Low-level (sub 5) Wildly-powered-cerer + Sucklock + Ranger from teh Future questions

[Ieet]

Hi,

Unfortunateley I am new to 5e, will experienced GM.
As I actually *like* rules, our sweet and awesome adventuring group is already meeting some Class-issues. Being fairly new to 5e (yea, old folks switch systems slowly) I do not feel ready to "house-rule" without first seeking advices.
In order to avoid early OP rules geeking we are currently only using Players Handbook (and DMG).

The campaign started at Level 1, now running at level 3 after some game sessions that gave alot of rules learning. I can highly recommend when switching to 5e to do this.

Wildly-powered-cerer
One of the most glaring issues was from the Sorcerer specialized in Wild Magic. First gaming session, he was just allowed to roll himself and that of course ended in close to a party wipe, dead NPCs, a blue Sorcie... you get the picture. Already here the quest turned from Campaign adventure, to CLeanup-Duty after own mess and care to avoid in future.
As DM I took over the rolling for the future. This of course asking for issues... Immedialteley he dont feel they happen enough, and want set rules for when instead of "DM rules and cheats if he want to secretly".
And Honetly, I would rather that the pain of keeping track of his class features is on his hands, instead of me needing to manage a part of his class.

Tides of Chaos is basically the one feature and good thing the class have, unless you consider the random effects in "Surges" for a good and positive thing that you want.
As described, arguments could be made that 1/20 on normal casts = Surges, to be rolled every cast. Very rare surges, on an 8 casts level 3.
But Tides of Chaos = "Please GM, I take advantage now and on next cast you Surge me!"
Seeing there are little risk in doing this, and Surges generally only do good stuff - why not...

So with that, the Wild Sorcie will of course ToChaos and have advantage every time he casts. He then know the next cast will be a Surge (and can move from party) regatning ToChaos to the cast right after...
At level 3 already, splitting level 2 spells into level 1's gives him 8 level 1 casts, for 8 Surges a day and 8 Daily Advantages on just about Anything.
Would you adventure with someone who has a 5% risk of exploding every time a spell is cast?

I do like the idea, and of course I will gladly make part of the adventures me Wild-Chance-Cleanup or investigation oriented... but lets make it only partly.

So my good and wise fellow Adventurers and World Makers; Is this overpowered? Should this be done like this? Am I misunderstanding something? How do I make this work?


Sucklock
Secondly the Warlock class - what us up with that?
A Sorcie is easilly 3xTwinned Cantrips (2d10), 2xlevel 2 Blasting, 4xLevel 1 Blasting for a whooping 9 rounds of Kick-ass!
And after that still at d10.

A Warlock is at 2 Daily Hellish Rebuke for 3d10 Reactions, and if we throw in a Hex we go for d10+3+d6 dam each round after the first.

This of course presumes that the Lock spends all spell casts on EBlasting. All the flavour Evocations on the EBlast and all the spell slots goes for Reactions on Hell Rebuke.
So left we have Cantrips and a book with Rituals - while the Fighter blasts away with 2 crossbow arrows at d10+3 each. Action and Bonus shooting.

AM I missing something? Is there a way to create a 'Lock where everything is not dedicated to the above and have it not be "the low damage guy".

Ah, right the Blade-Pacts which just creates a worse melee fighter +some fluff-cantrips...


Ranger from teh Future
The last thing can be asked quickly. The group ranger have read ahead and on forums - decided that a Ranger with a Pet is vastly underpowered and is already abandoning the class or buff-begging.

Id be willing to already house-call that Pet obeys last given command and action only be needed for issuing a change of orders.

I see and feel that pets are likeley just easilly gunned down. But I do not have personal experience - so my initual call have been that UA ranger seemed OP. And if he fear so much of rthe future he should change class.
My GUT impression is that the Ranger himself is just a bad warrior. And a Bad Warrior + a Pet sounds like a whole character to me. A Pet matching a bad warrior would be him basically be a double character powerhouse.

Is he right? SHould the Pet-Ranger be buffed or housed? Or is it OK?



Thank you so much ofr reading all thiese lenghly thoughts.

I much hope to hear your views on above.

And may your life be filled with stories, adventures and heroism.

[Azgeroth]

Hi! welcome to GitP, and 5e!

for the sorcerer,

don't worry about it, yes those negatives can cause TPKs at sub 5, but they won't come up that often.

also the advantage mechanic will peter out alot at higher levels, as the majority of spells are saves not attack rolls.


the warlock?

this is a rather hot topic on the forum, basically its best to not consider it as a full caster, as you note they get fewer slots than any other full caster, and yes if your PHB only then the only way to be a blaster is to 'i cast Eldritch Blast!' to infinity, and take all the EB invocations..

but, there is ALOT of utility on a warlock, Mask of Many Faces, Eldritch Site just to name a few, also Pact of the Chain gives a very good utility option.


the Ranger...

yeah, PHB Ranger Beast Master, SUCKS... easiest fix, allow the pet to gain a Hit Die with standard player HP gain at level up, and also ASIs at the same time as the player, but only for ranger levels. also do away with the Favoured Terrain types, its purely exploration based so your not breaking anything by making it every natural enviroment.

or just use the most recent revised ranger UA, its not broken, it works. it is much better than the PHB version.

[Keravath]

On the sorcerer ...

The wild magic sorcerer is probably the least party friendly class in the book. I've seen the classic wild magic fireball happen twice so far (totally randomly) and almost wipe the party of tier 1 characters.

However, Tides of Chaos explicitly says "Any time before you regain the use of this feature, the DM can have you roll on the Wild Magic Surge table immediately after you cast a sorcerer spell of 1st level or higher. You then regain the use of this feature." It is a DM and not player decision to make the roll after the sorcerer casts a first level spell. You decide it. You can decide if there is a fixed chance of it happening (say 50% - roll odds or evens) ... if evens comes up make the wild surge roll. You can make it happen more or less often. You can even look at the situation they are in and decide whether it is a good time for a roll or not. Of course the player won't necessarily like the arbitrary nature but wild magic is random and wild mage sorcerers can be the bane of a party. There are a lot of negative effects in the table that can make situations much more difficult for the party.

- Poisoning the party melee characters
- Fireballing the party
- grease centered on yourself and you and all the party casters fall over
- cast confusion centered on yourself and watch as the party kills itself off
- deal d10 necrotic damage to everyone within 30' - this can be bad in a close fight
- vulnerability to piercing damage when fighting archers or some creature doing piercing damage

Unfortunately, there are enough bad things in there that they will happen sometime. In most of the groups I have played in folks try to stay at least 30' or more from the wild magic sorcerer at all times when they might cast a spell.

On the warlock ...

Warlock is actually pretty decent. Agonizing + Eldritch blast does d10+<cha> on each bolt and it scales with character level. So at level 5 it becomes 2 bolts and level 11 it is 3. When combined with hex this gives the warlock a very easy d10+d6+<cha> ranged attack which scales. It can be enhanced with repelling blast for crowd control. It is a one trick pony in some ways but reasonably effective. A lot of people multiclass warlocks for variety. However, the warlock also gets 2 spell slots (level 2-10) that refresh on a SHORT rest. A short rest is a break in the adventuring day of an hour ... stop for lunch etc. If the warlock uses their two spells in the morning they will get another two after lunch while every other spell caster only gets there spell slots every day. On top of that the warlock spell slots are always the highest level. It still isn't the same as a full caster who can choose to use their selection of spell slots but it does allow for specific spell use at maximum level.

On the topic of bladelocks ... a melee warlock can be very effective and competitive if using feats. Polearm master gives the warlock a bonus action attack, thirsting blade invocation also gives them an extra attack with their pact weapon as part of the attack action. Add hex to the mix and they will easily keep up with fighter. However, the best warlock archetype for this is the hexblade from Xanathar's guide to everything since it receives proficiency in martial weapons, light and medium armor and shields.

Finally, on my warlock characters I don't think I have ever taken hellish rebuke. Given the small number of spell slots, I have usually found other spells more useful to cast.

On the ranger ...

The general consensus appears to be that the beastmaster ranger in the PHB is under powered since the pet isn't very strong and having it attack means giving up one of your attacks. In most cases, your attack is more likely to be more effective so why would you ever do this. In addition, the pet isn't as good as a familiar for scouting and other purposes and the beastmaster doesn't have the bonus damage like colossus slayer or horde breaker that is available to the hunter. All that said though, the ranger is still a decent base class and if the player enjoys having a pet that follows them around for role playing purposes then it isn't a big deal. In 5e, the class balance is much better than previous editions so you don't need to be perfectly optimized to still be effective. A beastmaster archer using hunter's mark will probably do on average 4.5 damage less than a hunter each turn ... which isn't all that much when at level 5 they would both be rolling 2 x (d8+d6+<dex mod>) anyway. Is it ideal ... no ... but it isn't hopelessly underpowered ... it just objectively does slightly less damage.

You could either tweak it if really needed but honestly the difference isn't so big that a player should be whining about it. If it really bothers the player then let them change the ranger archetype and give them a pet of some sort that follows them around for role playing fun.

P.S. The ranger is actually quite good. They aren't a fighter and aren't supposed to be. They tend to work well in a stealthy ranged type role and multiclassing with rogue can work well too. However, even without that they aren't terrible. Some of their class features are bit too circumstance specific - like travel and exploration oriented - or the lackluster effect of favoured enemies and favorite terrain but through tier 1 and 2 they are pretty competitive with other martial classes. Keep in mind that rangers also have spellcasting which can offer some additional abilities and party support that isn't available to a straight fighter.

[Bloodcloud]

For sorcerer, you might consider setting the fireball to a lesser spell like shatter on spell cast under level 3. That might limit the chaos at low level. Consider also to houserule that subtle/carefull spell remove the need for surge roll, and always surge on other metamagic use or concentration break, roll d20 on other casting. More control on the player, less dm headache.

For the warlock, don't forget his slot recharge on a short rest, so he can actually have a lot of em over the day. It's not 2 daily! Aslo, repelling blast, properly combo'd with area damage spell, can be effective and tactical. Setting the fight in interesting terrain is also great for him (the occasionnal blasting enemy off cliffs should make him rather happy. Pushing enemy into thorns/spiked wall/mudpit are also all fun applications of repelling blast.

Ranger... yeah. I'd consider letting the ranger and his pet apply spare the dying on each other. Thematic, limits the pet dying off too much. I believe the revised ranger was rather well received especially for the beastmaster, consider using that.

[Man_Over_Game]

Props to Kerevath. That's a well-detailed analysis! I agree with everything you said.

Wild Magic Sorcerer: Rules state that the DM only ever rolls on the table, unless it's the 1d20 5% chance roll which happens every time. Assuming 10% of the table kills you, that's a 1/200 chance that the player can kill themselves.
Warlock: You should be fitting about 2-3 Short Rests in a long adventuring day. Warlocks regain those spell slots per Short Rest.
Beastmaster Ranger: The beast is a bit squishy and it can be frustrating to replace when it does die. Consider looking at the Revised Ranger Beastmaster Conclave Unearthed Arcana for something that people have had positive feedback form.