5e Spellcasting Rant

[Schadenfreuda]

Like it says on the tin, this is a (polite) rant about 5th Edition's spellcasting system.

Historically, the reason to play a spellcaster was that you could gamble with high stakes and limited resources. You might kill some monster with one spell slot, but then again it might make its save and leave you with a wasted slot and less power overall. However, in both 3.5e and Pathfinder, casters got so many spell slots and so many powerful spells that even with supposedly limited resources they could outshine martial classes without any real effort on the part of the player.

5th Edition sought to better balance the game, and though it broadly succeeded in making a game where everyone at the table has something to contribute, they didn't fix the underlying problem, but also made the gamble more frustrating and less satisfying.

The first and most important problem is how the actual spells themselves were changed. Many of the most problematic spells of earlier editions were nerfed, but not the most broken ones, like Wish (which is in some ways now better, especially with Wish/Simulacrum), Gate, Astral Projection, and Shapechange. On top of this, some spells such as Banishment have gotten better than in the past, and Banishment in particular because of the generally weak save it targets lets you cast essentially cast Maze out of a 4th-level slot (Maze too is essentially unchanged from 3.5e). What all this leads to is that playing as a caster means your contributions can either be:

a) using spell slots for blasting, which results in expending limited resources to do less damage than the barbarian can do for free, just like in previous editions, or

b) using the same three or four spells that are actually good over and over again because WotC forgot to properly nerf them, which gets old. Essentially, spells now fell very inconsistent in power level, especially at higher levels. Why should Maze be an 8th-level spell when Banishment does the same thing at lower level, and has a 'Does Not Return' clause for outsiders? Why should Fire Storm be a 7th-level spell when Wall of Fire is a 4th-level? Why is Haste all but unchanged, or Anti-Life Shell for that matter?

The only fixes I see for this problem are either nerfing the best spells so that all casting is weak or making weak spells better to give casters more options, and both are less than satisfying.

Second, there are saves. Having six separate saves and not getting arbitrary bonuses to four of them (unless one is a high-level monk) means that a 20th-level character might have penalties, not bonuses, to several important saves, and while I get the whole bounded accuracy idea of this edition, this makes one feel like little progress has been made over the course of one's career. Why would one become a mighty hero if they still have -1 to their all-important Wisdom Save and can still be pushed around by low-level spellcasters? I imagine that a fix for this could include using your proficiency bonus for all saves, getting expertise in the ones that your class specialises in, and then increasing all save DCs. This way, save bonuses aren't ridiculous even at their best, and one isn't stuck failing every save even on something they're strong in by high level.

Then there is the problem of Legendary Resistance. The whole point of playing a caster is that you are always gambling with resources, but the ability of anything to automatically make its save removes the gamble entirely until those resistances are used up, which becomes the dominant pattern of battle, especially boss fights, at mid to high levels. It forces one to metagame and not use good spells until the resistances are gone, and diminishes a player's autonomy and decision-making. Perhaps this could be fixed by letting powerful creatures reroll 1s, or give themselves advantage on saves that are important, but giving the DM an arbitrary 'No' button feels unfair. (Legendary Resistance is also useless against Maze, which uses an ability check, not a save, making Maze even more powerful in contrast to other spells.)

Third, there is concentration. Now, I like concentration. I think it makes sense. It works effectively to limit the number of buffs that can be accessed at any one time, and gives martial classes a snowball's chance to debuff casters without the need for Dispel Magic. However, the fact that a caster only ever gets one concentration slot severely hampers every aspect of casting, especially with how easy even that is to lose in combat. This affects different classes unequally, and hits Druids especially hard, as their spell list has [Concentration, up to ---] on nearly every good spell, and many spells that really don't need it.

Only one slot for Concentration ever also works against the feeling of progress as one levels up. If a party only has one caster, they can't effectively perform more than one role, and if their own safety is threatened, the concentration self-buffs a caster might need for defence means they probably aren't buffing anyone else and thus contributing as they could be to overcoming an encounter. There's also the fact that Polymorph and Shapechange are Concentration, which makes improvised tanking not really a workable option for casters as it was in previous editions, with the exception of the Druid, who has Wildshape. Not even the Constitution bonuses that new forms grant is enough to make this anything but a desperate gamble.

An easy fix for all this might be to give casters Concentration slots equal to half their proficiency bonus, with the added stipulation that shapeshifting and all spells above 5th level take up all your concentration slots. That way, a high-level caster could concentrate on for example Bless, Bane, and Hold Person, but not two of those and Maze or Shapechange. Not requiring concentration saves while shapeshifted also allows casters to contribute without fearing too much for their own safety, without allowing them to hold on to other buffs or debuffs at the same time.

Even with my proposed fixes to make casting less limiting and frustrating in practice, it doesn't change the fact that party balance is still tilted heavily in casters' favour; the problem wasn't that they could cast overpowered spells in every encounter, it's that they ever could in the first place. I don't see a good way out of that without changing the whole feel of D&D, either, without doing what 4th Edition tried and it seems generally agreed failed to do.

[Sigreid]

I think you've got the wrong end of the alligator on the saves. It's not that your getting worse at the other four saves, it's that the caster is getting better and finding your weaknesses provided he can target one of the right stats. If all of your saves go up, with expertise in 2 then casters never improve their chance of landing something that sticks. And if they target one of the 2 wrong saves, it actually gets worse as they are supposed to be getting stronger. This is compounded by the fact that there are a lot more ways to get bonuses to your saves than there are to increase your spell DC.

[Chronos]

I note that all of the spells you list as "most overpowered" are 9th level. That's OK. 17th-level characters are supposed to be overpowered. Though Astral Projection doesn't belong on the list: It's no longer the get-out-of-death-free card it was in 3rd edition, but just a complicated and over-leveled way to Plane Shift.

[Bjarkmundur]

I really don't know enough about DnD to give any proper insight, but I do love the double concentration idea.

Actually, I love all features and abilities that make low level spells feel more "basic" and high level spells more special. I've seen multiple ways of doing this, and cutting players some slack on low level concentration seems more than fair.

[Schadenfreuda]

I really don't know enough about DnD to give any proper insight, but I do love the double concentration idea.

Actually, I love all features and abilities that make low level spells feel more "basic" and high level spells more special. I've seen multiple ways of doing this, and cutting players some slack on low level concentration seems more than fair.

My original idea was to make concentration only apply to spells like Telekinesis, Bigby's Hand, Move Earth, and others that produce some kind of continuously changing effect, rather than a static buff or debuff, but I realised that would probably make more sense for 3.X or Pathfinder, and is even then probably too generous

[Solusek]

I agree with your point A.
Some spells are just so much better than others that they seem to get taken by every character of that class and used all the time. Feels like the balance isn't great.

I partially agree with point B.
I don't mind the 6 saves thing, but really do hate legendary resistance. Auto resisting any 3 spells isn't a very interesting mechanic and it's certainly not much fun for the players.

Disagree with point C.
Concentration is a great mechanic as is. My only beef with it may be that too many spells require concentration where I don't think it is needed. Does Blur really need to be a concentration spell? Elemental Bane? Arcane Gate? The Investiture of Flame/Ice line? There's a lot of spells that pretty much never get used (see poor balance point above) yet got themselves tagged with a concentration limiter for some reason. Oh, but Crown of Stars is okay without needing concentration because ???

[Rukelnikov]

Even with my proposed fixes to make casting less limiting and frustrating in practice, it doesn't change the fact that party balance is still tilted heavily in casters' favour; the problem wasn't that they could cast overpowered spells in every encounter, it's that they ever could in the first place. I don't see a good way out of that without changing the whole feel of D&D, either, without doing what 4th Edition tried and it seems generally agreed failed to do.

Many times I get the impression people doesn't realise this. Thing is, as you said, you either restrict powerful magic to NPCs, or allow players to be the wonderworkers of fairytales. There is no way to balance Gate or Wish against mundane stuff, how many attacks per turn are equivalent to the ability to cast Gate? 4? 20? 100? infinite? Its like comparing apples and concepts, so trying to balance it is futile. Its more important to first decide wether you want such magic to be available to the PCs or not, and if you allow it do your best so that it doesn't go out of hand.

IMO 5e got an ok spot, where magic still feels like magic, casters still feel like wonderworkers (albeit barely at times) but caster/martial disparity is much narrower than it was in 3.x. I personally dont care for things like Chain Simulacra for the same reason I didn't care about Pun Pun, it's the kind of stuff that so obviously breaks the game that it won't fly unless the DM is cool with having that kind of table, and in that case, well, its their game, if that is fun for some people be my guest and play that way.

[Man_Over_Game]

On the balance aspects you mention in section 1 and 2, I do notice a few anomalies with the options you mention.

For example, Fire Wall, upcasted to 7th level, deals an average of 36 damage, where Fire Storm deals 38.5, which is about +7% more damage per target when cast at the same level. Additionally, Wall of Fire has to pick between two specific types of shapes (straight or circle), but Fire Storm can be oriented in any shape you like of 10 10x10 squares (including in the sky, if you want it to). This dramatically cuts down on friendly fire. Lastly, Fire Storm isn't a Concentration spell, which is actually a benefit at high levels since you can cast it while sustaining a different spell.

In your example of Maze vs. Banishment, you said that Banishment was too strong when compared to Maze, because they have a similar effect, but then you also say that Maze stands out as being too strong due to ignoring Legendary Resistances. To me, this says that they both are valid for completely different uses, and it only becomes a problem when you remove Legendary Resistances.


I do agree that it is a problem that players are incentivized to cast lower level spells more so than higher level ones, but I think that trying to work around that will end up in harming more than helping (related to the fact that Maze is a level 8 spell that counters Legendary Resistance).

[Schadenfreuda]

On the balance aspects you mention in section 1 and 2, I do notice a few anomalies with the options you mention.

......

I do agree that it is a problem that players are incentivized to cast lower level spells more so than higher level ones, but I think that trying to work around that will end up in harming more than helping (related to the fact that Maze is a level 8 spell that counters Legendary Resistance).

I acknowledge that there were some anomalies in my original post, but my main complaint still stands, which is that certain spells are drastically over-powered when compared to their immediate neighbours. Banishment, for example, achieves so much more than, say, Confusion, which offers a similar albeit weaker disabling effect but offers a Wisdom save every round instead of a one-time Charisma save for total removal from a battlefield. Maze, similarly, is an automatic win against anything with an intelligence of less than 10, since they literally can't roll a 20 on that ability check, and is so much more powerful than Power Word: Stun because using one's single 8th-level slot on merely stunning something that your barbarian will easily kill in two or three attacks their next turn is not worth it.

[strangebloke]

1) show me an actually overpowered spell of level lower than seven. Even healing spirit isn't crazy except in certain game styles.

2) most classes gets access to more saves as time progresses. Barbarians pick up dexterity saves, rogues pick up wisdom saves, etc etc. Additionally, there are tons of ways to boost your saves, from ASIs, to feats, to magic items. While there are a few powerful spells based off of rare saves, by and large you'll be fine if you have with/con/Dex covered.

Legendary saves are a little wonky, but all the other solutions are wonkier. Would you prefer adding spell resistance back into the game.

TBH I'd prefer to have a mechanic where a monster could sacrifice 10hp per level of the spell cast to turn a failure into a success but that that'd probably be hard to implement.

3) you actually do get more slots for concentration, in a sense. For many spells you just need to up cast to a high enough level to get around concentration.

If you're running a full adventuring day, you'll still use low level concentration spells anyway.

TBH, though, every time I hear a complaint about concentration, I immediately assume that the other person is secretly nostalgic for the CODzilla days of 3.5. A wizard is a squishy guy in a pointy hat, thank you very much, not some guy with five layers of magical bureaucracy protecting him from getting his feet wet.

Concentration of literally the only thing that keeps us from going back to the CODZILLA days.

[Dungeon-noob]

1) show me an actually overpowered spell of level lower than seven. Even healing spirit isn't crazy except in certain game styles.

2) most classes gets access to more saves as time progresses. Barbarians pick up dexterity saves, rogues pick up wisdom saves, etc etc. Additionally, there are tons of ways to boost your saves, from ASIs, to feats, to magic items. While there are a few powerful spells based off of rare saves, by and large you'll be fine if you have with/con/Dex covered.

Legendary saves are a little wonky, but all the other solutions are wonkier. Would you prefer adding spell resistance back into the game.

TBH I'd prefer to have a mechanic where a monster could sacrifice 10hp per level of the spell cast to turn a failure into a success but that that'd probably be hard to implement.

3) you actually do get more slots for concentration, in a sense. For many spells you just need to up cast to a high enough level to get around concentration.

If you're running a full adventuring day, you'll still use low level concentration spells anyway.

TBH, though, every time I hear a complaint about concentration, I immediately assume that the other person is secretly nostalgic for the CODzilla days of 3.5. A wizard is a squishy guy in a pointy hat, thank you very much, not some guy with five layers of magical bureaucracy protecting him from getting his feet wet.

Concentration of literally the only thing that keeps us from going back to the CODZILLA days.
1. Fireball, guiding bolt, lighting bolt. Each does more raw damage then it should, with the 3rd levels doing more raw damage then 4th level and most 5th and 6th level spells, while also being long range and AoE. Don't even mention upcasting them.
2. I don't call four out of twelve classes most.
3. Ehh, i don't know many spells like that. Bestoy curse, and nothing else springs to mind. You can use certain magic items to cast seperately, also allowing multiple concentration effects, but that requires you to get access to those specific items, which aren't exactly low level ones, specificly because of this.

[Dr. Cliché]

I agree with your point A.
Some spells are just so much better than others that they seem to get taken by every character of that class and used all the time. Feels like the balance isn't great.

I partially agree with point B.
I don't mind the 6 saves thing, but really do hate legendary resistance. Auto resisting any 3 spells isn't a very interesting mechanic and it's certainly not much fun for the players.

Disagree with point C.
Concentration is a great mechanic as is. My only beef with it may be that too many spells require concentration where I don't think it is needed. Does Blur really need to be a concentration spell? Elemental Bane? Arcane Gate? The Investiture of Flame/Ice line? There's a lot of spells that pretty much never get used (see poor balance point above) yet got themselves tagged with a concentration limiter for some reason. Oh, but Crown of Stars is okay without needing concentration because ???

This pretty much sums up my feelings as well.

With regard to Concentration, I'd say also that many 1-minute spells probably didn't need to be Concentration. The issue in 3.5 was generally with spells that would last hours, so casters could stack buffs and have them last for several encounters.

But a 1-minute spell is basically never going to last for more than 1 encounter, so making so many such spells Concentration seems really unnecessary.

Also, not really related, but I wish Concentration had been called 'Focus' instead.

[jdolch]

Second, there are saves. Having six separate saves and not getting arbitrary bonuses to four of them (unless one is a high-level monk) means that a 20th-level character might have penalties, not bonuses, to several important saves, and while I get the whole bounded accuracy idea of this edition, this makes one feel like little progress has been made over the course of one's career. Why would one become a mighty hero if they still have -1 to their all-important Wisdom Save and can still be pushed around by low-level spellcasters?

That's why having a CHA20 6+ Level Paladin in your Party feels like Cheating sometimes.

[sophontteks]

Spell balance is pretty atrocious. The overpowered spells I can live with, but there are way too many useless spells as well. There are clear winners and losers at every level.

[Dr. Cliché]

Spell balance is pretty atrocious. The overpowered spells I can live with, but there are way too many useless spells as well. There are clear winners and losers at every level.

Yeah, the underpowered spells tend to be the most frustrating - especially when they have great flavour but poor execution.

[Dungeon-noob]

I will wholly agree that there are far too many UP spells that need reworking. Snowball swarm is more 1st then 2nd level, and ice storm would be perfectly workable as a 3rd level, compared to fireball and lighting bolt.

[CheddarChampion]

I think it's fine to have some spells be clearly not as good as others.

If every spell was just as useful as every other spell, it makes the choice of picking a spell less important in practice and in perception.
If every spell was perfectly balanced then there would only be one spell: how do you go about balancing healing spirit vs fireball?

[MrStabby]

Spell balance is pretty atrocious. The overpowered spells I can live with, but there are way too many useless spells as well. There are clear winners and losers at every level.

Oh yes. I agree with this. Well mostly - I do have issues with some others.

Some are fine - if a sorcerer gets access to powerful blasting spells that are relatively powerful compared to those a cleric gets, I don't mind that imbalance. It is part of a class focus. That said, some spells are a bit more problematic.

Take wall of force for example. Split an encounter in two. If someone else lays down some area of effect ongoing nastiness inside it can just be a win. Walls are powerful spells anyway - they take enemies out of the game with no save, no skill check or anything. Take a wall spell and make the wall impassible and indestructible and you have a problem. Stop it being dispelled and you have something that can just wreck encounters but also ruin peoples fun. I know a guy who loved his grappling barbarian up till when the party got to level 9.



But for the OP - I agree with the observations but less so with the fix. Yes spells like banishment are awesomely powerful, awesomely inconsistent. Unsurprisingly a big factor in how good a spell is is related to how many saves it needs. Polymorph, wall of force, bless, hex don't need saves and see a lot of play. Some like heat metal allow a save but do bad stuff anyway. Then there are those that can be resisted but need skill checks - you touched on maze already but others like wrathful smite (skill check with disadvantage) are regarded highly. Then those like banishment that only need one save... finally those like hold person that need a save every turn. Spells are in general horribly balanced.

The only weakness is often concentration; this makes encounters with few enemies very dull and easily dominated by one player. A single hold monster spell can end a fight. At least if there are a few creatures then one of them might be able to break concentration. I think the fix is probably to nerf the better spells but boost some at will abilities (well, I say fix - but probably too late now). Taking a bit of pressure off the DM to aim that casters are spending sometime in combat not using resources will make life a bit easier there. I think legendary resistance is a great way to handle this though - it makes fights more tactical than just gauging the threat and then as soon as possible blowing out the biggest spell slot you want to use in the fight. It buys a couple of turns for other PCs to be able to play the game before you end the climactic battle by yourself.

Your other two points I have a similar view to this. Agree with the observation but not the solution. Non proficient saves not improving makes casters really powerful. At low levels you don't know that many spells and the gap between best and worst saves is pretty narrow. As you go up, the gap gets bigger but you also know more spells and can keep aside something to target charisma or intelligence as you see fit. For me the solution is just weaker scaling proficiency. +2 to +4 as a range would help tone this down (yeah you need a bit of rescalling others around this). As a DM it doesn't bother me so much as I can just have somewhat more well rounded monsters, although this ties in to your first point. You are putting a lot on one roll of the die and if you cant even target a save then you may feel like little is in your control.

Concentration is something I wouldn't want changed though. It is a hard limit on what casters can do and it is very important. It is one thing that limits their ability to adapt to changing circumstances and hands more versatility (relatively) to the fighters. You banish a monster but something else turns up - do you drop banishment to face this new threat or not? If you were to change it, I would prefer something like "you can concentrate on a number of spell levels up to half your character level - rounded down". So yes, when you first get level X spells you can cast non concentration spells, concentration spells need one more level but you can concentrate on more spells if they are lower level. I don't like this, but do think it is better than having multiple high level effects potentially happening all at once.

[Dr. Cliché]

If every spell was just as useful as every other spell, it makes the choice of picking a spell less important in practice and in perception.

That makes no sense.

Making players choose between 2 equally good (but nevertheless different) spells is excellent game design. It allows players to fine-tune spell selection based on their character concept, personality etc., without making themselves weaker in the process.

Meanwhile, forcing players to choose between 1 good spell and 1 terrible spell is a false-choice. It's the pretence of a choice when there exists a clear, correct answer. Its bad game design and just serves as a trap for newer players or a punishment for anyone trying to stick to their character's fluff, rather than just picking the most powerful option.




If every spell was perfectly balanced then there would only be one spell: how do you go about balancing healing spirit vs fireball?

This is a common fallacy of assuming that the only way to balance things is to make them completely identical.

With regard to your question, Fireball and Healing Spirit never actually compete with one another on any level (they appear on different spell lists, at different spell levels and serve entirely different purposes). A better example would be Fireball vs. Lightning Bolt or Fly vs. Gaseous Form. These are spells that are the same level, usually on the same list and with similar effects (Fireball and Lightning Bolt are both AoE blasting spells, Fly and Gaseous Form both grant mobility). You could also consider spells at different levels which serve similar purposes (e.g. Disguise Self vs. Alter Self, Levitate vs. Fly).

[Keravath]

Interesting comments :)
I personally disagree with most of it.
1) There are a variety of spells, some utility, some damage, some AoE. Some are one damage type, some another, some have rider effects. Some are more niche than others.

Some of your examples:
Banishment - 4th level - SINGLE target - requires concentration - cha save - 60' range
Confusion - 4th level - 10' radius - multiple creatures - requires concentration - wis save - 90' range

The big differences are single vs multiple target, the range and the saving throw.

However, your comments on spell balance also don't take into account the expected saves of the creatures you are casting them on. The following is a really cool spreadsheet showing monster saving throws. As you go up in CR, cha typically becomes one of the strongest saves. It might be easy to banish a lot of low CR monsters but CHA doesn't appear to be a low save as things get tougher. In particular, a lot of the fiends that you might like to banish have BOTH magic resistance and a decent cha save.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10anA394CmxeLYTxuMYVnmmjiYLLedXfv6MBbpxEy2Kw/edit#gid=0

Basically, if a caster manages to land a Banishment spell against a difficult target at the right time, it will be encounter changing but as the CR gets higher this gets more difficult to achieve.

Are some spells better than others? Yes. However, a lot of them are situational and they have to be looked at in the context of the creatures they will be used against.

Someone also mentioned that fireball/lightning bolt/guiding bolt are overpowerd. I also don't see that either. Guiding bolt does 4d6 ... but burning hands does 3d6 in a 15' cone to multiple targets ... I don't think there are many that would argue it is too strong.The second level scorching ray spell does 6d6 split into three 2d6 blasts ... why is 8d6 from fireball or lightning bolt as a level 3 spell too much? Third level is a big power jump for martials with extra attack AND a power jump for casters with the introduction of iconic spells like fireball. Maybe the person commenting on these spells doesn't like the power jump at 5th level?

2) Yes. High level characters have weak saves especially if the character has been min/maxed. Crucial weaknesses can be patched up with the resilient feat (which would guarantee 2/3 of the primary saves are covered). However, high level characters are no longer "gods" they are just more effective than others. A level 20 can still be vulnerable to 20 orcs or a pack of wolves. This would have been unheard of in previous versions of the game. Finally, 5e is designed much more as a team game than previous editions. Weaknesses in one character can be complemented by strengths in other characters ... they work together as a team to overcome the challenges. Each character does not stand along as an invulnerable pinnacle. Casters with counterspell, dispell magic, 6th level arcana cleric feature, paladins with their auras, bard or paladin casting circle of power. All of these work together to give a fun game with more challenging situations ... there are multiple ways to deal with each challenge. However, every character NOT having the ability to easily shrug off effects is part of the game design.

The comment was made that high level characters can still be vulnerable to low level casters. This is true for very weak saves. If you build a character with a -1 save and don't reinforce that stat with resilient then it will always be a weakness (as it should be). However, low level casters will also have low level DCs. A 4th level caster with a 14 stat only has a DC of 12. Which with a little help from team mates they may be able to pass.

3) Concentration is probably one of the best new features of the game. It really makes it crucial for a caster to decide which spell they are going to cast and concentrate on. Hypnotic pattern, wall of force, banishment, bless, suggestion ... choose the right spell for the right situation. I love the additional elements this introduces into deciding both what spells to choose and which ones to cast in a particular situation. Landing one of these spells in the right place at the right time can utterly change the direction and outcome of a fight. Far more than just doing damage. Of course, if most of the targets save it becomes far less effective but that is the gamble that every spell caster takes.


Basically, I find that 5e has done an incredible job of getting both the feel and the relative utility of martials vs casters over a very large range of levels to be just about right. Each can shine at times. Each contributes. The party is a team where each team member brings something useful to the table.

I also haven't found particular spells to be any more "OP" than specific feats/classes or other abilities. In particular situations, they are outstanding while in others they may not work so well.

I realize this is just my personal opinion but my impression is that the actual game play at the table would not necessarily be improved by any of the suggested changes.

[Theodoxus]

Re: Concentration, I added a feat that lets you Concentrate on a number of spells equal to your [Proficiency Bonus -1]. So, there's a feat tax, it doesn't kick in until at least 5th level and since most games don't go past 12th or so, you're looking at 3 spells at the upper levels.

But I also went back to the 3 saves of yesteryear, pulled a lot of concepts from 4th - including using Implement Mastery for casters, removing Wizard from the class list and adding wizardry as a Tome, making it a true Vancian caster using Intelligence and increasing spell allotments by ~2 per level.

Since they're not spontaneous casters anymore with that option, yeah, you can stack 5 fireballs for your 3rd level slots, but you have no other spell options for them.

[Dungeon-noob]

Snip.

Someone also mentioned that fireball/lightning bolt/guiding bolt are overpowerd. I also don't see that either. Guiding bolt does 4d6 ... but burning hands does 3d6 in a 15' cone to multiple targets ... I don't think there are many that would argue it is too strong.The second level scorching ray spell does 6d6 split into three 2d6 blasts ... why is 8d6 from fireball or lightning bolt as a level 3 spell too much? Third level is a big power jump for martials with extra attack AND a power jump for casters with the introduction of iconic spells like fireball. Maybe the person commenting on these spells doesn't like the power jump at 5th level?

Snip
I don't mind you quoting me if you want to reply to me. The reason i dislike those spells is because they just significantly more damage then comparable spells at the same level, or in case of the ball-bolt, even higher level ones. Guiding bolt does 4d with a good rider, at good range, with a good damage type and uses an attack roll. Your counterexample, burning hands, does less damage, admittedly in an AoE, but with such short range that anything that lives is within melee range of you, has no rider, with a worse damage type, uses a save which is less good then an attack roll in general, and also can do serious colateral through forest fires and the like. Or compare it to chromatic orb, often considered a very good 1st level spell. Guiding bolt does more damage, has a better effect (advantage on an attack vs whatever damage type you need), is less expensive to cast because material components, and is on a non-blasting focused list to top it of (clerics do get some blasting spells, but it's not the list focus when you look at the whole).

Fireball and bolt are just straight up better then every other damage spell for a few levels, only around 5th and 6th do they lose their crown. I don't think i need to explain why 3rd level spells should be about equally strong, let alone why higher level spells should be better. I'm not comparing the spells to other classes; i'm comparing them to each other, and there these spells break the curve, which causes me to dislike them.

[NaughtyTiger]

I am so confused.

The OP is annoyed that casters

are too weak and martials can do more damage.
that single concentration prevents casters from using all of their buffs at once
there are too many spell choices that are underpowered


But then the OP is annoyed

that the dumb foolish barbarian is easily dooped by common spells
that some of the underpowered spells target weak saves
that most classes aren't nearly immune to magic effects through super saves.


I find it rare that a barbarian can do more than a sorceror or warlock.

[Keravath]

I don't mind you quoting me if you want to reply to me. The reason i dislike those spells is because they just significantly more damage then comparable spells at the same level, or in case of the ball-bolt, even higher level ones. Guiding bolt does 4d with a good rider, at good range, with a good damage type and uses an attack roll. Your counterexample, burning hands, does less damage, admittedly in an AoE, but with such short range that anything that lives is within melee range of you, has no rider, with a worse damage type, uses a save which is less good then an attack roll in general, and also can do serious colateral through forest fires and the like. Or compare it to chromatic orb, often considered a very good 1st level spell. Guiding bolt does more damage, has a better effect (advantage on an attack vs whatever damage type you need), is less expensive to cast because material components, and is on a non-blasting focused list to top it of (clerics do get some blasting spells, but it's not the list focus when you look at the whole).

Fireball and bolt are just straight up better then every other damage spell for a few levels, only around 5th and 6th do they lose their crown. I don't think i need to explain why 3rd level spells should be about equally strong, let alone why higher level spells should be better. I'm not comparing the spells to other classes; i'm comparing them to each other, and there these spells break the curve, which causes me to dislike them.

Sorry I didn't quote you in my first reply.

I think fireball and lightning bolt are pretty comparable to hypnotic pattern, conjure animals (especially if you go for 8 wolves), spirit guardians (which can do 3d8 to every creature within 15', every turn and impose difficult terrain), blink and fly (which can both protect the caster from combat depending on the circumstances), slow (can be encounter changing if enough fail the save), sleet storm and stinking cloud (both look a bit underpowered but their purpose is obscuration and cloud control rather than damage and they do a decent job at both depending on the circumstances). In fact, fireball and lightning bolt are pretty much the only exclusively damage focused spells at 3rd level.

Comparing to 4th level spells ... an upcast fireball does 9d6, which is an average 31.5 damage on a failed save. Ice storm on the other hand does 2d8+4d6 which is 23 average but also turns a 20' radius area (up to 300' away) into difficult terrain. There aren't many damage only options at 4th level. On the other hand, wall of fire does 5d8 which is 22.5 average damage ... however, this is an opaque wall and it continues to do 5d8 every turn to creatures that are within 10' of a specified side of the wall. It is more situational but a wall of fire could outdamage a fireball if placed properly as well as providing crowd control.

Fifth level comparison could be cone of cold - fireball does 10d6 which is 35 damage average on a failed save - the 5th level cone of cold does 8d8 which is 36 average damage. Cold is a less often resisted damage type but it is a con save vs dex save. However, damage is comparable between cone of cold and an upcasted fireball/lightning bolt.

Anyway, the reason why they seem powerful is because there are no other spells that are dedicated to doing just damage. When another one comes along it does as much or more damage on average as the fireball. As a result, they don't seem out of line with the other spells ... they are just pure damage spells so they do MORE damage than other spells at a comparable level that provide vision, crowd control or other effects in addition to doing damage.

[CheddarChampion]

Making players choose between 2 equally good (but nevertheless different) spells is excellent game design. It allows players to fine-tune spell selection based on their character concept, personality etc., without making themselves weaker in the process.

If we assign a white-room score to two spells, coming up with the same value, then they will still be context sensitive:
Spell 1 does fire damage, spells 2 does ice damage.
If spell 1 can light fires and spell 2 can freeze water then spell 2 is more useful when trying to cross a river. Perfect balance is not met because of context-sensitivity.
If spell 1 can light fires and spell 2 can light fires but neither can freeze water, then perfect balance is met but the spells are different in name only. If ice lights fires then why call it ice?


This is a common fallacy of assuming that the only way to balance things is to make them completely identical.

With regard to your question, Fireball and Healing Spirit never actually compete with one another on any level

My point with Fireball vs Healing Spirit is that you can't balance what you can't compare.
You could go with only balancing healing vs healing or damage vs damage, but how does vampiric touch fit in?
In order to balance all spells you have to reduce the variety to a single type, and then you get this:

Spell 1 does 2 damage 50% of the time
Spell 2 does 1 damage 100% of the time

These spells are only balanced in a certain context again: trying to do the most damage over a long period of time where luck isn't a factor so you can expect average damage when the time limit is reached.

If you want to balance them for all contexts you get:
Spell 1 does 2 damage 50% of the time
Spell 2 does 2 damage 50% of the time
And now they're the same spell.

That's my argument for why a spell can be perfectly balanced only vs itself.
If my logic is sound you can't have spells that are perfectly balanced for all contexts that have meaningful differences.
That's why I'm fine with imbalance in favor of variety (AKA balance isn't that important) - I think the current game design is fine overall.

I'm open to the idea that I made a logical mistake. If you can point one out I'll concede the point.

[sophontteks]

There is no need to debate spell balance. Every single guide color-codes the power of spells by level, and there really isn't much debate over the winners and losers. I would love for the spells to get a balance pass, but that's not really a thing in the pen and paper world.

But apart from spell balance, I too don't like the fixes, espesially on anything that lifts concentration restrictions. The power creep is huge. It'd require a full rewrite of spellcasting to be balanced. This is the first edition that actually has a good balance between casters and non-casters, and its something I really enjoy about this edition.

[PhoenixPhyre]

There is no need to debate spell balance. Every single guide color-codes the power of spells by level, and there really isn't much debate over the winners and losers. I would love for the spells to get a balance pass, but that's not really a thing in the pen and paper world.

But apart from spell balance, I too don't like the fixes, espesially on anything that lifts concentration restrictions. The power creep is huge. It'd require a full rewrite of spellcasting to be balanced. This is the first edition that actually has a good balance between casters and non-casters, and its something I really enjoy about this edition.

A few (supporting) notes:
1. Most people don't really look at the balance of spells. They look at the thematics, as long as the balance isn't way off. Fireball is strong because fireball is iconic. They've admitted as such. Since everyone's going to use it anyway, at least make it worthwhile. Remove those outliers and balance like against like (for example guiding bolt is strong because it's on a list that almost entirely lacks good blasting spells), and the problem mostly goes away.

2. The DMG agrees with your second paragraph:

Beware of adding anything to your game that allows a character to concentrate on more than one effect at a time, use more than one reaction or bonus action per round, or attune to more than three magic items at a time. Rules and game elements that override the rules for concentration, reactions, bonus actions, and magic item attunement can seriously unbalance or overcomplicate your game.

I'd add to that "beware of blithely removing concentration from spells that require it" (as a special case of allowing people to concentrate on more than one spell). Beware is not "never do", but it means you have to be very careful about it. Concentration is a major feature for a reason.

[strangebloke]

1. Fireball, guiding bolt, lighting bolt. Each does more raw damage then it should, with the 3rd levels doing more raw damage then 4th level and most 5th and 6th level spells, while also being long range and AoE. Don't even mention upcasting them.
2. I don't call four out of twelve classes most.
3. Ehh, i don't know many spells like that. Bestoy curse, and nothing else springs to mind. You can use certain magic items to cast seperately, also allowing multiple concentration effects, but that requires you to get access to those specific items, which aren't exactly low level ones, specificly because of this.


Fireball deals more damage, but is commonly resisted and risks friendly fire. It's a great spell, but situationally many others will be better. Its a good thing for iconic spells to be generally strong picks. The normie DND players won't feel gimped, and the powergamers will enjoy beating out the normies in the edge cases. Guiding bolt is strictly better than chromatic orb, but most classes aren't choosing between those two so its a moot point.
Rogues, Barbarians, Monks, and Paladins. Fighters get loads of ASIs and also get indomitable. Nearly all the Ranger subclasses grant a save boost of some kind. Clerics and Wizards get access to other forms of protection like counterspell. Then too, lots of spells and features make it easy to stack modifiers. In high level play its very easy to be rocking a +11 or so to a save that you have a -1 to the stat in and have no proficiency. Paladin aura, bless, cloak of resistance, bardic inspiration etc etc. The epic bosses that have been printed (Moloch etc.) tend to have DC 28 saves or higher, but 'normal' legendary bosses are significantly lower. More like DC 19 (astral dreadnaught donjon) or 21 (ancient red dragon fear effect) or possibly as high as 24 (ancient red dragon breath weapon.) And that's ommitting straight condition immunities. Immunity to being charmed, immunity to fear, etc. are all obtainable if its relevant.
What spell is concentration that you really want to be able to stack with others at higher levels?

[Willie the Duck]

Many times I get the impression people doesn't realise this. Thing is, as you said, you either restrict powerful magic to NPCs, or allow players to be the wonderworkers of fairytales. There is no way to balance Gate or Wish against mundane stuff, how many attacks per turn are equivalent to the ability to cast Gate? 4? 20? 100? infinite? Its like comparing apples and concepts, so trying to balance it is futile. Its more important to first decide wether you want such magic to be available to the PCs or not, and if you allow it do your best so that it doesn't go out of hand.

It may be too late, but I feel that some of the uber-option spells -- like Wish (which originally could do almost anything, and that has only sort of been rolled back ever since) or Gate (choose a creature from the MM to do your task) could have been better balanced as 'Magic Items in all but name.' Rings of Wishes as treasure are okay, since the DM hands them out (and magic item crafting is under DM gatekeeping). The Wish spell could be some minor level of Anyspell ('you can cast a wizard spell you know but don't have prepared of Level A, wizard spell you don't know of level B, Arcane non-wizard Spell of Level C, non-arcane...') and then have a final sentence 'knowing the Wish spell allows you to craft a "True Wish" [or whatever],' which is what would allow the other things Wish currently allows. Same with Gate -- it could normally act as a level-appropriate transport or monster conjuring effect, and allow the creation (through DM-gated magic item rules) of a greater gate, with some of the greater effects that the spell currently can achieve.


I personally dont care for things like Chain Simulacra for the same reason I didn't care about Pun Pun, it's the kind of stuff that so obviously breaks the game that it won't fly unless the DM is cool with having that kind of table, and in that case, well, its their game, if that is fun for some people be my guest and play that way.

I'm at that place too, although I still do feel that upper T3 and T4 play does still overly favor the spellcasters in contribution to party success, so I do think they could have balanced things a little better.


Spell balance is pretty atrocious. The overpowered spells I can live with, but there are way too many useless spells as well. There are clear winners and losers at every level.

There are definitely winners and losers. I think Banishment would be fine as one level higher, yet True Strike, Scorching Ray, Flaming Sphere, and a bunch of other fan favorites people wanted to be good to play with underperform. Yet I knew of no one that was really champing at the bit when 5e was in the works to have Banishment, Gate, or Wish still be go-to spells.

[Dr. Cliché]

If we assign a white-room score to two spells, coming up with the same value, then they will still be context sensitive:
Spell 1 does fire damage, spells 2 does ice damage.
If spell 1 can light fires and spell 2 can freeze water then spell 2 is more useful when trying to cross a river. Perfect balance is not met because of context-sensitivity.

I didn't ask for perfect balance. I'm fully aware that it will not happen.

That doesn't mean that better balance is impossible.




If spell 1 can light fires and spell 2 can light fires but neither can freeze water, then perfect balance is met but the spells are different in name only. If ice lights fires then why call it ice?

I already addressed this in my previous post.




My point with Fireball vs Healing Spirit is that you can't balance what you can't compare.

And my point was that such spells don't necessarily need to be balanced against one another in the first place.




You could go with only balancing healing vs healing or damage vs damage, but how does vampiric touch fit in?

Vampiric Touch is an interesting one.
- It does damage, though only to a single enemy.
- The damage is quite low but can be repeated over multiple rounds (though doing so takes your action).
- Sustaining it requires Concentration.
- Using it requires a melee attack (and because of the wording, it can't be improved by Distant Spell).
- It can heal, but only you (so it does nothing if you're on full health and can't be used to revive an ally).

Personally, I would consider it a damage spell with a rider, rather than a healing spell (since the healing is pretty weak and only works on you), and aim to balance it like that.

IMO Vampiric Touch currently has far too many downsides to be worth taking (I can only assume that the healing part was overvalued). The damage is barely more than that of a Cantrip, and the pitiful healing is liable to be countered by the wizard having to wade into melee to use it.

One possible fix would have been better to make it a single melee attack that does, say, 8d6 damage and heals you for half. So it does the same damage as Fireball/Lightning Bolt, but only hits one creature and is a melee attack, but can heal you significantly if successful.
Alternatively, it could add 3d6 Necrotic damage to your normal melee attacks (healing you for half the damage). Now it's still relatively weak, but the damage is in addition to any you'd normally inflict.
If you want to keep it as close as possible to its current effect, I'd probably look at upscaling Shadow Blade and replacing some of its effects with the life-stealing mechanic.

Obviously a key aspect (regardless of which option you prefer) is playtesting, in order to help fine-tune the ability.




In order to balance all spells you have to reduce the variety to a single type

This is absolutely not necessary in any way shape or form.




That's my argument for why a spell can be perfectly balanced only vs itself.

But perfect balance is not necessary.




If my logic is sound you can't have spells that are perfectly balanced for all contexts that have meaningful differences.
That's why I'm fine with imbalance in favor of variety (AKA balance isn't that important) - I think the current game design is fine overall.

I'm open to the idea that I made a logical mistake. If you can point one out I'll concede the point.

Your logical mistake is in thinking that because perfect balance is impossible (without making every spell identical), then there is no point trying to balance spells at all.

This is something I fundamentally disagree with. I believe that one should strive to balance the spells sufficiently that every spell is at least worth taking (i.e. no spells that are nonfunctional or outclassed in the same role by comparable spells of the same or lower level).

[Aquillion]

I'm amused that you said that Banishment was just like Maze in your first point, then specifically mentioned how it isn't (Maze bypasses legendary saves, which is obviously a huge deal at high levels. Targeting a weak save doesn't help there.)

I sort-of agree on Concentration, but for a very different reason. First, it's important to underline that changing the Concentration rules would require rebalancing every single spell - it can't just be done with a houserule. That said, I sort of wish the game was designed around two concentration slots rather than one, since that would allow for more creativity in terms of which spells you combine. (Of course, that creativity would also make spells harder to balance, which is probably one reason they didn't do this.)

[PhoenixPhyre]

I sort-of agree on Concentration, but for a very different reason. First, it's important to underline that changing the Concentration rules would require rebalancing every single spell - it can't just be done with a houserule. That said, I sort of wish the game was designed around two concentration slots rather than one, since that would allow for more creativity in terms of which spells you combine. (Of course, that creativity would also make spells harder to balance, which is probably one reason they didn't do this.)

It also drastically increases complexity as people hunt for "clever combos". And requires accounting for every possible 2-spell combination, which goes as N(N-1)/2. There are something like 400 spells already, so that's ~400*200 combinations = 80,000 combinations. And each additional spell added causes a mess, because you have to go back and redo all pair-wise combinations involving that spell.

Remember, the "broken combos" of 3e frequently came from this exact combinatorial complexity. Adding new spell/ability/monster in splat book X suddenly unbalances lots of other things, because everything interacts. 5e made a conscious decision not to go down that route.

[CheddarChampion]

I didn't ask for perfect balance. I'm fully aware that it will not happen.

That doesn't mean that better balance is impossible.

I think we actually agree on most points here, I must not have typed my ideas with clarity:
I'm saying perfect balance isn't possible (with a caveat) so don't try for perfect balance.
I agree that things can be better balanced. I disagree that the current spell balance is bad. I think that's a difference of preferences.


I already addressed this in my previous post.

We'll have to agree to disagree here.
I think if spells have the exact same effects but they're described differently it takes the fun out of having one over another (especially due to removing imaginative uses).
I take it you mean that even if spells have the exact same effects but they're described differently then it can still be fun to have flavor that is flavor in name only.
Unless I'm misunderstanding again.


And my point was that such spells don't necessarily need to be balanced against one another in the first place.

I agree. I was attempting to show that you can't perfectly balance all spells through a rhetorical question because their effects can't be compared directly in my first post.


Vampiric Touch is an interesting one.
Another attempt on my part at a rhetorical question to demonstrate the layered difficulty in balancing spells that don't compare directly. It must not have seemed like one.
Here's my last attempt: how do you balance healing potions and hand crossbows?


This is absolutely not necessary in any way shape or form.
I agree this shouldn't be done. I do not mean to advocate for this approach. You can better balance in other ways. I'm just saying the only way "Perfect" balance is achievable is by having only one option - so try other ways to balance any given spells.


But perfect balance is not necessary.
I agree.


Your logical mistake is in thinking that because perfect balance is impossible (without making every spell identical), then there is no point trying to balance spells at all.

This is something I fundamentally disagree with. I believe that one should strive to balance the spells sufficiently that every spell is at least worth taking (i.e. no spells that are nonfunctional or outclassed in the same role by comparable spells of the same or lower level).
See the top of this comment - I agree with this except I think the current balance is good enough to have fun with.

Are we in agreement?

[Dr. Cliché]

I think we actually agree on most points here, I must not have typed my ideas with clarity:
I'm saying perfect balance isn't possible (with a caveat) so don't try for perfect balance.
I agree that things can be better balanced. I disagree that the current spell balance is bad. I think that's a difference of preferences.

I don't think the current spell balance is too bad, but I do think there are quite a few 'dud' spells that could do with a look.




We'll have to agree to disagree here.
I think if spells have the exact same effects but they're described differently it takes the fun out of having one over another (especially due to removing imaginative uses).
I take it you mean that even if spells have the exact same effects but they're described differently then it can still be fun to have flavor that is flavor in name only.
Unless I'm misunderstanding again.

Yeah, I think I must have explained myself poorly here as I'm actually arguing the opposite of that. :smalltongue:

I was saying that two spells can be (reasonably) balanced against one another without needing to have the exact same effect.

To put it another way, I don't think that improved balance necessitates homogenisation of spells.




Another attempt on my part at a rhetorical question to demonstrate the layered difficulty in balancing spells that don't compare directly. It must not have seemed like one.

Fair enough, though I was trying to illustrate that comparisons can still be made. There are spells that make for reasonable juxtapositions to Vampiric Touch, even if they're imperfect.

What's more, even an imperfect comparison may be sufficient to reveal important information about a spell.




Here's my last attempt: how do you balance healing potions and hand crossbows?

I think this is something that we agree on (at least broadly) - in that some things simply do not need to be balanced. In this case, I don't think there would be any possible way to balance the two as they serve entirely different purposes and don't really compete with each other on any level.




I agree this shouldn't be done. I do not mean to advocate for this approach. You can better balance in other ways. I'm just saying the only way "Perfect" balance is achievable is by having only one option - so try other ways to balance any given spells.

Yeah, this is why I don't advocate for perfect balance.




See the top of this comment - I agree with this except I think the current balance is good enough to have fun with.


Oh, I absolutely agree that the balance is good enough to have fun with. I just think that there are still improvements to be made.




Are we in agreement?

It seems so, yeah. :smallsmile:

[MrStabby]

For me, balance comes down to "would two optimisers chose different spells for a class?"

This has a range from all the same spells, through mostly the same spells to a few common spells to no spells in common at all.

Essentially I feel one of the issues with 5th edition is that a lot of characters feel mechanically similar - a "good" shift is one that to me makes more different options played. For example I have never seen lightning bolt played at a table (DM throwing it at a party aside) - fireball is easier to hit more things with and you don't really need two level 3 area of effect damage spells. Even great spells can show weaknesses.

If you are playing with optimisers are you going to keep up with a wizard if you consciously chose not to take shield, fireball, polymorph, banishment, wall of force... the answer is no, although not by much. Lightning bolt is sometimes worth having over fireball and greater invisibility isn't a bad spell either.

[Sigreid]

For me, balance comes down to "would two optimisers chose different spells for a class?"

This has a range from all the same spells, through mostly the same spells to a few common spells to no spells in common at all.

Essentially I feel one of the issues with 5th edition is that a lot of characters feel mechanically similar - a "good" shift is one that to me makes more different options played. For example I have never seen lightning bolt played at a table (DM throwing it at a party aside) - fireball is easier to hit more things with and you don't really need two level 3 area of effect damage spells. Even great spells can show weaknesses.

If you are playing with optimisers are you going to keep up with a wizard if you consciously chose not to take shield, fireball, polymorph, banishment, wall of force... the answer is no, although not by much. Lightning bolt is sometimes worth having over fireball and greater invisibility isn't a bad spell either.

My evoker has fireball and lightning bolt both memorized because of encounters with resistant enemies.

[Captain Panda]

Many of the most problematic spells of earlier editions were nerfed, but not the most broken ones, like Wish (which is in some ways now better, especially with Wish/Simulacrum), Gate, Astral Projection, and Shapechange. On top of this, some spells such as Banishment have gotten better than in the past, and Banishment in particular because of the generally weak save it targets lets you cast essentially cast Maze out of a 4th-level slot (Maze too is essentially unchanged from 3.5e).


Level 9 spells should be overpowered. This criticism is pretty baseless, and astral projection is not a strong spell. You left out True Polymorph, which is likely the strongest spell of the edition, tied with wish.


What all this leads to is that playing as a caster means your contributions can either be:

a) using spell slots for blasting, which results in expending limited resources to do less damage than the barbarian can do for free, just like in previous editions, or


That's just false. The barbarian's single target damage is better, yes, but the barbarian is limited to just that. The caster has far superior damage in an AoE situation. Different strengths for different classes.



b) using the same three or four spells that are actually good over and over again because WotC forgot to properly nerf them, which gets old. Essentially, spells now fell very inconsistent in power level, especially at higher levels. Why should Maze be an 8th-level spell when Banishment does the same thing at lower level, and has a 'Does Not Return' clause for outsiders? Why should Fire Storm be a 7th-level spell when Wall of Fire is a 4th-level? Why is Haste all but unchanged, or Anti-Life Shell for that matter?


You don't give any particular reason these spells in particular are problems. Banishment is a nice spell, but it takes on creature out of the fight. Know what else does that? Tasha's Hideous Laughter. Which is level 1. It targets a worse save, but it's also three levels lower. Banishment is nice, but it's not even close to the most overpowered spell. It does not require fixing. Maze is level 8 because it doesn't offer a saving throw and cannot be escaped easily even with legendary resistance, because it requires a check.



The only fixes I see for this problem are either nerfing the best spells so that all casting is weak or making weak spells better to give casters more options, and both are less than satisfying.

I don't see a problem that needs fixing.



Second, there are saves. Having six separate saves and not getting arbitrary bonuses to four of them (unless one is a high-level monk) means that a 20th-level character might have penalties, not bonuses, to several important saves, and while I get the whole bounded accuracy idea of this edition, this makes one feel like little progress has been made over the course of one's career. Why would one become a mighty hero if they still have -1 to their all-important Wisdom Save and can still be pushed around by low-level spellcasters? I imagine that a fix for this could include using your proficiency bonus for all saves, getting expertise in the ones that your class specialises in, and then increasing all save DCs. This way, save bonuses aren't ridiculous even at their best, and one isn't stuck failing every save even on something they're strong in by high level.


Alternatively, don't dump wisdom.



Then there is the problem of Legendary Resistance. The whole point of playing a caster is that you are always gambling with resources, but the ability of anything to automatically make its save removes the gamble entirely until those resistances are used up, which becomes the dominant pattern of battle, especially boss fights, at mid to high levels. It forces one to metagame and not use good spells until the resistances are gone, and diminishes a player's autonomy and decision-making. Perhaps this could be fixed by letting powerful creatures reroll 1s, or give themselves advantage on saves that are important, but giving the DM an arbitrary 'No' button feels unfair. (Legendary Resistance is also useless against Maze, which uses an ability check, not a save, making Maze even more powerful in contrast to other spells.)

In a game where there are abilities that shut a single creature down, legendary resistance is a good way to make epic creatures feel like bosses and not chumps who get dropped in the first round. Also, you yourself asked what the point of maze is when you have banishment. You just answered your own question.


Now, I like concentration. I think it makes sense. It works effectively to limit the number of buffs that can be accessed at any one time, and gives martial classes a snowball's chance to debuff casters without the need for Dispel Magic. However, the fact that a caster only ever gets one concentration slot severely hampers every aspect of casting, especially with how easy even that is to lose in combat. This affects different classes unequally, and hits Druids especially hard, as their spell list has [Concentration, up to ---] on nearly every good spell, and many spells that really don't need it.


I mean, I play druids and agree that they could use a couple more spells that don't require concentration, but druids are just fine as it is. Concentration avoids the tedious process of stacking buffs pre-fight. The good far outweighs the bad.

[Whit]

My issue is that higher lvl encounter creatures 10> will have far better saves and resistance and the damage potential drops significantly.
Examples. Fireball ice storm lgt bolt etc roll save take 1/2 damage then roll dice which is 3.5 per die so your damage is 1/2 twice. Then since most higher lvl main encounters undead dragons fiends etc have resistance or immunity your damage spells are even less.

Example my 8d6 fireball is either failed save 28 dam, Saved 14, resistance take away more.

[NaughtyTiger]

My issue is that higher lvl encounter creatures 10> will have far better saves and resistance and the damage potential drops significantly.
Examples. Fireball ice storm lgt bolt etc roll save take 1/2 damage then roll dice which is 3.5 per die so your damage is 1/2 twice. Then since most higher lvl main encounters undead dragons fiends etc have resistance or immunity your damage spells are even less.

Example my 8d6 fireball is either failed save 28 dam, Saved 14, resistance take away more.

don't use a 3rd level spell against a CR 10 creature?
don't use an area affect spell against a single creature?
don't use a fire spell against a fire resistant creature?
don't use a spell that targets the creatures strongest save?

[Aquillion]

My evoker has fireball and lightning bolt both memorized because of encounters with resistant enemies.I feel like while you can do this, it often makes more sense to just put different elements in different levels. Resistance is rare enough that you can just shift up or down a level in terms of what spells you're using when it crops up, and you also get the versatility of having different levels of power to pull out in other situations, plus more space for utility spells or alternate approaches.

Also, you can just put a debuff or something in the slot where Lightning Bolt was, and use it in encounters against fire-resistant enemies, while having more versatility overall. Again, it's rare enough that you probably don't need a second level 3 damage spell unless you're really heavily into the blasting concept to the point where you don't want to memorize other spells for thematic reasons.

[Whit]

I would like to see someone’s honest spell list for a lvl 15 wizard and then let’s see his damage potential.

[diplomancer]

One point reading this thread made me realize is that allowing more than one concentration slot creates a lot more of potential havoc than taking out the concentration requirement of some particular spells.

If you allow to concentrate on 2 spells the amount of possible combinations is staggering, if the DM takes out the concentration from some spells he feels shouldn't have it, all he has to realize is possible interactions of those particular spells (and maybe create a particular group for those spells, say, focused spells-that you can have only one of also- so that you cant cast all the now-concentration free spells and another concentration spell on top of that).

[Whit]

I would suggest that damaging spells should be spell attack to hit and do damage as written which will normally be 1/2 anyway by rolling. And non damaging spells should be saving throws.
So fireball etc spells SA to hit each and roll your 8d6

[MeeposFire]

I would suggest that damaging spells should be spell attack to hit and do damage as written which will normally be 1/2 anyway by rolling. And non damaging spells should be saving throws.
So fireball etc spells SA to hit each and roll your 8d6

Funny enough that is kind of how 4e did it though it also had you make attack rolls for the non-damaging attacks too. You would roll to attack against either AC, fort, ref, or will depending on what kind of effect it was. This went for magical abilities and weapon attacks.

[Sigreid]

I feel like while you can do this, it often makes more sense to just put different elements in different levels. Resistance is rare enough that you can just shift up or down a level in terms of what spells you're using when it crops up, and you also get the versatility of having different levels of power to pull out in other situations, plus more space for utility spells or alternate approaches.

Also, you can just put a debuff or something in the slot where Lightning Bolt was, and use it in encounters against fire-resistant enemies, while having more versatility overall. Again, it's rare enough that you probably don't need a second level 3 damage spell unless you're really heavily into the blasting concept to the point where you don't want to memorize other spells for thematic reasons.

I can only say it's come up often enough in the current campaign to make it worth it. I do have a mix of damage, control and miscellaneous utility spells. It might be worth mentioning that I don't memorize utility spells that do something someone else in the party can do for us without magic. Also, currently my evoker is level 13 with a 20 intelligence. He's got room in his list for two different 3rd level AOE spells to do his primary job...neutralizing the yard trash enemies so the rest of the party can focus on the more powerful targets.

[Mith]

A thought on Legendary Resistance: What if instead of outright negation, the monster has a pool of say 10 points/Lendary Resistance replaced that is spent to bring a savinv throw up to the Save DC+1? So all failed Saving throws will burn through this reserve, but not at a regular 3/day.

[Max_Killjoy]

I wonder if it would be better to have a kind of "magical combat" setup with spell to-hit, spell AC, spell special moves, spell resistance, etc, instead of saving throws... and everyone gets some magical AC and defense and so on, spellcasters are better at it, but there are Feats to make non-casters better at it as well.

That's probably a different system entirely, though.

[PhantomSoul]

I wonder if it would be better to have a kind of "magical combat" setup with spell to-hit, spell AC, spell special moves, spell resistance, etc, instead of saving throws... and everyone gets some magical AC and defense and so on, spellcasters are better at it, but there are Feats to make non-casters better at it as well.

That's probably a different system entirely, though.

Kind of sounds like pokemon but boosted, so I can see it working pretty well if the game gets adapted/remade with that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I wonder if it would be better to have a kind of "magical combat" setup with spell to-hit, spell AC, spell special moves, spell resistance, etc, instead of saving throws... and everyone gets some magical AC and defense and so on, spellcasters are better at it, but there are Feats to make non-casters better at it as well.

That's probably a different system entirely, though.

Sounds way too complicated for my taste. One of 5e's guiding principles is simplicity. Keep the action flowing, and re-use the same pieces wherever possible. Switching into "spell combat mode" would stink, especially as a DM who might have 4-5 mobs on the field that need to handle that sub-mechanic.

[Max_Killjoy]

Sounds way too complicated for my taste. One of 5e's guiding principles is simplicity. Keep the action flowing, and re-use the same pieces wherever possible. Switching into "spell combat mode" would stink, especially as a DM who might have 4-5 mobs on the field that need to handle that sub-mechanic.

It's kinda it's own separate system now, as it is in 5e.

I was trying to think of a way it could be similar to other combat. If you look at HERO, it has separate values for "mental" combat (going back to it's superheroic roots), but they all work VERY similarly to how physical combat works.

And by having something with some scaling in it, instead of all-or-nothing, you can scale the big-bad up, instead of the way an often all-or-nothing setup forces major threats to be, um, aller or nothinger.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It's kinda it's own separate system now, as it is in 5e.

I was trying to think of a way it could be similar to other combat. If you look at HERO, it has separate values for "mental" combat (going back to it's superheroic roots), but they all work VERY similarly to how physical combat works.

And by having something with some scaling in it, instead of all-or-nothing, you can scale the big-bad up, instead of the way an often all-or-nothing setup forces major threats to be, um, aller or nothinger.

Spell resistance was a thing in 3e. It sucked, because it added yet another roll to resolve an action. As for the rest of it--everyone does have their own magical defense, and it scales if it's something you're good at. That last part is important. Because otherwise you're on a treadmill. A high-power caster hitting a weak save of a target should have a good chance. And for most monsters, that saving throw modifier is exactly the same as their ability modifier, which is right there. If I have to reference 3 completely separate, derived numbers per target hit, I'd go crazy.

A fireball might hit 6 people. As it stands, I only need to roll once for each of them, and if they're identical creatures I can do that in bulk. As a caster, I only ever have two numbers to track. All spells use the same DC/ATK numbers. And it's always class-based (unless you go crazy multiclassing). And if it's an attack roll spell, it's against the same AC as any other attack.

This means that your idea would involve

Everyone having a slate of new features that only take effect when engaging in "spell combat".
Everyone having at least 1 new (and probably more) statistic: magical AC.
Everyone having varying degrees of spell resistance, which requires another roll per result.

No thanks. It's just fine how it is.

Edit: and you can't just dump saving throws--there are tons of non-spell effects that cause them. So you'd either need to cram those into "spell combat" (thus muddying it horribly) or keep the whole extra system.

[Aquillion]

I would like to see someone’s honest spell list for a lvl 15 wizard and then let’s see his damage potential.This (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GvcTLXGHeSovGWFKTJRXMjThOfLUTxZRF9XJO3Yx-tI/edit#gid=1835990306) might help.

DPR for melee builds is complicated (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d-9xDdath8kX_v7Rpts9JFIJwIG3X0-dDUtfax14NT0/edit#gid=128926737); also see this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?375185-Class-Comparisons-for-Ranged-Damage).

The simple answer is that if you want to compete with non-spell damage output, you need to stack a concentration damage spell (Animate Objects, which isn't on that chart, is actually the best choice, but is vulnerable to AOE and doesn't do magical damage; Bigby's Hand is a good alternative) with non-concentration spells (I'm fond of Faithful Hound, but Fireball is good for immediate AOE damage.) Bards can also bring out Dissonant Whispers, which is amazing with Animate Objects because you can eg. surround an enemy with flying needles and then force them to eat all their attacks of opportunity.

Calculating damage potential is tricky for casters, though, because a lot of situational stuff comes up. Animate Objects is the best spell in the game in terms of pure damage, say, but if the enemy is throwing around a lot of AOEs, it won't last long. Faithful Hound does great damage over time without requiring concentration, but only if you can force the enemy to stay near it. And so on.

[Max_Killjoy]

Spell resistance was a thing in 3e. It sucked, because it added yet another roll to resolve an action. As for the rest of it--everyone does have their own magical defense, and it scales if it's something you're good at. That last part is important. Because otherwise you're on a treadmill. A high-power caster hitting a weak save of a target should have a good chance. And for most monsters, that saving throw modifier is exactly the same as their ability modifier, which is right there. If I have to reference 3 completely separate, derived numbers per target hit, I'd go crazy.

A fireball might hit 6 people. As it stands, I only need to roll once for each of them, and if they're identical creatures I can do that in bulk. As a caster, I only ever have two numbers to track. All spells use the same DC/ATK numbers. And it's always class-based (unless you go crazy multiclassing). And if it's an attack roll spell, it's against the same AC as any other attack.

This means that your idea would involve

Everyone having a slate of new features that only take effect when engaging in "spell combat".
Everyone having at least 1 new (and probably more) statistic: magical AC.
Everyone having varying degrees of spell resistance, which requires another roll per result.

No thanks. It's just fine how it is.

Edit: and you can't just dump saving throws--there are tons of non-spell effects that cause them. So you'd either need to cram those into "spell combat" (thus muddying it horribly) or keep the whole extra system.

I don't think you're picturing what I'm picturing.

When I say resistance to spells, I don't mean rolled spell resistance like 3e necessarily. And obviously the extant defenses (saves, in this case) don't scale well, or you wouldn't need Legendary Resistance in the first place. And right now, you have wizard vs wizard as pretty much classic "rocket tag", or just "you lose" once one of them can't cast sufficient Counterspell or whatever anymore.

But I'm not sure it would ever work with D&D, especially given the sacred cows it might have to slaughter.

[Rukelnikov]

I wonder if it would be better to have a kind of "magical combat" setup with spell to-hit, spell AC, spell special moves, spell resistance, etc, instead of saving throws... and everyone gets some magical AC and defense and so on, spellcasters are better at it, but there are Feats to make non-casters better at it as well.

That's probably a different system entirely, though.

You can replace the saves for AC and have the Wizard roll to hit against it:

a 1st lvl wizard with 16 Int has a dc of 13, against someone with Str +0, that is a 60% chance for the spell to go thru.

to keep the same chance, and stick to 5e formulas, said wizard would attack with a +5 modifier, just as if he was casting a Firebolt.

60% chance in a d20 means 9 and up.

9 + 5 = 14.

This means give everyone an "attribute AC" of 14 + attribute + proficiency and have the caster roll against it. It's also good for the "players make all the rolls" approach that some people like.


Spell resistance was a thing in 3e.

It was also a thing in 2e, though it was % based back then, like Drows had 50% magic resistance, meaning you flipped a coin to see whether a spell affected them or not, even if you were a 20th level wizard casting at a Drow commoner.

5e's Magic Resistance is faster than both, but IMO is the least powerful of the MR incarnations.


I don't think you're picturing what I'm picturing.

When I say resistance to spells, I don't mean rolled spell resistance like 3e necessarily. And obviously the extant defenses (saves, in this case) don't scale well, or you wouldn't need Legendary Resistance in the first place. And right now, you have wizard vs wizard as pretty much classic "rocket tag", or just "you lose" once one of them can't cast sufficient Counterspell or whatever anymore.

But I'm not sure it would ever work with D&D, especially given the(?)

IIRC 3e had rules for magic duels, I think it was in Magic of Faerun. It didn't have spell maneuvers or feints that I remember though.

[Whit]

Yes, wish is quite potent. Cast any spell lvl 8< and it only cast as 1 action and verbal only. So any spell that has Somatic or Material or a casting time greater than an action can be cast in 1 action
Now for only the damage aspect of Spells. It’s pretty horrendous. First, even before Saving throws you roll dice which are 1/2 the damage and then saves for 1/2 damage is another 1/2. And pretty much solid at lvl 10 and gets better> lvls not including resistance.

A simple example and I’ll use 10d6 over the 8d6.
1. 10d6 Failed save no resistance is 35 damage
2. 10d6 Saved is 5d6 is 17.5 damage
3. 10d6 saves & resistance, is well, not worth mentioning.
4. Now if we say yes damage sucks individually but the ae will hit more targets so 17.5 against 5 targets = 87.5 damage saved and 35x 5 targets is 175 damage.
5. True. But let’s look at this. Against individual targets a spell damage sucks fir wizards. The wizard is forced to be more if a support cast than a single target damage dealer.
Plus the fact that rolling dice and saving throws is a double whammy against the damage. roll 1/2 the damage dice and then reduce it by 1/2 again based on roll average

And when you add the amount of damage spells you have in conjunction with utility spells your really forced into that support role only.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yes, wish is quite potent. Cast any spell lvl 8< and it only cast as 1 action and verbal only. So any spell that has Somatic or Material or a casting time greater than an action can be cast in 1 action
Now for only the damage aspect of Spells. It’s pretty horrendous. First, even before Saving throws you roll dice which are 1/2 the damage and then saves for 1/2 damage is another 1/2. And pretty much solid at lvl 10 and gets better> lvls not including resistance.

A simple example and I’ll use 10d6 over the 8d6.
1. 10d6 Failed save no resistance is 35 damage
2. 10d6 Saved is 5d6 is 17.5 damage
3. 10d6 saves & resistance, is well, not worth mentioning.
4. Now if we say yes damage sucks individually but the ae will hit more targets so 17.5 against 5 targets = 87.5 damage saved and 35x 5 targets is 175 damage.
5. True. But let’s look at this. Against individual targets a spell damage sucks fir wizards. The wizard is forced to be more if a support cast than a single target damage dealer.
Plus the fact that rolling dice and saving throws is a double whammy against the damage. roll 1/2 the damage dice and then reduce it by 1/2 again based on roll average

And when you add the amount of damage spells you have in conjunction with utility spells your really forced into that support role only.

Fireball and other AoE damage spells are much more useful than trying to be a primary single-target damage dealer. Since 5e is much more friendly to using hordes of low-level creatures, a single fireball can still clear the terrain incredibly well even at high levels. Everyone should play to their strengths. A rogue can't handle hordes very well at all. Fighters are a bit better, but Paladins are most effective against single targets.

Note: everyone uses dice, and the variance is the lowest for those big-piles-of-dice spells. So they're pretty much guaranteed to get near 50% of the max damage. The number of times I've seen someone crit with a greatsword and get like 5 total damage on the dice (before the static)...

And for single-target damage, use attack roll spells when possible.

[DrLoveMonkey]

Fireball and other AoE damage spells are much more useful than trying to be a primary single-target damage dealer. Since 5e is much more friendly to using hordes of low-level creatures, a single fireball can still clear the terrain incredibly well even at high levels. Everyone should play to their strengths. A rogue can't handle hordes very well at all. Fighters are a bit better, but Paladins are most effective against single targets.

Note: everyone uses dice, and the variance is the lowest for those big-piles-of-dice spells. So they're pretty much guaranteed to get near 50% of the max damage. The number of times I've seen someone crit with a greatsword and get like 5 total damage on the dice (before the static)...

And for single-target damage, use attack roll spells when possible.

I have to second this, both playing in and DMing high level campaigns I’ve seen a single fireball deal several hundred damage in total. Used in a fifth level slot and overcharged by the evo wizard, but still it cleared out over a dozen enemies in one shot. I actually started using enemy numbers in the range of 20-30 just because I knew after turn 1 there’d be less than 10 left, so it wasn’t too painful. If you take elemental adept (fire) you deal even more damage and bypass fire resistance too.

They weren’t exactly a slouch in single target damage either, disintegrate did some serious work.

Still though, I think the most impressive thing he did was one-shot 12 treants with a single meteor swarm. Or possibly when he slayed a dozen black Slaad with one meteor swarm...or maybe when both he and his simulacrum double meteor swarmed and then followed up with double overcharged fireballs...

Either way, blasting is good. It keeps up with most martial classes in single target Danae without rolling to hit, and blows them to smithereens in AoE damage with fireball alone.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I have to second this, both playing in and DMing high level campaigns I’ve seen a single fireball deal several hundred damage in total. Used in a fifth level slot and overcharged by the evo wizard, but still it cleared out over a dozen enemies in one shot. I actually started using enemy numbers in the range of 20-30 just because I knew after turn 1 there’d be less than 10 left, so it wasn’t too painful. If you take elemental adept (fire) you deal even more damage and bypass fire resistance too.

They weren’t exactly a slouch in single target damage either, disintegrate did some serious work.

Still though, I think the most impressive thing he did was one-shot 12 treants with a single meteor swarm. Or possibly when he slayed a dozen black Slaad with one meteor swarm...or maybe when both he and his simulacrum double meteor swarmed and then followed up with double overcharged fireballs...

Either way, blasting is good. It keeps up with most martial classes in single target Danae without rolling to hit, and blows them to smithereens in AoE damage with fireball alone.

As well, there's something just super satisfying about rolling huge handfulls of dice for damage. The one time a level 20 rogue wielding a +2d8 weapon rolled a crit with sneak attack...(3d8 (rapier + 2d8) + 10d6)x2 is a lot of dice. 26 to be precise. I watch my players' eyes light up when they get those big-dice crits, even if the total damage isn't that huge.

[DrLoveMonkey]

As well, there's something just super satisfying about rolling huge handfulls of dice for damage. The one time a level 20 rogue wielding a +2d8 weapon rolled a crit with sneak attack...(3d8 (rapier + 2d8) + 10d6)x2 is a lot of dice. 26 to be precise. I watch my players' eyes light up when they get those big-dice crits, even if the total damage isn't that huge.

Yes, that’s good. Also why I had to give the boss of the campaign over 1,000 health and a 50hp/round regen in spite of them also being a super full caster, lol.

[Whit]

Yet your examples for meteor swarm and disintegrate. 9th lvl 1 spell only which is mighty indeed but only once and disintegrate at highest lvl 2 slots.
Save fir half and then roll dice which is another 1/2.

[Rukelnikov]

Yet your examples for meteor swarm and disintegrate. 9th lvl 1 spell only which is mighty indeed but only once and disintegrate at highest lvl 2 slots.
Save fir half and then roll dice which is another 1/2.

Rolling dice is not 1/2 because there is no value to divide. If you always expect max damage in everything, go evocator or tempest cleric or both.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Rolling dice is not 1/2 because there is no value to divide. If you always expect max damage in everything, go evocator or tempest cleric or both.

And save for half is better than missing for none like attacks. Everyone has a "miss chance". Everyone rolls for damage.

[Rukelnikov]

And save for half is better than missing for none like attacks. Everyone has a "miss chance". Everyone rolls for damage.

Yeah, if you can get 3 or more creatures in your area of effect you will generally deal much more reliable damage.

[DrLoveMonkey]

Yet your examples for meteor swarm and disintegrate. 9th lvl 1 spell only which is mighty indeed but only once and disintegrate at highest lvl 2 slots.
Save fir half and then roll dice which is another 1/2.

Right, right, but check out what a fighter or rogue can do for free at level 20. As a fighter you've got 4 attacks with a greatsword. If they all hit that's 8d6, 3.5 damage each for the roll, so that's 28, we'll say 35 because one might crit and you might get some mileage out of your fighting style, and then add on the static damage of 5x4, which is 20 for a total of 55 damage. Now lets do a rogue, if they get their sneak attack off and hit with their shortsword they're rocking 11d6 of damage, so that's 38.5 rolled, plus a static mod of 5, so that gives us 43.5.

Now lets look at meteor swarm. We have a base of 40d6 damage, which gives us 140 damage, +5 if he's an evo wizard for 145. The single target difference alone is massive. Now I know they might save for half, but the rogue might straight up miss, so when they save for half against your spell you still deal 70 damage, when the rogue deals 0. That's just on a single target though, when MS can hit dozens, at which point the wizard is going to do more damage with one spell than the fighter is going to do in several whole sessions combined.

Disintegrate at that level can be cast another 5 times per day, once for the two 6th level slots, and then upcast for two 7th and one 8th, if you've already used meteor swarm. At those levels it deals an average of 75-82. Still more than the fighter and almost double the rogue. After all of that, finally you drop down to having to use something like an upcast fireball for 32 damage, or 37 if you're an evo wizard.


That's high level, but the same kind of thing happens at low level. When a wizard first gets fireball the fighter is only doing 2 attacks, so when fireball deals 28 damage in a huge radius the fighter is only dealing 22 to a single target. So, when a wizard wants to he's got better single target damage than the fighter or rogue, just not forever if you're doing like 4 encounters per day, and he's got AoE damage that makes them weep with jealousy, and on top of that he's got access to all the utility that comes with being able to cast spells like Polymorph.

EDIT: Also that's not counting recurring damage from spells like Cloud of Daggers, which is only a level 2 spell and can catapult the wizard way ahead in single target damage again.

[Sigreid]

Right, right, but check out what a fighter or rogue can do for free at level 20. As a fighter you've got 4 attacks with a greatsword. If they all hit that's 8d6, 3.5 damage each for the roll, so that's 28, we'll say 35 because one might crit and you might get some mileage out of your fighting style, and then add on the static damage of 5x4, which is 20 for a total of 55 damage. Now lets do a rogue, if they get their sneak attack off and hit with their shortsword they're rocking 11d6 of damage, so that's 38.5 rolled, plus a static mod of 5, so that gives us 43.5.

Now lets look at meteor swarm. We have a base of 40d6 damage, which gives us 140 damage, +5 if he's an evo wizard for 145. The single target difference alone is massive. Now I know they might save for half, but the rogue might straight up miss, so when they save for half against your spell you still deal 70 damage, when the rogue deals 0. That's just on a single target though, when MS can hit dozens, at which point the wizard is going to do more damage with one spell than the fighter is going to do in several whole sessions combined.

Disintegrate at that level can be cast another 5 times per day, once for the two 6th level slots, and then upcast for two 7th and one 8th, if you've already used meteor swarm. At those levels it deals an average of 75-82. Still more than the fighter and almost double the rogue. After all of that, finally you drop down to having to use something like an upcast fireball for 32 damage, or 37 if you're an evo wizard.


That's high level, but the same kind of thing happens at low level. When a wizard first gets fireball the fighter is only doing 2 attacks, so when fireball deals 28 damage in a huge radius the fighter is only dealing 22 to a single target. So, when a wizard wants to he's got better single target damage than the fighter or rogue, just not forever if you're doing like 4 encounters per day, and he's got AoE damage that makes them weep with jealousy, and on top of that he's got access to all the utility that comes with being able to cast spells like Polymorph.

EDIT: Also that's not counting recurring damage from spells like Cloud of Daggers, which is only a level 2 spell and can catapult the wizard way ahead in single target damage again.

My experience is that the party fighter, the party monk and even the party life cleric delight in my evoker clearing the ground of the trash mobs so they can focus on the powerful opponent that I'm not able to do enough damage to to win. I have a lot of trouble with the powerful single target mobs. They have virtually no trouble with a single powerful opponent. Conversely, I can whittle down massed support mobs before they do too much damage to the others.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In general, the "caster's don't do enough single-target damage" complaint just rings hollow to me.

Casters:
* beat the pants off of martials in aoe damage. Hands down, no questions asked, full stop. If you need a horde of critters deleted, they're your go-to.
* Are widely recognized as having much more support/utility potential
* are, if not equal, not super outclassed in single-target damage if they're using spell slots for that.

Saying they should be on par in ST damage is to say that they should just be across-the-board superior. Equal in some areas, vastly above in others.

[Sigreid]

In general, the "caster's don't do enough single-target damage" complaint just rings hollow to me.

Casters:
* beat the pants off of martials in aoe damage. Hands down, no questions asked, full stop. If you need a horde of critters deleted, they're your go-to.
* Are widely recognized as having much more support/utility potential
* are, if not equal, not super outclassed in single-target damage if they're using spell slots for that.

Saying they should be on par in ST damage is to say that they should just be across-the-board superior. Equal in some areas, vastly above in others.

I was intending to communicate that the group have strengths that merge together into a greater whole. My evoker isn't useless against single targets, he's just nowhere near as good at it as the others. He excels at providing them that opportunity for the single target though.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I was intending to communicate that the group have strengths that merge together into a greater whole. My evoker isn't useless against single targets, he's just nowhere near as good at it as the others. He excels at providing them that opportunity for the single target though.

Nah, I wasn't responding to you. In fact, I didn't see that until I'd posted. I was talking about the prior posts by @Whit. I totally agree with you. Different classes have different strengths, and we can work together to overcome obstacles that stymie any one of us. And we can rejoice together in big bunches of damage dice. Unless the DM rolls them, of course.

[Sigreid]

Nah, I wasn't responding to you. In fact, I didn't see that until I'd posted. I was talking about the prior posts by @Whit. I totally agree with you. Different classes have different strengths, and we can work together to overcome obstacles that stymie any one of us. And we can rejoice together in big bunches of damage dice. Unless the DM rolls them, of course.

Seems we were responding to the same post at the same time. Hilarious!

[Rukelnikov]

In general, the "caster's don't do enough single-target damage" complaint just rings hollow to me.

Casters:
* beat the pants off of martials in aoe damage. Hands down, no questions asked, full stop. If you need a horde of critters deleted, they're your go-to.
* Are widely recognized as having much more support/utility potential
* are, if not equal, not super outclassed in single-target damage if they're using spell slots for that.

Saying they should be on par in ST damage is to say that they should just be across-the-board superior. Equal in some areas, vastly above in others.

This.

Casters are not terribly behind in single target damage compared to martials (assuming a similar lvl of optimization for both). And if they commit resources, they are likely above, the "downside" is resources are finite.

[Whit]

Exactly. If a wizard uses all his resources for disintegrate that’s 1 spell per action up to maybe 5 times and be done until long rest Now a fighter can swing 3x each action non stop
Others 2x
Rogues 1x sneak attack
Fighter at lvl 20 great sword 3 attacks 20 str .gwm +10. @x3 Str bonus 15 + gwm 30 , weapon +21 = 61 per action for as many rounds as needed. And one action surge per short rest and at 17th use it x2. So Add another 61 in one turn and at 17.
Example So one round 61. Round 2 120(action surge) round 3 120 (action surge) round 4 > 61 and you get action surge back after short rest
That -5 to hit will be irrelevant at that lvl for majority of any fights.
Now change it to range with bow +5 dex +10 sharpshooter + arrow 4. @3 attacks 15+30+12 = 57 each action

Rogue at lvl 20
Let’s say at range with bow 1 attack
Dex 5 arrow 4 sneak attack 35 averaged.
44 damage each action.

The 44 per action would be close to a fighter with sword board

The standard damage is unlimited as they don’t need spell slots.
Where as a wizard has limited spell slots and if let’s say used fir all damage and giing disintegrate it’s limited to 5 actions until long rest and then their standard each action can be fire bolt 4d10 (20) or toll thecdead 24

[Sindeloke]

I don't think you're picturing what I'm picturing.

When I say resistance to spells, I don't mean rolled spell resistance like 3e necessarily. And obviously the extant defenses (saves, in this case) don't scale well, or you wouldn't need Legendary Resistance in the first place. And right now, you have wizard vs wizard as pretty much classic "rocket tag", or just "you lose" once one of them can't cast sufficient Counterspell or whatever anymore.

But I'm not sure it would ever work with D&D, especially given the sacred cows it might have to slaughter.

Are you making sly allusions to 4e here?

As far as the Concentration mechanic goes, I do think the game could have benefited from a means for a targeted creature to take over concentration for the caster. CoDzilla buff stacking was obviously a problem, but now we have a situation where a pure support character who casts to empower allies every turn is prohibitively difficult to play. If I want to put haste on the paladin and some good AC on the rogue at the same time, that's not going to lead to broken combos and really should be an option.

[Rukelnikov]

Are you making sly allusions to 4e here?

As far as the Concentration mechanic goes, I do think the game could have benefited from a means for a targeted creature to take over concentration for the caster. CoDzilla buff stacking was obviously a problem, but now we have a situation where a pure support character who casts to empower allies every turn is prohibitively difficult to play. If I want to put haste on the paladin and some good AC on the rogue at the same time, that's not going to lead to broken combos and really should be an option.

There are ways, but very few and that "forces" you into certain choices, or availability of items (DM dependant basically), which most people would rather avoid.

It also leads to many of spells rarely seeing play, cause since you can only keep one concentration up, stuff like Flame Arrows, a classic spell, I've only seen used by one character (and only used once or twice) for RP reasons. This is my biggest gripe with the concentration mechanic.