-01-18, 07:37 AM

5e Wizard - Good* Tier

They're good and useful.

Tehnar

2018-01-18, 07:41 AM

If you want to create anything close to an army of Undead with Animate Dead, you're not "a full fledged wizard", you're "a full fledged wizard who is out of their most powerful spell slots"

As strangebloke said, necromancy is good, but not overshadowing in practice.

No, because you create/retain skeletons a day before adventuring, or at the end of the adventuring day. So for the most part the wizard still has a horde of undead with him, and all his spell slots. Its only if **** hits the fan so much that he has to use his spells but doesn't lose his skeletons that it gets bad slightly inconvenient.

vexedart

2018-01-18, 08:46 AM

On the planeshift note, there was an older (3.0ish) dragon magazine that stated that each fork had to be made of specific materials relative to the plane you wish to teleport to, and the attunement was more literal, like a tune, the forks acted just like tuning forks for musicians, some keys were in multiple notes to make up chords. Some of them were destroyed after a single use because of the brittle materials used to craft them, but they did not require you to attune them on the plane.

Asmotherion

2018-01-18, 09:00 AM

Sorry, I might be too tired for this, but are you sure Meteor Swarm works on people who are inside a building?

Also, should precise that cantrips are still globally inferior to a Martial using the Attack action, at every level.

A destroyed building leaves enough debris to anihilate anything inside. The only case I see were people are protected against it is when they are inside an intact building, and an Average AoE 120 (60 of wich is bludgeoning) damage is enough to destroy even the strongest stone structures by my book, burning away wood structures and leaving a lot of death and debris. Even if it won't destroy them whole, it will destroy significant portions, leading to a collapse.

Cantrips as they level up become a lot better. Specialisation in Evocation makes them on par with non-Fighter Martials by the time they add their spellcasting mod to Damage. By level 11, any spellcaster is on par with his cantrips with non-fighter martials in reguards to at-will damage options; The Exception being the Agonising Blast Warlock who Packs the same Damage with his Eldritch Blast as a Fighter.

strangebloke

2018-01-18, 09:14 AM

No, because you create/retain skeletons a day before adventuring, or at the end of the adventuring day. So for the most part the wizard still has a horde of undead with him, and all his spell slots. Its only if **** hits the fan so much that he has to use his spells but doesn't lose his skeletons that it gets bad slightly inconvenient.

So what happens when at the end of the day you're out of third level spells and need to retain control again? Because you're either keeping a spell in reserve (which is the same as expending it, functionally) or you're fighting a bonus encounter at the end of the day and losing all your horde.

Its a moot point though, because at higher levels, your fragile zombies and skeletons are even more fragile, and they will only last through one or two combats at most

To always have a zombie team around, you need a day or two of down time between each adventuring day.

If you have the four zombies around to assert control over, it's the best 3rd level spell available, usually, but it still is not overpowering when compared with fireball or hypnotic pattern, and if your DM is running the game as it was intended to be run, you won't have the full team available most of the time.

Gardakan

2018-01-18, 09:21 AM

5e Wizard - Good* Tier

They're good and useful.

The Sorcerer feels more like god since they can do stuff with magic that isn't possible for Wizards.

Naanomi

2018-01-18, 09:21 AM

Zombies? Skeletons with ranged weapons... and maybe a front line of some sort. The damage doesn’t pile up until you can really focus it.

The Necromancer I played just assumed that every spell slot 3+ was dedicated to minion stuff. I was still pretty ‘wizardy’ picking up all the ritual spell options for utility, and keeping other utility magic on hold if we needed it bad enough to justify a rest (teleport, plane shift, Fabricate, scrying...)

As for ‘end of the day’ risk... the last order you give the skeletons is to carefully disassemble each other for reanimating the next day

strangebloke

2018-01-18, 09:23 AM

A destroyed building leaves enough debris to anihilate anything inside. The only case I see were people are protected against it is when they are inside an intact building, and an Average AoE 120 (60 of wich is bludgeoning) damage is enough to destroy even the strongest stone structures by my book, burning away wood structures and leaving a lot of death and debris. Even if it won't destroy them whole, it will destroy significant portions, leading to a collapse.

Cantrips as they level up become a lot better. Specialisation in Evocation makes them on par with non-Fighter Martials by the time they add their spellcasting mod to Damage. By level 11, any spellcaster is on par with his cantrips with non-fighter martials in reguards to at-will damage options; The Exception being the Agonising Blast Warlock who Packs the same Damage with his Eldritch Blast as a Fighter.

"Inside a building" can mean a mile underground in DND.

Your statement about damage output is simply false.

Toll the dead: 4d12+5 = 31
Paladin attack: (2d6 + 1d8 + 5 )*2 = 33
Rogue: 10d6 + 1d6 +5 + 1d6 = 45

I'm not going through every class, but this is not even accounting for fighting style, feats, bonus attacks, or reaction attacks. You're just wrong, unless you're ignoring all the class features of non casters.

strangebloke

2018-01-18, 09:25 AM

Gardakan

2018-01-18, 09:32 AM

A destroyed building leaves enough debris to anihilate anything inside. The only case I see were people are protected against it is when they are inside an intact building, and an Average AoE 120 (60 of wich is bludgeoning) damage is enough to destroy even the strongest stone structures by my book, burning away wood structures and leaving a lot of death and debris. Even if it won't destroy them whole, it will destroy significant portions, leading to a collapse.

Cantrips as they level up become a lot better. Specialisation in Evocation makes them on par with non-Fighter Martials by the time they add their spellcasting mod to Damage. By level 11, any spellcaster is on par with his cantrips with non-fighter martials in reguards to at-will damage options; The Exception being the Agonising Blast Warlock who Packs the same Damage with his Eldritch Blast as a Fighter.

Damage per round is a fallacy. It's super easy to have a good DPS with multiple different builds.

Naanomi

2018-01-18, 09:35 AM

Then you have to reanimate each one the next day, burning tons of spell slots.
Yes. All of them more or less. As I said, I assumed all my Spell slots went to maintaining minions with the character, and relied heavily on ritual casting otherwise

strangebloke

2018-01-18, 10:11 AM

Yes. All of them more or less. As I said, I assumed all my Spell slots went to maintaining minions with the character, and relied heavily on ritual casting otherwise

Right, and that's decently effective. But I was answering someone who said that you could retain control on them at the end of the day instead of at the start, and thereby 'save' a spell slot.

It works for a single day, but not for multiple adventuring days back to back.

Tehnar

2018-01-18, 10:16 AM

So what happens when at the end of the day you're out of third level spells and need to retain control again? Because you're either keeping a spell in reserve (which is the same as expending it, functionally) or you're fighting a bonus encounter at the end of the day and losing all your horde.

Its a moot point though, because at higher levels, your fragile zombies and skeletons are even more fragile, and they will only last through one or two combats at most

To always have a zombie team around, you need a day or two of down time between each adventuring day.

If you have the four zombies around to assert control over, it's the best 3rd level spell available, usually, but it still is not overpowering when compared with fireball or hypnotic pattern, and if your DM is running the game as it was intended to be run, you won't have the full team available most of the time.

Why would you be out of slots at the end of the day?

Assume 7th level Necromancer, that dedicates 3 3rd level slots to skeleton archers. That allows him to maintain 12 skeleton archers that have 20hp attack at +4 and do 1d6+5 dmg. Vs AC 15 that is 51 DPR, not counting crits. A lvl 7 great weapon fighter with 20 STR and a +1 weapon vs AC 15 has ~20,5 DPR.

Due to arcane recovery he can still cast all his level 1 and 2 spells as normal, and can cast 2 lvl 3 spells, and 1 level 4. So just by expending a few spell slots the necromancer adds the dpr of 2 and a half fighters, and 240 hp of meat shields for your party.

Try playing one to see how omg! broken they are.

BobZan

2018-01-18, 10:23 AM

The Sorcerer feels more like god since they can do stuff with magic that isn't possible for Wizards.

Yes, that's how I see it too.

A Shadow Sorc or Heightened Metamagic (any sorc) can trivialize encounters day after day.

I think Divination Wizard is a few steps ahead of the other Wizard Schools, tho. Portent is soooooo good.

BlacKnight

2018-01-18, 11:04 AM

So what happens when at the end of the day you're out of third level spells and need to retain control again? Because you're either keeping a spell in reserve (which is the same as expending it, functionally) or you're fighting a bonus encounter at the end of the day and losing all your horde.

If you are out of slots you just destroy the undeads before you lose control. This is still a net gain because you have used all your daily spell + the slots you used the previous days to reanimate the undeads.
Raise undead is so useful because it lets you use the slots of the previous days, which you would lose otherwise. It doesn't actually require you to spend anything during the adventuring day (altough it's nice if you have some slot left to mantain control).

Its a moot point though, because at higher levels, your fragile zombies and skeletons are even more fragile, and they will only last through one or two combats at most

Blatantly false. You can have dozen of undeads for hundreds of HP (not to say that if you are a Necromancer they have a lot of extra HP). Anything that would clear that easily would be a serious problem for the party too. Also all the damage inflicted to the undead is not inflicted to the party, which is a net gain.
The only exception is AoE attacks, but how many monsters have AoE attacks ? Not that many, and the majority of these are dragons.

To always have a zombie team around, you need a day or two of down time between each adventuring day.

Which you should have, unless your GM spawns world ending threats 24/7.

If you have the four zombies around to assert control over, it's the best 3rd level spell available, usually, but it still is not overpowering when compared with fireball or hypnotic pattern, and if your DM is running the game as it was intended to be run, you won't have the full team available most of the time.

If you don't have all the undeads it means that some of them have died, which means less damage for the party.

Then you have to reanimate each one the next day, burning tons of spell slots.

If you are not adventuring these slots are lost anyway.

Willie the Duck

2018-01-18, 11:08 AM

Why would you be out of slots at the end of the day?

If you are not out of slots at the end of the day, then you are keeping slots in reserve (either basic slots or those derived by arcane recovery), and not using for other purposes. That is an opportunity cost. It is not clear why this is a hard concept.

Due to arcane recovery he can still cast all his level 1 and 2 spells as normal, and can cast 2 lvl 3 spells, and 1 level 4. So just by expending a few spell slots the necromancer adds the dpr of 2 and a half fighters, and 240 hp of meat shields for your party.

Try playing one to see how omg! broken they are.

I think everyone has played one, and have come to the conclusion that real-game situations rarely line up that way. Because...

Which you should have, unless your GM spawns world ending threats 24/7.

The idea that you would have a full retinue of prepared zombies unless the GM throws things at you every day is much more questionable I think than the converse. Maybe if, (and it is a questionable if) the GM rules that your character can raid the local cemetery, and keep their full retinue with them marching down the road between every adventure (without consequence), then you should easily be able to start the first encounter of every adventure with a full undead loadout. Otherwise, in real gaming situation, you are sacrificing any other strategic actions you might make to instead spend your time, energy, efforts, and capital rounding up bodies and making sure you have a new team. This takes days away from achieving your goals.

Much like the 15-minute workday so bemoaned during the heyday of 3e, this seems to exist only in the whiteroom analysis where adventurers never have deadlines. Also that one can move undead armies without the forces of good coming and whipping their tails. And all the other difficulties of getting this setup to pay off.

I will not deny that it is a useful tactic (just as I alluded to earlier, is convincing the people you might otherwise turn into zombies to instead fight on your side before they are dead). But to pretend it doesn't have a logistic cost seems... just like it never turns out that way quite so easily in actual gameplay.

Ratter

2018-01-18, 11:23 AM

the secret fire

2018-01-18, 11:34 AM

The idea that constantly having an undead minion troupe is some sort of uber strategy is a little strange. Rolling with undead presents serious problems in not one, but two pillars of the game: social and exploration. The social problems with this strategy should be obvious, but exploration becomes much more difficult, as well. What are your zombies' stealth checks again? Doubt they're good. What are you using to travel overland? Horses and other natural animals aren't much a fan of the undead, so I guess you're just going to walk. :vaarsuvius:

Also, as was previously mentioned, zombies in combat are functionally no different than simply hiring minions, and as you generally can't buy magic items in the game, what are you doing with all your money?

Unoriginal

2018-01-18, 11:42 AM

Doesn't ordering your Undead take an action?

Potato_Priest

2018-01-18, 11:44 AM

Also, as was previously mentioned, zombies in combat are functionally no different than simply hiring minions, and as you generally can't buy magic items in the game, what are you doing with all your money?

Well, the ability (or lack thereof) to hire mercenaries will be strictly campaign and DM dependent, and mercenaries are under the DM’s control, not yours, and may have their own agendas. Necromancy is to at least some extent under the player’s control, and is thus better suited for mathematical comparison to other builds and discussion on a “are wizards OP” thread. If one particular DM lets players hire the tarrasque for 2gp/day as a skilled laborer, then that’s great for them (and it probably makes necromancy less valuable, to be sure), but it’s not something that we can address when we’re talking about cross-table class balance.

For what it's worth though, necromancy is also somewhat campaign and DM dependent (since you need corpses), as others have already astutely pointed out, and this may be the source of people's differences of opinion on its balance.

Doesn't ordering your Undead take an action?

It’s a bonus action, so it’s not “free” but it also doesn’t have too high a price in this modern action economy.

Willie the Duck

2018-01-18, 11:54 AM

Well, the ability (or lack thereof) to hire mercenaries will be strictly campaign and DM dependent,

And the ability to acquire bodies, and keep and maintain undead armies somehow isn't?

thus better suited for mathematical comparison to other builds and discussion on a “are wizards OP” thread.

Then we're conceding that we're doing a white-room analysis that has no relation to actual gameplay?

If one particular DM lets players hire the tarrasque for 2gp/day as a skilled laborer, then that’s great for them (and it probably makes necromancy less valuable, to be sure), but it’s not something that we can adress when we’re talking about cross-table class balance.

That's not even remotely a fair comparison and pretending that that is what others are suggesting is a straw man. Hiring mercenaries at a reasonable rate (I guess discussion-agreed-upon) compared to making and maintaining an undead minion retinue at a again discussion-agreed-upon level of challenge (how likely one is to find bodies at what effort level, how likely is the local paladin order going to come and mess up your game, etc.) is a reasonable point of discussion. Dismissing opposing models as something ridiculous like hiring tarrasques for 2gp/day is genuinely meaningless.

Potato_Priest

2018-01-18, 12:00 PM

That's not even remotely a fair comparison and pretending that that is what others are suggesting is a straw man. Hiring mercenaries at a reasonable rate (I guess discussion-agreed-upon) compared to making and maintaining an undead minion retinue at a again discussion-agreed-upon level of challenge (how likely one is to find bodies at what effort level, how likely is the local paladin order going to come and mess up your game, etc.) is a reasonable point of discussion. Dismissing opposing models as something ridiculous like hiring tarrasques for 2gp/day is genuinely meaningless.

It is indeed meaningless, because all such discussion of mercenary hiring is meaningless in this kind of environment, unless prefaced with a "at my table." Part of my point with using the satirical example of the tarrasque was that NPC mercenaries could have very different stats from table to table, so discussing them as a standard commodity is impossible, whereas skeletons and zombies at least have standardized statblocks pointed out by the spell that conjures them. I'm sorry if this satire comes off as poor form to you.

And yeah, unless you preface your statements with an "at my table" you kinda have to be doing white room theory crafting, since all the specifics of the world and what's allowed in it are liable to change based on who's talking.

the secret fire

2018-01-18, 12:32 PM

It is indeed meaningless, because all such discussion of mercenary hiring is meaningless in this kind of environment, unless prefaced with a "at my table."

As are discussions of undead hoarding. Both acts have inherent social consequences which will vary from table-to-table. Simple as that.

Naanomi

2018-01-18, 01:16 PM

What are your zombies' stealth checks again? Doubt they're good. What are you using to travel overland? Horses and other natural animals aren't much a fan of the undead, so I guess you're just going to walk.
Better than the full-plate 8 DEX Paladin who gives us away anyways.

My Necromancer has Land Vehicle Proficiency to cart around my minions stacked like chordwood when I need to. But... walk? When skeletons can carry your palanquin? What kind of Necromancer are you?

the secret fire

2018-01-18, 01:21 PM

Better than the full-plate 8 DEX Paladin who gives us away anyways.

My Necromancer has Land Vehicle Proficiency to cart around my minions stacked like chordwood when I need to. But... walk? When skeletons can carry your palanquin? What kind of Necromancer are you?

Completely punting on stealth is a pretty big sacrifice no matter how you're doing it. Not going to ask about how your party has both a paladin and an undead troupe...guessing it's one of those cool, "mean", modern paladins - Oath of Vengeance or some such.

Naanomi

2018-01-18, 01:23 PM

Completely punting on stealth is a pretty big sacrifice no matter how you're doing it. Not going to ask about how your party has both a paladin and an undead troupe...guessing it's one of those cool, "mean", modern paladins - Oath of Vengeance or some such.
Crown, actually; and we all worked for the same king. Worked fine. Replace with ‘fighter’ or ‘cleric’ if that offends your sensibilities

Sigreid

2018-01-18, 01:32 PM

Crown, actually; and we all worked for the same king. Worked fine. Replace with ‘fighter’ or ‘cleric’ if that offends your sensibilities

Speaking of clerics, there's at least a chance of a cleric blowing up your dudes in one go.

BlacKnight

2018-01-18, 01:40 PM

The idea that you would have a full retinue of prepared zombies unless the GM throws things at you every day is much more questionable I think than the converse. Maybe if, (and it is a questionable if) the GM rules that your character can raid the local cemetery, and keep their full retinue with them marching down the road between every adventure (without consequence), then you should easily be able to start the first encounter of every adventure with a full undead loadout. Otherwise, in real gaming situation, you are sacrificing any other strategic actions you might make to instead spend your time, energy, efforts, and capital rounding up bodies and making sure you have a new team. This takes days away from achieving your goals.

Much like the 15-minute workday so bemoaned during the heyday of 3e, this seems to exist only in the whiteroom analysis where adventurers never have deadlines. Also that one can move undead armies without the forces of good coming and whipping their tails. And all the other difficulties of getting this setup to pay off.

I will not deny that it is a useful tactic (just as I alluded to earlier, is convincing the people you might otherwise turn into zombies to instead fight on your side before they are dead). But to pretend it doesn't have a logistic cost seems... just like it never turns out that way quite so easily in actual gameplay.

Generally humanoids are common in a setting. Yeah, there are also campaigns setted in the elemental plane of Fire, but I assume they are a minority.
Thus a lot of enemies will be humanoid, as well as a lot of NPC. And in a medieval setting you can easily find undesiderable people that nobody cares about...
But hey, tell me what other actions necromancy takes away time from. Actions that give you greater benefits and that no other member of the party can do.

I was forgetting: if the "forces of good" were a thing they could solve problems instead of relying on adventurers.
The fact that adventurers exist means we are in a setting where authority and the rule of law are not really a thing.

The idea that constantly having an undead minion troupe is some sort of uber strategy is a little strange. Rolling with undead presents serious problems in not one, but two pillars of the game: social and exploration. The social problems with this strategy should be obvious, but exploration becomes much more difficult, as well. What are your zombies' stealth checks again? Doubt they're good. What are you using to travel overland? Horses and other natural animals aren't much a fan of the undead, so I guess you're just going to walk. :vaarsuvius:

Also, as was previously mentioned, zombies in combat are functionally no different than simply hiring minions, and as you generally can't buy magic items in the game, what are you doing with all your money?

You use a cart. Or multiple carts. That you should already be using to carry around all the treasures you have taken from the dungeon.
You obviously don't take your undeads to a social encounter.
And stealth ? Seriously ? When in the world stealth has been an option for the entire party ? It's always the scout that use stealth to, well, scouting. The rest of the party is not going to be stealthy anyway.

Sigreid

2018-01-18, 01:42 PM

Generally humanoids are common in a setting. Yeah, there are also campaigns setted in the elemental plane of Fire, but I assume they are a minority.
Thus a lot of enemies will be humanoid, as well as a lot of NPC. And in a medieval setting you can easily find undesiderable people that nobody cares about...
But hey, tell me what other actions necromancy takes away time from. Actions that give you greater benefits and that no other member of the party can do.

I was forgetting: if the "forces of good" were a thing they could solve problems instead of relying on adventurers.
The fact that adventurers exist means we are in a setting where authority and the rule of law are not really a thing.

You use a cart. Or multiple carts. That you should already be using to carry around all the treasures you have taken from the dungeon.
You obviously don't take your undeads to a social encounter.
And stealth ? Seriously ? When in the world stealth has been an option for the entire party ? It's always the scout that use stealth to, well, scouting. The rest of the party is not going to be stealthy anyway.

My group has kind of a tradition of everyone be Ikea my proficient in stealth.

Naanomi

2018-01-18, 01:46 PM

My group has kind of a tradition of everyone be Ikea my proficient in stealth.
It works for some parties, but it can hardly be considered an expectation

Asmotherion

2018-01-18, 01:48 PM

"Inside a building" can mean a mile underground in DND.

Your statement about damage output is simply false.

Toll the dead: 4d12+5 = 31
Paladin attack: (2d6 + 1d8 + 5 )*2 = 33
Rogue: 10d6 + 1d6 +5 + 1d6 = 45

I'm not going through every class, but this is not even accounting for fighting style, feats, bonus attacks, or reaction attacks. You're just wrong, unless you're ignoring all the class features of non casters.

Inside a building means inside a building. Rules-Lawyering does not downgrade the awesomness of a spell that can quite literally "destroy a Town in a matter of 6 seconds, leaving only burned debris and disfigured burned corpses (addmitingly with few exceptions)". It represents what the OP was asking: This is how powerful a 17+ Wizard is expected to be.

On your seccond quote; On par means that the differance in damage output is not that great. 31 or 33 damage is about the same.

BobZan

2018-01-18, 02:07 PM

Let's say I'm a Necromancer Wizard lv 6. I cast Dragon's Breath on my Zombie. He uses his action to use Dragon's Breath and kill someone. Will I benefit from Grim Harvest, healing 4 HP?

Willie the Duck

2018-01-18, 02:17 PM

But hey, tell me what other actions necromancy takes away time from. Actions that give you greater benefits and that no other member of the party can do.

Shall we start with spending the (ex.) 1/2 -1 hours of your (ex.) 3-4 hour gaming night arranging this setup where your wizard has a full retinue of zombies and a cart full of spare bodies (and has tied up any loose ends such as the local torch and pitchfork mob or inquisitive paladins)? Time spent gaming is in most precious and difficult to offset commodity most gamers have to invest.

I don't know that we really are going to find a point of stasis here. Either your DM lets you get away with always having and undead army, or they don't. And how powerful a choice pursuing necromancy is will depend on that.

the secret fire

2018-01-18, 02:32 PM

You use a cart. Or multiple carts.

Pulled by what...undead horses?

And stealth ? Seriously ? When in the world stealth has been an option for the entire party ? It's always the scout that use stealth to, well, scouting. The rest of the party is not going to be stealthy anyway.

That's just like, your opinion, man. At my table, stealth is quite important for the whole party because, among other things, I don't run CR-balanced encounters where the party can just run in and murderhobo everything. Having a troupe of shambling undead following them around would be useful in some cases, and a serious hindrance in others.

Waazraath

2018-01-18, 02:45 PM

That's just like, your opinion, man. At my table, stealth is quite important for the whole party because, among other things, I don't run CR-balanced encounters where the party can just run in and murderhobo everything. Having a troupe of shambling undead following them around would be useful in some cases, and a serious hindrance in others.

My current campaign has a full stealth party. Bloody useful. Could recommend it to everybody!

Sleep, Rope Trick, Color Spray?

Don't want to derail to go too much in depth in an older edition, but:
- yes, great spells
- of which wizards had very few at the earlier levels; some of that needed to spend on defense
- and in real life (contrary to optimization boards) not every wizard was a focussed specialist, used immediate magic / abrupt jaunt, and / or domain wizard.
- all of this disregarding that "sleep"(or any other low level spell) ending ending an encounter" was simply DM-incompetence in 3.5, just as it is in 5.
- as is not keeping track of time and allowing a 5 min. adventuring day (rope trick).

the secret fire

2018-01-18, 03:07 PM

I think it is instructive that, besides obvious Simulacrum/Wish shenanigans, the principle debate about potential abuse of spells in this thread centers on the logistics of a wizard potentially having perpetual control of FOUR WHOLE ZOMBIES!1!

Suffice it to say, the number and severity of potentially game-breaking imbalances caused by wizards in 5e is much lower than in previous editions.

strangebloke

2018-01-18, 03:44 PM

Naanomi

2018-01-18, 04:06 PM

But the entire campaign was done with gritty rest rules,
A tactic relying on renewing spells every 24 hours are obviously going to fail when rests take longer than that...

For those saying stealth is a requirement for their games... is that a functional ban on strength based heavy armor users?

strangebloke

2018-01-18, 04:11 PM

A tactic relying on renewing spells every 24 hours are obviously going to fail when rests take longer than that...

Sorry, I did allow the spell to hold indefinitely, but was somewhat mentally exacting and therefore couldn't be maintained while taking a long rest and preparing new Spells.

Tanarii

2018-01-18, 05:14 PM

Doesn't ordering your Undead take an action?it takes a bonus action yo issue an order yo all of them. Which is fine if you want them all to swarm one enemy, or have your mobile skeleton turrets fire are one enemy. I've seen AL DMs allow a general "kill them" command to attack groups of enemies too, but then the DM did target selection. I've never seen a DM allow the PC to precisely control animated dead in combat as if a PC. Or a rangers companion.

I also run it that way for animated undead. Same for Animal Handling some mastiffs ... a single action and check looses them all at once, but I'm controlling them if a PC does that.

Naanomi

2018-01-18, 05:25 PM

Skeletons are intelligent, my Hobgoblin spent downtime practicing drills with mine. ‘Formation C, now!’ (Form a defensive wall around me and shoot at target I am pointing at) and so on

Tanarii

2018-01-18, 06:27 PM

Skeletons are intelligent, my Hobgoblin spent downtime practicing drills with mine. ‘Formation C, now!’ (Form a defensive wall around me and shoot at target I am pointing at) and so onSmart. You'd need to do it every time you create a new batch though.

Unoriginal

2018-01-18, 06:39 PM

I've seen AL DMs allow a general "kill them" command to attack groups of enemies too, but then the DM did target selection.

... at this point I'd expect the skeletons to all start shooting at the necromancer's allies, in hope the loss of the wizard allies will result in their death and so the liberation of the enslaved evil Undead.

Skeletons are intelligent, my Hobgoblin spent downtime practicing drills with mine. ‘Formation C, now!’ (Form a defensive wall around me and shoot at target I am pointing at) and so on

Skeletons are sapient. Doesn't mean they're smart.

Naanomi

2018-01-18, 06:53 PM

Skeletons are sapient. Doesn't mean they're smart.
6 Intelligence isn’t horrid...

Their MM entry says:

“Still, skeletons are able to accomplish a variety of relatively complex tasks.
A skeleton can fight with weapons and wear armor, can load and fire a catapult or ttebuchet, scale a siege ladder, form a shield wall, or dump boiling oil. However, it must receive careful instructions explaining how such tasks are accomplished.
Although they lack the intellect they possessed in life, skeletons aren't mindless. Rather than break its limbs attempting to batter its way through an iron door, a skeleton tries the handle first. If that doesn't work, it searches for another way through or around the obstacle.”

Unoriginal

2018-01-18, 07:07 PM

6 Intelligence isn’t horrid...

Their MM entry says:

“Still, skeletons are able to accomplish a variety of relatively complex tasks.
A skeleton can fight with weapons and wear armor, can load and fire a catapult or ttebuchet, scale a siege ladder, form a shield wall, or dump boiling oil. However, it must receive careful instructions explaining how such tasks are accomplished.
Although they lack the intellect they possessed in life, skeletons aren't mindless. Rather than break its limbs attempting to batter its way through an iron door, a skeleton tries the handle first. If that doesn't work, it searches for another way through or around the obstacle.”

Fair enough. While I suppose teaching skeletons complexe manoeuvres to memorize would be quite the undertaking (pun very much intended, it seems like something an hobgoblin would invest time in.

TheUser

2018-01-18, 07:08 PM

You know who the most ineffectual party member I've ever had in a campaign was?

A diviner wizard who used necromancy.

I didn't even challenge him that much on the RP front. He got a license to practice necromancy in the city they were operating in and I let him store the skeletons in his bag of holding. There were places in the city where he could buy cadavers.

But the entire campaign was done with gritty rest rules, he had 4-8 encounters between long rests, and the whole game was on a doom counter. They had dozens of fronts in which the fight against the bbeg was failing, so they had to breathlessly rush between challenges, and they forestalled long rests as much as possible. The wizard could only carry so much mass with him most of the time, and there were points when he was on the run.

His undead were hilariously useless, most of the time. I didn't antagonize him, stuff just happened. The cultists consecrated their Temple as holy ground. The carta had fire traps. The enemy wizard cast reverse gravity and all the undead died. He got short on bodies more than once, since buying cadavers is actually somewhat illegal and therefore expensive, and many of the party's enemies were demonic. He turned to grave robbing and (on two occasions) even killing innocent prisoners. For all that stress he didn't see much in the way of returns.

Could he have played better? Yes! But even if he had, necromancy simply was not a good fit for my campaign.

5e wizards can break the game, depending on how the DM builds the game.

And here we see someone who simply doesn't get.

Your post is tantamount to: "Necromancers are bad when the DM designs a campaign/conditions with custom rules to crap all over necromancers." Which isn't saying much because a DM can design a campaign to crap all over any class archetype. I think it's funny though that you've added in little details that actually build a case for how much work a DM has to do to make a necromancer bad.

Are we to assume that animate dead still needs renewal every 24 hours? Because if you take the length of a rest and multiply it by 21 (gritty rest variant has 8 hour long rest becoming 1 week) then you aught to give a necromancer 21 days before animate dead needs renewing otherwise you're just crapping in his cereal and hoping he'll have breakfast with you.

"stuff just happened" followed by "the cultists consecrated their temple"
That's not something that "just happens" that's by design (or is this some module I've yet to hear of?). Fire traps that aren't being scouted by another party member? Or were the skeletons purposely absorbing them as scouts for the group? Reverse Gravity with a 100ft ceiling? Sounds like the highest damage largest AoE spell that specifically counteracts PC's with lots of followers. Oh now there's a shortage of "fresh corpses...." except the corpses don't have to be fresh and a distinct lacking in those is a direct result of the DM. In fact.... all of this is a direct result of a DM creating circumstances that screw over one player. All you've shown is that DM's can pick on players who like using undead, but this is true of any player with any ability.

I honestly can't tell if this post is a troll or not based on the fact it so flippantly deconstructs itself.

BlacKnight

2018-01-18, 07:27 PM

Shall we start with spending the (ex.) 1/2 -1 hours of your (ex.) 3-4 hour gaming night arranging this setup where your wizard has a full retinue of zombies and a cart full of spare bodies (and has tied up any loose ends such as the local torch and pitchfork mob or inquisitive paladins)? Time spent gaming is in most precious and difficult to offset commodity most gamers have to invest.

I don't know that we really are going to find a point of stasis here. Either your DM lets you get away with always having and undead army, or they don't. And how powerful a choice pursuing necromancy is will depend on that.

Don't know how in the world you are going to need an hour to say something like "I reanimate the bandits we killed yesterday and put them in the cart". Yes, sometimes it will be more complex than that, but is no longer than other non adventuring activities.

Also I like that you continue to assume that thare are going to be forces of good that
-know that the party employs undead (how ? they are not using them in the public plaza)
-has the means to threaten powerful adventurers
-has the will to actually do it (especially when the adventurers are not doing anything too illegal or distruptive)

Pulled by what...undead horses?

Pulled by whatever you want. When did horses started to refuse to pull carts full of bodies ?

That's just like, your opinion, man. At my table, stealth is quite important for the whole party because, among other things, I don't run CR-balanced encounters where the party can just run in and murderhobo everything. Having a troupe of shambling undead following them around would be useful in some cases, and a serious hindrance in others.

It's not my opinion when the majority of classes are not proficient in Stealth. You can build other classes in a stealthy way, but that's not really how the standard game is. Fighters and Paladins are supposed to use heavy armor, so they are not going to be stealth anyway.

It's the same than saying "Rangers are useless because I play only urban games".

the secret fire

2018-01-18, 08:15 PM

Pulled by whatever you want. When did horses started to refuse to pull carts full of bodies?

If those bodies are animated by fell magic, then yeah, normal animals won't want to be anywhere near them. Just like normal people.

It's not my opinion when the majority of classes are not proficient in Stealth. You can build other classes in a stealthy way, but that's not really how the standard game is. Fighters and Paladins are supposed to use heavy armor, so they are not going to be stealth anyway.

It's the same than saying "Rangers are useless because I play only urban games".

Getting off-class proficiencies is hilariously easy in 5e. This is no argument, at all.

What the various classes are "supposed" to do is, again, just, like, your opinion, man. Why should a DM cater to characters who cannot move around stealthily? Stealth is bloody important! Bulky armor users in my world either find some way around the restrictions (Medium Armor Master, Mithral armor, Boots of Elvenkind, Pass Without Trace, Enhance Ability, Tenser's Floating Disk, etc.), or they take the armor off and put on something else when it is not appropriate. There are plenty of ways around it, but if a player insists on clanking around a dungeon, he is going to draw attention to himself. This will not always be a good thing. Simple as that.

Naanomi

2018-01-18, 08:26 PM

Stealth is bloody important! Bulky armor users in my world either find some way around the restrictions (Medium Armor Master, Mithral armor, Boots of Elvenkind, Pass Without Trace, Enhance Ability, Tenser's Floating Disk, etc.), or they take the armor off and put on something else when it is not appropriate. There are plenty of ways around it, but if a player insists on clanking around a dungeon, he is going to draw attention to himself. This will not always be a good thing. Simple as that.
So yes, never play a low DEX heavy armor user in your campaigns

Unoriginal

2018-01-18, 08:35 PM

Getting off-class proficiencies is hilariously easy in 5e.

It's called "taking your background".

What the various classes are "supposed" to do is, again, just, like, your opinion, man. Why should a DM cater to characters who cannot move around stealthily? Stealth is bloody important! Bulky armor users in my world either find some way around the restrictions (Medium Armor Master, Mithral armor, Boots of Elvenkind, Pass Without Trace, Enhance Ability, Tenser's Floating Disk, etc.), or they take the armor off and put on something else when it is not appropriate. There are plenty of ways around it, but if a player insists on clanking around a dungeon, he is going to draw attention to himself. This will not always be a good thing. Simple as that.

How is wearing an armor attracting attention? Don't the monsters in the dungeon clank around sometime?

Sigreid

2018-01-18, 08:40 PM

A tactic relying on renewing spells every 24 hours are obviously going to fail when rests take longer than that...

For those saying stealth is a requirement for their games... is that a functional ban on strength based heavy armor users?

Speaking for my group, there's no requirement. Nobody ever suggests it. Building for stealth is just something we tend to do because it makes sense to have the initiative in combat. When we've had someone (to date only me) do the heavy armor thing they were the bait.

the secret fire

2018-01-18, 08:55 PM

How is wearing an armor attracting attention? Don't the monsters in the dungeon clank around sometime?

I clank around all the time at home. Not so much when I'm trying to bust into somebody else's home and steal their treasure. Wearing the armor doesn't attract attention, but failing stealth checks sure does.

I'm not going out of my way to punish heavy armor users, but I'm not babying them, either. Wearing that stuff without some special means of making it silent reduces the party's tactical possibilities. Sometimes this is not a problem; sometimes it is. That's how the game is designed. I didn't write the rules.

Chrion

2018-01-18, 09:45 PM

More related to the original question; when played to TO, wizards are amazing. In practice, they tend to be a bit weaker when forced to play on a schedule.

For the TO example, I once had a villain who, via true-polymorph, magic-jar, clone, simulacrum and wish (ab)use, because a dragon permanently, with full wizard casting and functional immortality via clone. They also enslaved several sphinxes and used them, in combination with a demiplane, to time travel (Using the lair actions). If the party had actually tried to fight him in straight up combat, it would have been a very quick TPK.

But, when playing a Wizard, having to contend with things like limited spell slots, limited playing or prep time, etc. All of the game contrainsts tend to make them not quite reach those TO levels of power.

strangebloke

2018-01-18, 09:55 PM

And here we see someone who simply doesn't get.

Your post is tantamount to: "Necromancers are bad when the DM designs a campaign/conditions with custom rules to crap all over necromancers." Which isn't saying much because a DM can design a campaign to crap all over any class archetype. I think it's funny though that you've added in little details that actually build a case for how much work a DM has to do to make a necromancer bad.

Are we to assume that animate dead still needs renewal every 24 hours? Because if you take the length of a rest and multiply it by 21 (gritty rest variant has 8 hour long rest becoming 1 week) then you aught to give a necromancer 21 days before animate dead needs renewing otherwise you're just crapping in his cereal and hoping he'll have breakfast with you.

"stuff just happened" followed by "the cultists consecrated their temple"
That's not something that "just happens" that's by design (or is this some module I've yet to hear of?). Fire traps that aren't being scouted by another party member? Or were the skeletons purposely absorbing them as scouts for the group? Reverse Gravity with a 100ft ceiling? Sounds like the highest damage largest AoE spell that specifically counteracts PC's with lots of followers. Oh now there's a shortage of "fresh corpses...." except the corpses don't have to be fresh and a distinct lacking in those is a direct result of the DM. In fact.... all of this is a direct result of a DM creating circumstances that screw over one player. All you've shown is that DM's can pick on players who like using undead, but this is true of any player with any ability.

I honestly can't tell if this post is a troll or not based on the fact it so flippantly deconstructs itself.
Ah yes, this strat is so OP, that if a player got poor results it must be the DM meddling.

If you read my post you'd note that I let him keep control over the zombies for however long passed between long rests without an additional spell.

It's funny you mention the Temple. That was a location I planned out in detail before campaign start. There were several such temples, but it was only when we had the necromancer around that it mattered.

Corpses were running low due to the players choosing to spend a segment of the campaign in a foreign plane. Taking a cart of bones along would have been completely impractical, so he was limited to the seven or so he had in his bag of holding.

As to everything else... What, I'm countering your all powerful strategy by using specialized tactics like 'traps' and 'aoe damage'? Skeletons have 13 freaking HP, and even a necromancer's mobs die to relatively weak aoe. The reverse gravity had a forty foot ceiling with a chance to grab hold of the walls. The Paladin could have argued I was countering him with his puny Dex save.

I can honestly say that I didn't give the guys zombies a single thought throughout the whole campaign, except for the inter party conflict he caused when he killed the innocent prisoners. I didn't counter them because... They sucked. He could have used them better, sure. But to claim it breaks the game?

Good grief.

TheUser

2018-01-18, 10:28 PM

...Skeletons have 13 freaking HP, and even a necromancer's mobs die to relatively weak aoe. The reverse gravity had a forty foot ceiling with a chance to grab hold of the walls. The Paladin could have argued I was countering him with his puny Dex save.

Good grief.

Was your necromancer player illiterate? Because at level 6+ those skellies get +1 hp/necromancer level putting them at 19 hp minimum. With spells like reverse gravity it's sounding like level 14+? So 27 HP and any competent Necromancer will take inspiring leader for another +1 per level for 6 of them in 10 minutes (meaning a short rest can pep talk 36 of them). So if +0 Cha mod and level 14 that's 13+14+14 temp hp....41hp.

I think your your player was just clueless and didn't do his research...your anecdotal evidence aside this sounds like a case of bad player now...or am I wildly off base again?

strangebloke

2018-01-18, 11:02 PM

Was your necromancer player illiterate? Because at level 6+ those skellies get +1 hp/necromancer level putting them at 19 hp minimum. With spells like reverse gravity it's sounding like level 14+? So 27 HP and any competent Necromancer will take inspiring leader for another +1 per level for 6 of them in 10 minutes (meaning a short rest can pep talk 36 of them). So if +0 Cha mod and level 14 that's 13+14+14 temp hp....41hp.

I think your your player was just clueless and didn't do his research...your anecdotal evidence aside this sounds like a case of bad player now...or am I wildly off base again?

Well, I think you may be the illiterate one in this case since you didn't read that he wasn't a necromancy wizard, which marks the third time you've missed something I said.

I really don't know why I argue with you sometimes.

He didn't manage his resources very well, no. But he wasn't an idiot, either. Depending on how the DM runs the game, a necromancer/diviner whatever can break it.

But they need certain things to come together and they need to try to break it. Nothing even remotely comparable to 3x, which is the point of discussion.

TheUser

2018-01-18, 11:22 PM

Well, I think you may be the illiterate one in this case since you didn't read that he wasn't a necromancy wizard, which marks the third time you've missed something I said.

I really don't know why I argue with you sometimes.

He didn't manage his resources very well, no. But he wasn't an idiot, either. Depending on how the DM runs the game, a necromancer/diviner whatever can break it.

But they need certain things to come together and they need to try to break it. Nothing even remotely comparable to 3x, which is the point of discussion.

a yes, a misreading of "a diviner wizard who used necromancy"

I thought it was some kind of gestalt homebrew stuff (since gritty rest rules were in use I thought there would be all kinds of homebrew stuff).

How then is the example relevant to the discussion?

Malifice

2018-01-18, 11:32 PM

Well, the ability (or lack thereof) to hire mercenaries will be strictly campaign and DM dependent,

And necromancy/ undead isnt DM dependent?

and mercenaries are under the DM’s control, not yours, and may have their own agendas.

Undead are under the DMs control as well. They're just magically bound to follow your orders. How they interpret those orders (bearing in mind they're NE monsters...) is up to them.

Malifice

2018-01-18, 11:35 PM

Hilarious people thinking necromancy is OP.

Over a standard default 6 encounter AD its borderline suboptimal.

Naanomi

2018-01-18, 11:37 PM

Undead are under the DMs control as well. They're just magically bound to follow your orders. How they interpret those orders (bearing in mind they're NE monsters...) is up to them.
“Skeletons raised by spell are bound to the will of their creator. They follow
orders to the letter, never questioning the tasks their masters give them, regardless of the consequences. Because of their literal interpretation of commands and unwavering obedience...”

Malifice

2018-01-18, 11:42 PM

“Skeletons raised by spell are bound to the will of their creator. They follow
orders to the letter, never questioning the tasks their masters give them, regardless of the consequences. Because of their literal interpretation of commands and unwavering obedience...”

Thats what I said.

They're magically bound to follow the orders of their creator.

Subject to their interpretation of those orders. That interpretation to be taken literally.

The player doesnt decide what they do. He only decides what orders to give. The DM then interprets those orders as the Skeletons (literally, and as a NE monster) and then the Skeletons act.

Naanomi

2018-01-18, 11:57 PM

Eh, you can only push that so far before it isn’t ‘Unwavering Obedience’ The spell description itself sounds fairly direct as well “You decide what action the creature will take and where it will move during its next turn”. The summon fiend spells go through the trouble of spelling out hostility, but animate dead really doesn’t imply that

In any case, learning how to command your Undead in ways they have to comply is just another part of the downtime drills; and if a GM interprets it to a degree of hostility so it isn’t useful for adventuring then just abandon the character and play another concept

Unoriginal

2018-01-18, 11:59 PM

Ordering a group of Skeletons to "kill the enemy" should probably result in the caster getting shot a few times. Since, you know, you haven't precised the enemy of whom, and given you're enslaving them and preventing them to do what they truly want (ie killing everything), most Skeletons would see the caster as an enemy.

You might say "why are you nerfing this spell, dude? Necromancers don't deserve that", but the thing is, literal interpretation of the orders to the letter is part of the spells, and Undead *are* malevolent. And even without malevolence, the MM does say even skeletons need lots of instructions for complexe tasks. If the DM let the wizard have total and direct control of what the Undead do with no risk of bad interpretation, they're making the spell way more practical and stronger than it is in the books.

I'm also pretty sure you can either give one order to every Skeleton at once, or only a single one, with your bonus action. Don't think you can go "you two charge on the left, you three on the right, and you two shoots whoever approach" with only a bonus action.

Naanomi

2018-01-19, 12:09 AM

My hope is that someone with 20 Intelligence who uses the spell every day gets pretty good at commands that will be interpreted the way they want them to. How complex they can be may very from GM to GM, sure... though if ‘load and fire a catapult’ is on the table I think the bar isn’t that low... but if you are still getting shot by your minions after commanding them for 15 levels than things are set up so the concept just isn’t playable in that game

Unoriginal

2018-01-19, 12:21 AM

Tanarii

2018-01-19, 12:28 AM

I'm also pretty sure you can either give one order to every Skeleton at once, or only a single one, with your bonus action. Don't think you can go "you two charge on the left, you three on the right, and you two shoots whoever approach" with only a bonus action.
Right. You get to give a command (singular) to the entire group as a bonus action. What you have in quotations is 3 commands to three groups, which would take 3 bonus actions.

I wouldn't go so far as to have the undead attack the caster when they command "kill the enemy". It's a mental command, not verbal, so the enemy should be a pretty clear mental context from the point of view of the caster. IMO willful misinterpretation in that particular case shouldn't be on the table.

strangebloke

2018-01-19, 12:31 AM

Point is, Merc's probably have better tactics, but are also more prone to spontaneous morale failure, and aren't going to follow certain orders you give them and are expensive to keep around when you don't have immediate need of them.

For instance, you could tell mercs to hide and hang back until the dragon used it's breath weapon. Harder to do that with undead.

But you couldn't tell them to trigger the spike trap. If you need to travel to another city they're probably asking for bonus pay for the whole trip, in addition to room and board. Undead are genuinely awesome when the pacing of the game allows it.

Just, if they're not then they aren't.

BigONotation

2018-01-19, 01:51 AM

Malifice

2018-01-19, 02:03 AM

I played an Evoker to 11th level. I crapped all over the martials when it came to damage and between Shield, Absorb Elements, Mirror Image, Misty Step, etc I was VERY hard to take down.

How many encounters were you getting in a day? Sounds like you were only getting the 1 or 2.

Also; doubt you were crapping over martials damage at 11th level. Your GWM Fighter is getting from 3-4 attacks each round (6-7 when action surging) dealing a ton of damage per hit.

Tehnar

2018-01-19, 06:23 AM

If you are not out of slots at the end of the day, then you are keeping slots in reserve (either basic slots or those derived by arcane recovery), and not using for other purposes. That is an opportunity cost. It is not clear why this is a hard concept.

Yes, the trade off is 3 level 3 spells to give you a all day damage output of 2.5 fighters. And you don't have to commit to them, if you really need them you can still use them, it just inconveniences you in your downtime a bit.

strangebloke

2018-01-19, 08:48 AM

Naanomi

2018-01-19, 09:04 AM

The fighter will be alive after fireball hits. The skeletons won't.
You don't keep them bunched up for one instant kill... minionmancy 101! And every option has spell weaknesses... sure I'd rather have that fighter for fireballs, but what about Cloudkill? or... Dominate Person?

Tehnar

2018-01-19, 09:15 AM

The fighter will be alive after fireball hits. The skeletons won't.

If only there was a reaction spell that a wizard can learn, that can stop a fireball withh 100% certainty.
Also with 20hp at that level, all skeletons that make the save will survive even a above average roll.

Also what Naanomi said.

strangebloke

2018-01-19, 09:45 AM

You don't keep them bunched up for one instant kill... minionmancy 101! And every option has spell weaknesses... sure I'd rather have that fighter for fireballs, but what about Cloudkill? or... Dominate Person?

If only there was a reaction spell that a wizard can learn, that can stop a fireball withh 100% certainty.
Also with 20hp at that level, all skeletons that make the save will survive even a above average roll.

Also what Naanomi said.

Fair enough. I'm just saying that they're vulnerable in comparison to the dedicated melee classes. They've got definite strengths.

But this whole discussion was started by TheUser claiming that necromancers break the game, are hyper efficient, and make 5e wizards deserving of the title 'God.'

Naanomi

2018-01-19, 09:50 AM

Yeah, we diverged here a bit... Necromancers are among the highest damage options in the game, and have other strengths, but are not ‘tier changing’ in the 3.X sense

Specter

2018-01-19, 09:52 AM

I played an Evoker to 11th level. I crapped all over the martials when it came to damage and between Shield, Absorb Elements, Mirror Image, Misty Step, etc I was VERY hard to take down.

Don't get me wrong, I would MUCH prefer to play a fighter over a wizard, but I don't pretend the wizard isn't the best spellcaster and class in the game. Slots and spell list are power and they have it in spades. Don't even get me started on my 3d10 + 5 Firebolt cantrip damage from 120 feet away while the fighter huffs and puffs at 25 movement a round....

Sounds like your martials were crap, or you were playing few encounters every day.

Martials will either go the big damage route or the tanking one. Anyone with GWM, PAM or SS will deal better damage than casters, barring maybe Warlock. 3d10+5 (21AVG) doesn't really compare to 2d10+1d4+15 (29AVG), plus magic weapon damage. This is for PAM alone; add GWM here and the gap widens. Sword-and-board builds will deal less damage, but with 21AC and many ways to mitigate damage, it's not a bad tradeoff.

With 1 or 2 encounters, you can pretty much unleash hell on everything and end encounters quickly. But with 5-6, you have to ration spells to be useful, and then both your reactions mentioned above and the big guns won't be available every round. The same martials either won't care or will be back on track with a short rest.

the secret fire

2018-01-19, 09:58 AM

Yes, the trade off is 3 level 3 spells to give you a all day damage output of 2.5 fighters. And you don't have to commit to them, if you really need them you can still use them, it just inconveniences you in your downtime a bit.

Sorry, but your math doesn't compute. By the time you've got three 3rd level spells/day, you're a 6th level character. The fighter already has two attacks, and at least two feats by then, not to mention a fighting style, action surge, subclass abilities, etc. Unless he's a completely un-optimized Tavern Brawler or something, that fighter will be doing at least as much damage as all four undead combined, in large part because he will be much more likely to hit with his attacks. Your skeletons are stuck at a +4 modifier to hit, forever.

And this is before we get into the difficulties of actually maneuvering the undead. They aren't going to be able to follow complex commands unless you have a really permissive DM, nor will they be able to competently navigate anything resembling a complex obstacle, as they lack Athletics proficiency. Need to climb or swim somewhere to progress in the dungeon? Skeletons have a +0 modifier to the check, and don't count on any of your other party members being willing to help them. Animated undead are situational meatshields, nothing more. Like most summoned creatures, they are good at taking up space against minions, but ineffective against tougher foes. You know what else is good against minions? Fireball, also a 3rd level spell.

Animate Undead sounds great in whiteroom, Pokemon-style battles, but, in practice, skeletons and zombies are difficult to deploy effectively.

Asmotherion

2018-01-19, 10:01 AM

Thats what I said.

They're magically bound to follow the orders of their creator.

Subject to their interpretation of those orders. That interpretation to be taken literally.

The player doesnt decide what they do. He only decides what orders to give. The DM then interprets those orders as the Skeletons (literally, and as a NE monster) and then the Skeletons act.

Eh, you can only push that so far before it isn’t ‘Unwavering Obedience’ The spell description itself sounds fairly direct as well “You decide what action the creature will take and where it will move during its next turn”. The summon fiend spells go through the trouble of spelling out hostility, but animate dead really doesn’t imply that

In any case, learning how to command your Undead in ways they have to comply is just another part of the downtime drills; and if a GM interprets it to a degree of hostility so it isn’t useful for adventuring then just abandon the character and play another concept

This depends from table to table and DM to DM. I would enjoy playing a necromancer who would order his skeleton

-Bring me a bowl of soup.

Which ends up in the skeleton attacking the fighter of my party (intending to take it away from his dead corpse), because of failure on my part to be specific on the terms;

That's how an RP focused campain would handle it. On the other hand, a Hack and Slash campain would not bother on those details, and have always obedient skeletons/zombies, seemingly mindless on an RP perspective, as long as you renew the spell on time.

I played an Evoker to 11th level. I crapped all over the martials when it came to damage and between Shield, Absorb Elements, Mirror Image, Misty Step, etc I was VERY hard to take down.

Don't get me wrong, I would MUCH prefer to play a fighter over a wizard, but I don't pretend the wizard isn't the best spellcaster and class in the game. Slots and spell list are power and they have it in spades. Don't even get me started on my 3d10 + 5 Firebolt cantrip damage from 120 feet away while the fighter huffs and puffs at 25 movement a round....

Actually, things are balanced pretty nicelly in 5e, especially among casters. Damage is handled very harmonically among classes.

Nova Damage options are avalable to everyone, and all.

If you were playing in a party with a martial in heavy armor and less than 15 Str, it's not how things typically go in 5e, just a non-optimised character. The feedback you got from that (your Wizard dealing more damage with his cantrips than the martial with his melee attacks) is also from lack of optimisation on that character.

The "God" part applies more to versality really. A high level Wizard (Caster, but for Wizard it applies even more so) is able to keep up with everyone, damage wise, and do a tone of other things nobody else can. He can effectivelly make the party imortal through Cloning, Double his spell slots with Similacrum, and get control of the enemy boss for a long time, with Dominate Person or Monster to name a few. All that for free (cost-wise) by replicating them through Wish by level 17, 1/Day.

Wile it is true that Versality wise, the High Level Wizard is the Champion of 5e, I believe that all classes are equally designed in this edition, so wile Wizards are indeed "awesome", they are not "overpowered" as some claim them to be.

Naanomi

2018-01-19, 10:12 AM

This depends from table to table and DM to DM. I would enjoy playing a necromancer who would order his skeleton

-Bring me a bowl of soup.

Which ends up in the skeleton attacking the fighter of my party (intending to take it away from his dead corpse), because of failure on my part to be specific on the terms; .
and it the GM reads the spell to say ‘you can command Undead as a bonus action; but regardless of your commands they will attack a party member or otherwise harm you, perhaps humorously’; then choose a different concept to play that game

BlacKnight

2018-01-19, 10:18 AM

If those bodies are animated by fell magic, then yeah, normal animals won't want to be anywhere near them. Just like normal people.

And this is written on the handbook... where ?

Getting off-class proficiencies is hilariously easy in 5e. This is no argument, at all.

You can also easily make a party specialized in social encounters. This doesn't mean the game is supposed to be a diplomatic game.

What the various classes are "supposed" to do is, again, just, like, your opinion, man. Why should a DM cater to characters who cannot move around stealthily? Stealth is bloody important! Bulky armor users in my world either find some way around the restrictions (Medium Armor Master, Mithral armor, Boots of Elvenkind, Pass Without Trace, Enhance Ability, Tenser's Floating Disk, etc.), or they take the armor off and put on something else when it is not appropriate. There are plenty of ways around it, but if a player insists on clanking around a dungeon, he is going to draw attention to himself. This will not always be a good thing. Simple as that.

Stealth is no more important than any other skill. The idea than fighters and paladins should go adventuring without heavy armor is simply laughable. They have that class feature for a reason. My opinion is that classes should use their features. Totally unreasonable, isn't it ?
You can make a campaign centered about stealthy infiltrations, the same way you can make a campaign centered around diplomatic negotiations. But that is obviously going to make some character archetypes weak or useless because (surprise) they were not supposed to be used for that kind of game.

the secret fire

2018-01-19, 10:37 AM

And this is written on the handbook... where?

This is simply canon of the genre. If your DM rules for whatever reason that animals are comfortable around undead, good for you!

The idea than fighters and paladins should go adventuring without heavy armor is simply laughable. They have that class feature for a reason. My opinion is that classes should use their features.

Yeah, I agree. But don't you think classes should also have to deal with the drawbacks of said features? Disadvantage to stealth from certain armor types isn't some weird fringe rule I've cooked up to punish the beefy classes. You act as if it is impossible for heavy armor users to be effective in my games, which is neither true, nor something I have said. Heavy armor is a viable choice in my games, but it has meaningful drawbacks which are a core part of the rules.

Being able to surprise enemies is quite useful. The players decide for themselves where heavy armor falls on the cost/benefit analysis.

Stealth is no more important than any other skill.

Really?! It's no more important than Performance or Medicine? You have now reduced yourself to making obviously ridiculous arguments. My work here is done.

Waazraath

2018-01-19, 10:38 AM

If the question "is wizard God tier" requires 4 pages discussion on 1 very specific niche build, which might work in theory and not in most practical situations, to 'prove' that fact, I think we have a pretty solid conclusion: no, it's not.

Which is pretty obvious, since there is no 'God tier' in 5e. There are no tiers at all, not as in the meaning the title of the thread uses the word.

Tehnar

2018-01-19, 10:40 AM

Sorry, but your math doesn't compute. By the time you've got three 3rd level spells/day, you're a 6th level character. The fighter already has two attacks, and at least two feats by then, not to mention a fighting style, action surge, subclass abilities, etc. Unless he's a completely un-optimized Tavern Brawler or something, that fighter will be doing at least as much damage as all four undead combined, in large part because he will be much more likely to hit with his attacks. Your skeletons are stuck at a +4 modifier to hit, forever.

And this is before we get into the difficulties of actually maneuvering the undead. They aren't going to be able to follow complex commands unless you have a really permissive DM, nor will they be able to competently navigate anything resembling a complex obstacle, as they lack Athletics proficiency. Need to climb or swim somewhere to progress in the dungeon? Skeletons have a +0 modifier to the check, and don't count on any of your other party members being willing to help them. Animated undead are situational meatshields, nothing more. Like most summoned creatures, they are good at taking up space against minions, but ineffective against tougher foes. You know what else is good against minions? Fireball, also a 3rd level spell.

Animate Undead sounds great in whiteroom, Pokemon-style battles, but, in practice, skeletons and zombies are difficult to deploy effectively.

If you read my post you will notice that I compared a 7th level necromancer wizard, who uses 3 3rd level slots to keep 12 skeletons with him. Againast AC 15, the skeletons have a DPR of about 52, while a 7th level fighter with 20 STR, greatsword +1 has under 21 DPR against the same AC. The wizard still has a 4th level spell, a 3rd level spell and all of his lower level spells. Yes they are stuck at +4 to hit, but since AC rises very slowly and you have 12 of them they greatly outdamage anything else at that level.

To stop fireballs, the wizard can counterspell, and with 20hp each they will survive a fireball if they maka their save. I don't see how having a +0 modifier to their athletics would impede theme more then any other unathletic party member.

Having 2.5x the damage of a damage oriented martial for the price of a couple of spell slots is what I would call broken.

the secret fire

2018-01-19, 10:51 AM

To stop fireballs, the wizard can counterspell, and with 20hp each they will survive a fireball if they maka their save.

Lol...he can't counterspell if he's used up all his 3rd level slots on Animate Dead. Unless he's using his lone 4th level slot for the spell, in which case he's stuck with 1st and 2nd level spells all day. Some wizard!

Animate Dead is a situationally useful spell which has been effectively deployed at my table from time to time. Even the worst abuses of the spell are not, however, anything remotely close to the game-breaking shenanigans wizards got up to in previous editions, which was, you know...the OP's actual question.

Asmotherion

2018-01-19, 10:53 AM

and it the GM reads the spell to say ‘you can command Undead as a bonus action; but regardless of your commands they will attack a party member or otherwise harm you, perhaps humorously’; then choose a different concept to play that game
Pretty much, yeah. You put trust in your DM to read the atmosphere; Sometimes it's time to RP, and sometimes it's time to fight. If your DM breaches this Trust, it means you won't be able to fully enjoy your character concept.

Potato_Priest

2018-01-19, 10:57 AM

Lol...he can't counterspell if he's used up all his 3rd level slots on Animate Dead. Unless he's using his lone 4th level slot for the spell, in which case he's stuck with 1st and 2nd level spells all day. Some wizard!

Animate Dead is a situationally useful spell which has been effectively deployed at my table from time to time. Even the worst abuses of the spell are not, however, anything remotely close to the game-breaking shenanigans wizards got up to in previous editions, which was, you know...the OP's actual question.

My experience agrees with the secret fire's. Especially at normal levels of play, the necromancer is useful, but not so much so that he makes the rest of the party irrelevant.

In fact, I have far fewer problems with necromancers than I have with other kinds of wizards when I DM, because the necromancer is usually spending all their surplus spell slots on undead animation, while the other wizards can use their surplus utility spells to completely obliterate non-combat encounters, which I find much more frustrating as a DM than a player that's well optimized for combat.

Naanomi

2018-01-19, 11:03 AM

Pretty much, yeah. You put trust in your DM to read the atmosphere; Sometimes it's time to RP, and sometimes it's time to fight. If your DM breaches this Trust, it means you won't be able to fully enjoy your character concept.
Well, and RP doesn’t mean automatically that undead are worthless tactically. My Hobgoblin Necromancer was pretty ‘fluffy’ overall... up at the crack of dawn running drills for his skeletal troops, barking things like ‘back in formation soldier; dying is no excuse to break ranks!’, perfectly willing to debate the morality of saving lives by using already dead soldiers.

He would have fit fine in a RP heavy campaign, but not one that the GM didn’t like the concept of minionmancy

strangebloke

2018-01-19, 11:07 AM

If you read my post you will notice that I compared a 7th level necromancer wizard, who uses 3 3rd level slots to keep 12 skeletons with him. Againast AC 15, the skeletons have a DPR of about 52, while a 7th level fighter with 20 STR, greatsword +1 has under 21 DPR against the same AC. The wizard still has a 4th level spell, a 3rd level spell and all of his lower level spells. Yes they are stuck at +4 to hit, but since AC rises very slowly and you have 12 of them they greatly outdamage anything else at that level.

To stop fireballs, the wizard can counterspell, and with 20hp each they will survive a fireball if they maka their save. I don't see how having a +0 modifier to their athletics would impede theme more then any other unathletic party member.

Having 2.5x the damage of a damage oriented martial for the price of a couple of spell slots is what I would call broken.

You only get that when you're coming off four days where no undead were destroyed or seriously injured. Kryx put's your theoretical fighter at 26 damage without a +1 weapon or GWM, and GWM boosts the theoretical fighter's DPR by a significant margin. The necromancer probably beats him by a wide margin in this scenario... but it isn't 2.5 times.

Yes, in the instance where you can pull this off, it's very good. In every campaign I've ever run or been a part of, this is completely impractical, and even if you can pull this off, you're *just* dealing damage, which is the least-disruptive thing a player can do. Can we move on?

Naanomi

2018-01-19, 11:21 AM

It’s not just dealing damage though... they can grapple, shove, throw nets, carry things, drop caltrops, and soak hits as well. Still not broken, I agree, but more tactically flexible than just shooting at people

BigONotation

2018-01-19, 11:55 AM

Sounds like your martials were crap, or you were playing few encounters every day.

Martials will either go the big damage route or the tanking one. Anyone with GWM, PAM or SS will deal better damage than casters, barring maybe Warlock. 3d10+5 (21AVG) doesn't really compare to 2d10+1d4+15 (29AVG), plus magic weapon damage. This is for PAM alone; add GWM here and the gap widens. Sword-and-board builds will deal less damage, but with 21AC and many ways to mitigate damage, it's not a bad tradeoff.

With 1 or 2 encounters, you can pretty much unleash hell on everything and end encounters quickly. But with 5-6, you have to ration spells to be useful, and then both your reactions mentioned above and the big guns won't be available every round. The same martials either won't care or will be back on track with a short rest.

The problem is the battlefield is not static, enemies do not group nicely for a martial with his 30 movement to mow down, and when they have high ACs the martial characters are going to have a bad time. It all sounds good in a 30 foot white room with no terrain or dynamism, but on a real battlefield not having to move as much to project force or change that battlefield and still being (extremely) effective wins. This has been a problem since 3.X when the full casters became way too resilient. 5E with it's bigger wizard hit die, easier to cast spells, more spell slots, better defensive spells, reduced material costs, etc is just too easy on the full caster.

Unoriginal

2018-01-19, 12:08 PM

What's funny in this discussion is: what does "god" means in this context?

Because if you look at the actual full-fledged D&D gods, no caster can hope to match them, at least not alone.

Even a demigod who's considered pathetic can create life on a large scale.

Hell, in ToA, even the trickster gods, who were considered weak even at their peak, can still show some nice display of power even after being completely starved of any worship for decades

Specter

2018-01-19, 12:15 PM

The problem is the battlefield is not static, enemies do not group nicely for a martial with his 30 movement to mow down, and when they have high ACs the martial characters are going to have a bad time. It all sounds good in a 30 foot white room with no terrain or dynamism, but on a real battlefield not having to move as much to project force or change that battlefield and still being (extremely) effective wins. This has been a problem since 3.X when the full casters became way too resilient. 5E with it's bigger wizard hit die, easier to cast spells, more spell slots, better defensive spells, reduced material costs, etc is just too easy on the full caster.

Even so, you still have to deal with cover and line of sight when attacking from range. Unless it's you and an enemy, you will usually be taking a -2 to hit, and that also hinders your damage dealing potential.

In these cases you could use save cantrips, but that's hardly damage-inspiring, except for Poison Spray, which is something you want to avoid as a mage.

Or if we're talking about all martials, go Sharpshooter. No downsides to that, is there?

Tanarii

2018-01-19, 05:16 PM

Based on my Tier 1 Dungeon and Tier 2 Wildernes-based adventuring sites DMing experiences, Wizards are sufficiently powerful when they've got the right spells prepared. They're awesome utility if they pick plenty of Rituals as they level up. They're pretty weak at the end of an adventuring day if they nova too early. I can totally see where they might be overpowered if they had easy access to fill out their spell book, and/or were always able to drop big spells every round (ie short adventuring days). But the latter would benefit any full caster.

I haven't run Enough Tier 3 yet to speak to that, and who cares about Tier 4? That's epic-level post saving the world play. Everything should be broken.

It all sounds good in a 30 foot white room with no terrain or dynamism, but on a real battlefield not having to move as much to project force or change that battlefield and still being (extremely) effective wins.
"Martial" (by which you apparently mean melee-focused characters) are better off in a "real" battlefield that's large scale with terrain than in one without. They have plenty of total cover against casters and archers, so they don't have to take the dodge action, and pray they can make all their saves. They can Dash from total cover to total cover.

Furthermore, if it gets to the point of seriously impeded lines of sight terrain, casters and archers are effectively right back to the 30ft by 30ft room situation.

I've run a lot of Tier 2 wilderness-based adventuring sites, including plenty (but not all) in actual wilderness terrain. PCs know not to cross open plains and other territory without good mounts and plenty of ranged weapons. But the game assumes that generally speaking, PCs won't be fighting in that kind of situation. Or if they do, they'll plan accordingly.