Claims about casters having "strategic" capabilities are really mostly about wizards

[PhoenixPhyre]

In the interminable caster/martial debates, a common benchmark for "how strong martials need to be" involves pointing out certain capabilities that "casters" have and saying that martials need a way of doing those things.

But let's consider a few of them in particular.

Flight: in 5e, that means either a flying mount (something anyone can in principle get, but paladins have it the easiest), a magic item granting flight (which is available to anyone), or the fly spell. Which is only on the following lists: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Artificer. Clerics? out of luck. Druids? Can transform into something that can fly (3 levels later). Can maybe (Dm willing) summon something that can fly. But don't have native flight. And note that a large chunk of sorcerers and warlocks won't necessarily pick up fly, as their preps/slots are really really constrained. Artificers don't get it until much later if they even have room to pick it up. It's only wizards who can have a pretty good chance of having it right about level 5 (maybe level 7 or so).

Teleportation: One of three-ish spells (ignoring magic items, because again, those are available to everyone): teleport, teleport circle, and maybe transport via plants (because that has substantial limits). Teleport is only on the bard, sorcerer, and wizard list. Again, clerics are out of luck, as are druids. Teleport circle is on the bard, wizard, sorcerer, and arcana cleric[1] list. Transport via plants can kinda work, and is the only druid access to such effects. A pattern seems to be forming here...

Planar Travel: Really only one good option here. Plane Shift. Which is a bit more convenient (post Tasha's[2])--clerics, druids, sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards. And you can sorta-kinda mimic teleport circle for the low low price of 2 7th level slots. Yay.

Long-duration minionmancy: You can create undead or you can planar bind. Planar ally isn't under your control, so it doesn't really count unless your DM is bending over backward for you. Clerics can create undead, but they're not great at it. And many DMs will look askance at a cleric of a good god engaging in creating armies of the undead. Wizards (the only other class with native access, although oathbreakers and circle of spores druids also have access) can specialize in it. And eventually get free castings of it. Planar binding is actually fairly freely available: bard, cleric, druid, wizard. But only the bard and wizard have the access to also be able to summon the really good targets for it. If you go instead to the more puppeting of existing creatures (domination, et al),
- suggestion is bard/sorcerer/warlock/wizard
- geas is bard/cleric/druid/paladin/wizard
- mass suggestion is bard/sorcerer/warlock/wizard
- charm person (which is a long way from mind control, but) is bard/druid/sorcerer/warlock/wizard + trickery domain
- dominate person is bard/sorcerer/wizard + trickery domain, archfey/GOO, and 3 paladin oaths

Knock (included not because it's a great spell but because it always comes up): You guessed it, bard/sorcerer/wizard

Short-range teleportation (misty step, dimension door, arcane gate): Misty step is available to sorcerer/warlock/wizard, 1 land druid terrain, and 3 paladin oaths. Dimension door is bard, sorcerer, warlock, wizard, trickery domain, oath of vengeance (who gets it real real late). Arcane gate is sorcerer/warlock/wizard (but mostly wizard and maybe sorcerer, because it's a 6th level spell so mystic arcanum for warlocks).

Find Familiar Either a feat or...wizard-list exclusive (so the 1/3 casters can get it).

Shenanigans: Wish, simulacrum, clone, magic jar. Of the 4, only wish is available to non-wizards (also sorcerers and genie warlocks). The other 3 are wizard exclusive.

And the list goes on. The only class that has native access to all these capabilities that supposedly define the supremacy of casters is the wizard. And even the others who share a lot of them (sorcerers and warlocks) are so limited in their choices that they either won't have some of them OR will have used up most of their picks on those, hampering their other capabilities.

In essence, the crux of the supposed disparity is that wizards are out of step with the rest of the game. Not anyone else, just pretty much wizards. Bending the rest of the game to bring everyone up to that level means that no one can have any interesting features. And wizards will still dominate, because these (and similarly powerful capabilities) are just part of their enormous list of things they can pick and choose from.

[1] which didn't get republished, so it's stuck in one setting in a book that's out of print.
[2] In the PHB, clerics didn't have it. Which is ironic--the ones who are supposed to be linked to their gods couldn't go visit. But the atheist wizard could, as could the devil-serving warlock or the nature-obsessive druid. But not the holy cleric!

[MrStabby]

Well I think the most common ones I have seen have been divination spells. Spells like commune can be really high impact. And flying - the most common fly spell I have seen is polymorph. Windwalk and word of recall are poor teleportation subsitutes but are still real and still useful.

In terms of helping others at a more strategic level you get the ability to cure diseases and create food and water out of nothing. That can impact a campaign significantly.

Sending spell is probably also a "strategic" capability, as are things like animal messengers.


Edit: And Bards. Bards can get any spell.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Well I think the most common ones I have seen have been divination spells. Spells like commune can be really high impact. And flying - the most common fly spell I have seen is polymorph. Windwalk and word of recall are poor teleportation subsitutes but are still real and still useful.

In terms of helping others at a more strategic level you get the ability to cure diseases and create food and water out of nothing. That can impact a campaign significantly.

Sending spell is probably also a "strategic" capability, as are things like animal messengers.


Edit: And Bards. Bards can get any spell.

Except...those aren't the ones that are brought up in the discussions. Which is what I was going at here. And, except curing diseases, are all things wizards do best and most can't do very well at all.

Bards can only get a couple of them, and their Magical Secrets are already oversubscribed before those are included. So any particular bard might have a couple, but won't have the full set. Only wizards can reliably have the full set, especially when you look at all the ones that are wizard exclusive.

There's a huge gulf between "this is useful" and "if you don't have this, you can't interact with the setting outside of combat." And it's the latter that is claimed, that because martials don't have native flight they're just SOL. That because they don't have teleportation (and yes, the specific claim is about teleport, not any of the cheap substitutes) they're just fundamentally weaker. Etc.

No, polymorph is not a good fly spell. It's not even as good as fly, which is a pretty poor form of flight.

Part of my annoyance around this is how the goalposts are motorized--the "casters are so much better" argument bends and twists, including grasping at straws to justify things (whether that is "martials need to be mythic-class superheroes by level 10 and if you don't want to be thor you should just stop playing at 10" or "martials suck and no one should play them because casters are always better" or whatever the cause du jour might be).

[MrStabby]

Except...those aren't the ones that are brought up in the discussions. Which is what I was going at here. And, except curing diseases, are all things wizards do best and most can't do very well at all.

Bards can only get a couple of them, and their Magical Secrets are already oversubscribed before those are included. So any particular bard might have a couple, but won't have the full set. Only wizards can reliably have the full set, especially when you look at all the ones that are wizard exclusive.

There's a huge gulf between "this is useful" and "if you don't have this, you can't interact with the setting outside of combat." And it's the latter that is claimed, that because martials don't have native flight they're just SOL. That because they don't have teleportation (and yes, the specific claim is about teleport, not any of the cheap substitutes) they're just fundamentally weaker. Etc.

No, polymorph is not a good fly spell. It's not even as good as fly, which is a pretty poor form of flight.

Part of my annoyance around this is how the goalposts are motorized--the "casters are so much better" argument bends and twists, including grasping at straws to justify things (whether that is "martials need to be mythic-class superheroes by level 10 and if you don't want to be thor you should just stop playing at 10" or "martials suck and no one should play them because casters are always better" or whatever the cause du jour might be).

he amount of truth depends really on how much you are claiming. If you want to claim that wizards have more strategic options than other casters, then sure. I don't think thats a particularly controversial statement. If you want to claim that only wizards have the kind of strategic options that non casters don't then its a very different picture. Sure, wizards get brought up more because they are the clearest illustration to make a point, but someone bringing up a wizard because it is the cleaes illustration doesn't mean that other classes don't have similar capabilities.

I also think I am missing something with your attitude to this. Your stance on the bard seems to be that they can get all of these things but the opportunity cost is too high, but then seem dismissive of polymorph when its main feature as a flight spell is that its opportunity cost is so low because you were going to take it anyway/it does so many other good things.

I don't think the goalposts are really moved much at all. What is see is different people have different goalposts, so when you speak with different people at different times you get different impressions. Well that and some people are not great a articulating their concerns or do so in a more informal way than you might want.

And I don't get how I can bring these spells up in a discussion, and your response is "those aren't the ones that are brought up in discussions", but thats a different issue.

[PhoenixPhyre]

he amount of truth depends really on how much you are claiming. If you want to claim that wizards have more strategic options than other casters, then sure. I don't think thats a particularly controversial statement. If you want to claim that only wizards have the kind of strategic options that non casters don't then its a very different picture. Sure, wizards get brought up more because they are the clearest illustration to make a point, but someone bringing up a wizard because it is the cleaes illustration doesn't mean that other classes don't have similar capabilities.

I also think I am missing something with your attitude to this. Your stance on the bard seems to be that they can get all of these things but the opportunity cost is too high, but then seem dismissive of polymorph when its main feature as a flight spell is that its opportunity cost is so low because you were going to take it anyway/it does so many other good things.

I don't think the goalposts are really moved much at all. What is see is different people have different goalposts, so when you speak with different people at different times you get different impressions. Well that and some people are not great a articulating their concerns or do so in a more informal way than you might want.

And I don't get how I can bring these spells up in a discussion, and your response is "those aren't the ones that are brought up in discussions", but thats a different issue.

If you remove wizards from the picture, the entire discussion radically changes. Most of the key strategic capabilities are either class-unique OR all the classes that can get them already face strong constraints that mean that they'll only have a few of those capabilities.

Instead of "well, all casters can do <X> AND <Y> AND <Z>", it becomes "well, clerics can do <X>, druids can do <Y>, and sorcerers can do <X> XOR <Y> XOR <Z>". And that's a much more doable target. Being able to do one thing like teleporting, flying, etc is very different than the current, where you could give someone at-will flight and the immediate rejoinder would be "well, but they can't teleport/minionmancy/planeshift/etc". But the only reason why that's even plausible for anyone is that wizards can do all of those things while still having lots of spell picks left over. Even if they never find a scroll.

And those spells marked "shenanigans"? Those are a substantial fraction of the spells that make things unravel. And they're wizard unique.

The point being, it's not that casters, generally, are these mythic, world-changing beasts. Each caster class other than wizards tends to have a couple nice big things. Which is fine. Everyone should have a couple nice big things. But then wizards get everyone else's nice big things and a bunch more of their own on top. That is, the root of the caster/martial disparity is wizards. If (hypothetically) you deleted the wizard class and its spell list from the game, a large chunk of the disparity would just go away. And the rest would actually be solvable, instead of intractable. Even bards would be toned down tremendously, because they'd lose a lot of arrows in their "steal spells" quiver.

Would it completely solve the issue? No. Is it the best fix? No. But it's an illustration of where, exactly, the issue lies. There's a substantial outlier in power, power-scaling, and versatility. Clerics, for instance, don't go power-law scaling because their high-level spells aren't really all that much better than their low level ones. Neither, really, are druid spells. Many more caveats, limits, and general boundaries. Sorcerers are bounded sharply by their very limited spell picks. Warlocks are bound both by only getting 1 mystic arcanum per spell level AND only having a few slots. Bards aren't limited enough[1], but do have limits in that they're locked in once they make a pick and their native list is the weakest by far. Wizards...don't have those limits. Any of them. They have crap-tons of spells known (not as many as clerics or druids, but clerics have a much weaker list overall and a huge chunk of the druid list is concentration or very situational), the best ritual casting, AND all the powerful spells. And they're the only class that can directly translate downtime and cash into adventuring power by scribing spells. With only minor DM involvement at all. Even a single found spellbook skyrockets their versatility. So wizards end up scaling more like Level^4, where martials are roughly linear (at best) and other casters are somewhere closer to L^2 at most.

Instead of trying to find ways to match the outlier...fix the outlier. Bring them down into the range everyone else has, where there are actual binding constraints on their capabilities. Then the overall balance can be reanalyzed and possibly fixed. Until then, no fix is possible. Because anything you do will bump up wizards as well.

But there's a strong constituency for the idea that wizards are automatically destined to be the strongest class at everything and any attempt to bring them down to the pack is "destroying the game". At the core, that was the root of a lot of the hate for 4e[2]--that wizards weren't special any more. Not clerics, not druids. Wizards.

[1] Being a full caster who can cherry pick the good spells AND has expertise AND has jack of all trades AND has subclass-available martial combat capability is out of bound. But they do have to specialize--they're only broad in the abstract. Any individual bard will be much more limited. Wizards can radically transform on a daily basis.
[2] Not all of it--4e did some stupid things. And there was generalize "who moved my cheese" angst. But much of the hate boiled down to "I don't feel like a wizard because I can't dominate all aspects of the game just by picking the class at level one and taking the broken spells." The devs even said as much, that they had to repeatedly try to convince people that no, wizards aren't naturally supposed to be the strongest just by picking the class.

[Unoriginal]

Well I think the most common ones I have seen have been divination spells. Spells like commune can be really high impact.


Except...those aren't the ones that are brought up in the discussions.

I previous years, I've seen a lot of people bring up divination spells as to why casters/wizards are superior... except they've never been able to explain why those divination spells were so powerful/problem-solving/etc, as usually when they described the effects they didn't actually describe things the 5e divination spells can do.



Part of my annoyance around this is how the goalposts are motorized--the "casters are so much better" argument bends and twists, including grasping at straws to justify things (whether that is "martials need to be mythic-class superheroes by level 10 and if you don't want to be thor you should just stop playing at 10" or "martials suck and no one should play them because casters are always better" or whatever the cause du jour might be).

Not to mention, all casters but especially wizards in that kind of white room theorycrafting "casters are superior" threads have an always-correct, ever-adapting spell loadout to handle the specific challenges of the adventure they're about to face.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I previous years, I've seen a lot of people bring up divination spells as to why casters/wizards are superior... except they've never been able to explain why those divination spells were so powerful/problem-solving/etc, as usually when they described the effects they didn't actually describe things the 5e divination spells can do.


Yeah, or assume that the DM will just buy into the "but it's magic and I'm smart, so I get exactly what I want" mythos. Which is also at the heart of the "wizards are automatically better than anyone" myth.



Not to mention, all casters but especially wizards in that kind of white room theorycrafting "casters are superior" threads have an always-correct, ever-adapting spell loadout to handle the specific challenges of the adventure they're about to face.

Yeah. Even better, you'll see hyper-specific builds designed for just this scenario; change the scenario and the build changes. In more realistic scenarios, wizards are still the ones who combine
a) day-to-day flexibility in spell preparation (including not having to prepare rituals)
b) a wide array of spells known
c) and a huge list to pull from, including all the best ones

Most of those that have (a) and/or (b) don't have great spell lists, especially at higher levels, failing (c).

Thus, wizards are the most likely to actually come close to being able to Schrodinger's Wizard in more realistic scenarios. Which also makes planning around them hard--if you plan for them to take <significant capability X> and they decide not to prepare it, the party is SoL. If you don't prepare for that, then they trivialize some things, often in un-fun ways.

----

To name a few other things--forcecage is a known anti-martial-fun spell. Except...unless you're a wizard, you may struggle getting out as well. And wall of force can be brought down with disintegrate. Pity it's only on the wizard/sorcerer list. Etc.

[KorvinStarmast]

If you remove wizards from the picture, the entire discussion radically changes. NPC assassin called, he'd like that job. :smallbiggrin:


If (hypothetically) you deleted the wizard class and its spell list from the game, a large chunk of the disparity would just go away. And the rest would actually be solvable, instead of intractable. Even bards would be toned down tremendously, because they'd lose a lot of arrows in their "steal spells" quiver. The next splat book would just bloat them back up again, wouldn't it? It is Wizards of the Coast :smallwink:



At the core, that was the root of a lot of the hate for 4e[2]--that wizards weren't special any more. Not clerics, not druids. Wizards.

It is Wizards of the Coast :smallwink:It is Wizards of the Coast :smallwink:


But they do have to specialize--they're only broad in the abstract. Any individual bard will be much more limited. Glad you qualified that.

Not to mention, all casters but especially wizards in that kind of white room theorycrafting "casters are superior" threads have an always-correct, ever-adapting spell loadout to handle the specific challenges of the adventure they're about to face. Which is where the spells known limitation does help for the spells known classes.

Ritual spells probably need a re look in D&Done.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The next splat book would just bloat them back up again, wouldn't it? It is Wizards of the Coast :smallwink:


Yeah. that's one of the more frustrating things. Not sure if it's because it's called Wizards of the Coast or not, but there's this mindset that all spells, by default, belong to wizards. And only if there are really strong reasons not to give them to them do we drop them off the list. Fizban's was the ultimate there--wizards aren't even really thematically tied to dragons. Sorcerers are. So why the everliving why do wizards literally get every single one of the new spells there? And 19/21 in Tasha's, and 77/91 (basically missing out on only the healing/restoration ones) from Xanathar's.

[MrStabby]

If you remove wizards from the picture, the entire discussion radically changes. Most of the key strategic capabilities are either class-unique OR all the classes that can get them already face strong constraints that mean that they'll only have a few of those capabilities.

Instead of "well, all casters can do <X> AND <Y> AND <Z>", it becomes "well, clerics can do <X>, druids can do <Y>, and sorcerers can do <X> XOR <Y> XOR <Z>". And that's a much more doable target. Being able to do one thing like teleporting, flying, etc is very different than the current, where you could give someone at-will flight and the immediate rejoinder would be "well, but they can't teleport/minionmancy/planeshift/etc". But the only reason why that's even plausible for anyone is that wizards can do all of those things while still having lots of spell picks left over. Even if they never find a scroll.

And those spells marked "shenanigans"? Those are a substantial fraction of the spells that make things unravel. And they're wizard unique.

The point being, it's not that casters, generally, are these mythic, world-changing beasts. Each caster class other than wizards tends to have a couple nice big things. Which is fine. Everyone should have a couple nice big things. But then wizards get everyone else's nice big things and a bunch more of their own on top. That is, the root of the caster/martial disparity is wizards. If (hypothetically) you deleted the wizard class and its spell list from the game, a large chunk of the disparity would just go away. And the rest would actually be solvable, instead of intractable. Even bards would be toned down tremendously, because they'd lose a lot of arrows in their "steal spells" quiver.

Would it completely solve the issue? No. Is it the best fix? No. But it's an illustration of where, exactly, the issue lies. There's a substantial outlier in power, power-scaling, and versatility. Clerics, for instance, don't go power-law scaling because their high-level spells aren't really all that much better than their low level ones. Neither, really, are druid spells. Many more caveats, limits, and general boundaries. Sorcerers are bounded sharply by their very limited spell picks. Warlocks are bound both by only getting 1 mystic arcanum per spell level AND only having a few slots. Bards aren't limited enough[1], but do have limits in that they're locked in once they make a pick and their native list is the weakest by far. Wizards...don't have those limits. Any of them. They have crap-tons of spells known (not as many as clerics or druids, but clerics have a much weaker list overall and a huge chunk of the druid list is concentration or very situational), the best ritual casting, AND all the powerful spells. And they're the only class that can directly translate downtime and cash into adventuring power by scribing spells. With only minor DM involvement at all. Even a single found spellbook skyrockets their versatility. So wizards end up scaling more like Level^4, where martials are roughly linear (at best) and other casters are somewhere closer to L^2 at most.

Instead of trying to find ways to match the outlier...fix the outlier. Bring them down into the range everyone else has, where there are actual binding constraints on their capabilities. Then the overall balance can be reanalyzed and possibly fixed. Until then, no fix is possible. Because anything you do will bump up wizards as well.

But there's a strong constituency for the idea that wizards are automatically destined to be the strongest class at everything and any attempt to bring them down to the pack is "destroying the game". At the core, that was the root of a lot of the hate for 4e[2]--that wizards weren't special any more. Not clerics, not druids. Wizards.

[1] Being a full caster who can cherry pick the good spells AND has expertise AND has jack of all trades AND has subclass-available martial combat capability is out of bound. But they do have to specialize--they're only broad in the abstract. Any individual bard will be much more limited. Wizards can radically transform on a daily basis.
[2] Not all of it--4e did some stupid things. And there was generalize "who moved my cheese" angst. But much of the hate boiled down to "I don't feel like a wizard because I can't dominate all aspects of the game just by picking the class at level one and taking the broken spells." The devs even said as much, that they had to repeatedly try to convince people that no, wizards aren't naturally supposed to be the strongest just by picking the class.

Oh right,yeah. Well if all you are saying is wizards have the greatest access to strategic spells then yeah, sure. I dont think there will be many people that disagree with you. It seems to be one of the most orthodox beliefs in 5e.

[DrLoveMonkey]

https://youtu.be/3Oe7Q8OCm5I

Just posting that I agree wizards are the standout for this kind of thing. From necromantic hordes to making Leomunds Tiny Hut, which basically flips off every other form of keeping watch ability or safeguarding sleep, they have the spell list, the number known, and the slots per day to be the most important character of almost any group.

[Dr.Samurai]

Nice post PP.

[NichG]

Things don't have to be game-breaking shenanigans to be 'strategic' in scale... Like, anything that would correspond to something that would take a unit of 1000 soldiers or equivalent resources in modern military operations to accomplish probably can be considered strategic in nature.
If we're talking about things which are 'open-ended' though, maybe...

There's also a different category of things 'with huge setting implications'

E.g. Druid strategic capabilities:

Control Weather (8 hours, 5 mile radius effect) - destroy crops, delay armies and probably at scale even cause hundreds of casualties. Depends a bit on whether the DM ever lived in an area that periodically gets shut down by heavy snowfall, I guess.
Earthquake - basically destroy about half of a city block worth of buildings with a casting. Borderline strategic, but its equivalent in structural damage to modern non-nuclear cruise missile payloads.
Mirage Arcana - 10 day duration, 1 square mile effect. Definitely strategic in scale. Not game-breakingly powerful.
Wind Walk, Transport via Plants - long-distance transport for a small number of units. Mobility is definitely important at the strategic layer and those units can also be individually as powerful as hundreds of soldiers
Move Earth, Stone Shape - replicates the efforts of hundreds of workers, does so in safe conditions that don't require the caster to actually be able to physically reach construction sites.
Locate Creature, Scrying - not game-breaking because its hard to get it to stick, but definitely changes what is possible with regards to espionage and information gathering. Imperfect, but definitely useful - like having a good chance of landing an unremovable tracking device with at least a few miles range on anyone whose face you've ever seen.
Commune with Nature, Speak with Plants - doesn't quite hit the 1000 soldiers benchmark, but it is a small team of scouts in a can with instant updates. Like having intermittent satellite coverage of a military engagement, I'd say it probably counts.
Control Water - Slightly on the small side at only impacting a 100ft cube, but water does move, and this has a duration. Creating 20ft waves on demand every 6 seconds in large bodies of water would be a very effective attack against towns or cities on flat terrain.
Pass Without Trace - really depends on how the DM interprets 'cannot be tracked except by magical means'. Had a DM once who ran this as basically 'once you've lost eyes on the target, there's nothing short of spells that you can do to re-acquire their position unless they choose to step into your line of sight again' - basically no 'you stumble on them by searching everywhere' sorts of things possible. If its run like that, massive impact on guerilla warfare if nothing else.

Druid spells with massive setting implications:

True Resurrection - massively setting-altering. We're just a bit numb to it because its a D&D staple.
Reincarnate - similar to above, but setting altering because it makes immortality a thing. Imperfect transhumanism in a single spell. We're numb to it because campaigns tend not to last over those timescales but 'you're a 90 year old king and your heirs just died, I can give you a second reign' should at least be narratively very potent.
Regenerate - also huge setting implications. Diluted for adventurers because limb loss isn't a standard consequence of things. Depends on whether the DM is running rules-as-physics, or whether there actually are tens of thousands of people with permanent injuries around the setting.
Awaken - Well, druids have solved AI. Creating new intelligences on demand? No problem.

Meanwhile, as far as 'open-ended' stuff, its yet a different set of spells:

Planar Binding, Conjure Fey - scales with other things in the setting; if there are new kinds of Outsiders the DM introduces, these spells can make their powers accessible to the druid.
Plane Shift - open-ended in that the more potent stuff is out there in the planar cosmology, the more leverage this spell gives the druid relative to someone who doesn't have it. Plane with different rate of time passage? Plane with abundant gemstones? Plane flooded with positive energy? All become potential 'powers' that a character can collect and make use of.
Find the Path - very borderline, but there are potential shenanigans with its ability to solve arbitrary pathfinding problems between you and a known point. Requires thinking like a computer scientist to really break this I suppose, but I'd put it on a watch-list for someone using it to solve NP-hard problems or something like that.
Druidcraft - nothing seems overtly potent, but 'instantly make a flower bloom, seed pod open, etc' doesn't have any caveats for exotica like a flower that only blooms every thousand years or whatnot. This was basically a character-defining power of one of the more powerful characters from the Xanth novels.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Things don't have to be game-breaking shenanigans to be 'strategic' in scale... Like, anything that would correspond to something that would take a unit of 1000 soldiers or equivalent resources in modern military operations to accomplish probably can be considered strategic in nature.
If we're talking about things which are 'open-ended' though, maybe...

There's also a different category of things 'with huge setting implications'

E.g. Druid strategic capabilities:

Control Weather (8 hours, 5 mile radius effect) - destroy crops, delay armies and probably at scale even cause hundreds of casualties. Depends a bit on whether the DM ever lived in an area that periodically gets shut down by heavy snowfall, I guess.
Earthquake - basically destroy about half of a city block worth of buildings with a casting. Borderline strategic, but its equivalent in structural damage to modern non-nuclear cruise missile payloads.
Mirage Arcana - 10 day duration, 1 square mile effect. Definitely strategic in scale. Not game-breakingly powerful.
Wind Walk, Transport via Plants - long-distance transport for a small number of units. Mobility is definitely important at the strategic layer and those units can also be individually as powerful as hundreds of soldiers
Move Earth, Stone Shape - replicates the efforts of hundreds of workers, does so in safe conditions that don't require the caster to actually be able to physically reach construction sites.
Locate Creature, Scrying - not game-breaking because its hard to get it to stick, but definitely changes what is possible with regards to espionage and information gathering. Imperfect, but definitely useful - like having a good chance of landing an unremovable tracking device with at least a few miles range on anyone whose face you've ever seen.
Commune with Nature, Speak with Plants - doesn't quite hit the 1000 soldiers benchmark, but it is a small team of scouts in a can with instant updates. Like having intermittent satellite coverage of a military engagement, I'd say it probably counts.
Control Water - Slightly on the small side at only impacting a 100ft cube, but water does move, and this has a duration. Creating 20ft waves on demand every 6 seconds in large bodies of water would be a very effective attack against towns or cities on flat terrain.
Pass Without Trace - really depends on how the DM interprets 'cannot be tracked except by magical means'. Had a DM once who ran this as basically 'once you've lost eyes on the target, there's nothing short of spells that you can do to re-acquire their position unless they choose to step into your line of sight again' - basically no 'you stumble on them by searching everywhere' sorts of things possible. If its run like that, massive impact on guerilla warfare if nothing else.

Druid spells with massive setting implications:

True Resurrection - massively setting-altering. We're just a bit numb to it because its a D&D staple.
Reincarnate - similar to above, but setting altering because it makes immortality a thing. Imperfect transhumanism in a single spell. We're numb to it because campaigns tend not to last over those timescales but 'you're a 90 year old king and your heirs just died, I can give you a second reign' should at least be narratively very potent.
Regenerate - also huge setting implications. Diluted for adventurers because limb loss isn't a standard consequence of things. Depends on whether the DM is running rules-as-physics, or whether there actually are tens of thousands of people with permanent injuries around the setting.
Awaken - Well, druids have solved AI. Creating new intelligences on demand? No problem.

Meanwhile, as far as 'open-ended' stuff, its yet a different set of spells:

Planar Binding, Conjure Fey - scales with other things in the setting; if there are new kinds of Outsiders the DM introduces, these spells can make their powers accessible to the druid.
Plane Shift - open-ended in that the more potent stuff is out there in the planar cosmology, the more leverage this spell gives the druid relative to someone who doesn't have it. Plane with different rate of time passage? Plane with abundant gemstones? Plane flooded with positive energy? All become potential 'powers' that a character can collect and make use of.
Find the Path - very borderline, but there are potential shenanigans with its ability to solve arbitrary pathfinding problems between you and a known point. Requires thinking like a computer scientist to really break this I suppose, but I'd put it on a watch-list for someone using it to solve NP-hard problems or something like that.
Druidcraft - nothing seems overtly potent, but 'instantly make a flower bloom, seed pod open, etc' doesn't have any caveats for exotica like a flower that only blooms every thousand years or whatnot. This was basically a character-defining power of one of the more powerful characters from the Xanth novels.

That's just all playing semantic games with "strategic". If you're granting extra-spell narrative power to things...well...that's your problem. You can give similar narrative powers to just about anything with as much rules backing. It doesn't really play into the greater caster/martial debate because it doesn't (or rarely) affects play, which was the whole point.

The whole point is that solving a problem right requires identifying the root cause. And I was showing that all the other classes, operationally, exist on a nice, fairly dense spectrum. Fighters are similar to barbarians, who are similar to paladins, who are similar to clerics, who are similar to druids and sorcerers. And then, WAY OUT THERE, there are wizards. And it's wizards who are used as the touchpoint, the "place everyone else has to meet or they're useless". When they're the outlier in many ways. Unless you fix wizards, you can't fix the disparity without causing more issues.

Wizards (more specifically the design of the wizard class) is the root of the problematic caster martial disparity. Take them away and it mostly goes away (at least until DMs start reading extra capabilities into spells "because magic", which no redesign can fix). It reduces the problem from massive (or so the constant complaints would have one believe) to, well, mostly tolerable. And way easier to fix. Because hitting "on par out of combat with the Cleric" is way easier and less disruptive than hitting "on par with Schrodinger's wizard who always has the right spells prepared for every situation."

[MrStabby]

Things don't have to be game-breaking shenanigans to be 'strategic' in scale... Like, anything that would correspond to something that would take a unit of 1000 soldiers or equivalent resources in modern military operations to accomplish probably can be considered strategic in nature.
If we're talking about things which are 'open-ended' though, maybe...

There's also a different category of things 'with huge setting implications'

E.g. Druid strategic capabilities:

Control Weather (8 hours, 5 mile radius effect) - destroy crops, delay armies and probably at scale even cause hundreds of casualties. Depends a bit on whether the DM ever lived in an area that periodically gets shut down by heavy snowfall, I guess.
Earthquake - basically destroy about half of a city block worth of buildings with a casting. Borderline strategic, but its equivalent in structural damage to modern non-nuclear cruise missile payloads.
Mirage Arcana - 10 day duration, 1 square mile effect. Definitely strategic in scale. Not game-breakingly powerful.
Wind Walk, Transport via Plants - long-distance transport for a small number of units. Mobility is definitely important at the strategic layer and those units can also be individually as powerful as hundreds of soldiers
Move Earth, Stone Shape - replicates the efforts of hundreds of workers, does so in safe conditions that don't require the caster to actually be able to physically reach construction sites.
Locate Creature, Scrying - not game-breaking because its hard to get it to stick, but definitely changes what is possible with regards to espionage and information gathering. Imperfect, but definitely useful - like having a good chance of landing an unremovable tracking device with at least a few miles range on anyone whose face you've ever seen.
Commune with Nature, Speak with Plants - doesn't quite hit the 1000 soldiers benchmark, but it is a small team of scouts in a can with instant updates. Like having intermittent satellite coverage of a military engagement, I'd say it probably counts.
Control Water - Slightly on the small side at only impacting a 100ft cube, but water does move, and this has a duration. Creating 20ft waves on demand every 6 seconds in large bodies of water would be a very effective attack against towns or cities on flat terrain.
Pass Without Trace - really depends on how the DM interprets 'cannot be tracked except by magical means'. Had a DM once who ran this as basically 'once you've lost eyes on the target, there's nothing short of spells that you can do to re-acquire their position unless they choose to step into your line of sight again' - basically no 'you stumble on them by searching everywhere' sorts of things possible. If its run like that, massive impact on guerilla warfare if nothing else.

Druid spells with massive setting implications:

True Resurrection - massively setting-altering. We're just a bit numb to it because its a D&D staple.
Reincarnate - similar to above, but setting altering because it makes immortality a thing. Imperfect transhumanism in a single spell. We're numb to it because campaigns tend not to last over those timescales but 'you're a 90 year old king and your heirs just died, I can give you a second reign' should at least be narratively very potent.
Regenerate - also huge setting implications. Diluted for adventurers because limb loss isn't a standard consequence of things. Depends on whether the DM is running rules-as-physics, or whether there actually are tens of thousands of people with permanent injuries around the setting.
Awaken - Well, druids have solved AI. Creating new intelligences on demand? No problem.

Meanwhile, as far as 'open-ended' stuff, its yet a different set of spells:

Planar Binding, Conjure Fey - scales with other things in the setting; if there are new kinds of Outsiders the DM introduces, these spells can make their powers accessible to the druid.
Plane Shift - open-ended in that the more potent stuff is out there in the planar cosmology, the more leverage this spell gives the druid relative to someone who doesn't have it. Plane with different rate of time passage? Plane with abundant gemstones? Plane flooded with positive energy? All become potential 'powers' that a character can collect and make use of.
Find the Path - very borderline, but there are potential shenanigans with its ability to solve arbitrary pathfinding problems between you and a known point. Requires thinking like a computer scientist to really break this I suppose, but I'd put it on a watch-list for someone using it to solve NP-hard problems or something like that.
Druidcraft - nothing seems overtly potent, but 'instantly make a flower bloom, seed pod open, etc' doesn't have any caveats for exotica like a flower that only blooms every thousand years or whatnot. This was basically a character-defining power of one of the more powerful characters from the Xanth novels.

I would add plant growth to that list. The ability to support huge cities with relatively small amounts of farmland is going to shake up a setting - kind of allowing much more modern sized cities (the smaller the farmland the less effort is needed in transportation). Some of this can be covered by teleportation circles, but that's higher level magic.

[Anymage]

There's a massive difference between the impact that a spell effect can have on a societal level, and the impact that can be brought to bear by having it on one adventurer's spell list. Teleportation gates or golem laborers or conjuring water into a desert are setting details. Being able to personally bamf anywhere on the planet (and possibly beyond) at a moment's notice is a rather significant ability for an individual adventurer. When that teleportation is just one toy in a big bag of tricks, that's hard to work around.

[animorte]

And this, this is why I dislike Wizards. Good argument.

However, I don’t recall the last time I was even in a game with a Wizard (maybe 8 years ago). There was still always a noticeable divide of caster/martial disparity, even without them.

[PhoenixPhyre]

And this, this is why I dislike Wizards. Good argument.

However, I don’t recall the last time I was even in a game with a Wizard (maybe 8 years ago). There was still always a noticeable divide of caster/martial disparity, even without them.

Noticeable, yes. "I can't contribute unless I can cast spells"? Less likely. It defangs most of the common talking points in arguments.

No, removing (or better fixing) the wizard wouldn't remove the issue entirely. Spells (and spell-casting in general) has lots of other issues. But it would, I content, reduce the salience of the issue tremendously. Especially if DMs were in the habit of not giving spells extra power "because magic".

[LudicSavant]

Knock (included not because it's a great spell but because it always comes up): You guessed it, bard/sorcerer/wizard

Clerics have an arguably better level 2 spell for opening doors (and walls) than Knock. Like, there's even a thread going about it right now.

This is a fundamental pattern in your argument. You point at an Acme Brand Wrench and say "members of (class) don't have this particular wrench!" But they have a different brand of wrench that also solves the problem.

Non-Wizards have plenty of strategic capabilities. They don't need to exactly copy the Wizard's brand of strategic capabilities to have strategic capabilities.


Clerics can create undead, but they're not great at it. I'd say they can very definitely become great at it. Especially the Tasha's Clerics. There are some extremely potent minionmancy Cleric setups floating around.


Flight:
(...)
Clerics? out of luck.

Clerics have various ways to get flight, or solve the problems that would be solved by flight.

For example, Summon Celestial is big enough to ride, and is also a good anti-air platform, and is something that Clerics are often casting for other reasons already. For another example, Twilight Clerics have a very generous flight feature (more generous than comparable flight features offered by martial subclasses, frustratingly).


Misty step is available to sorcerer/warlock/wizard, 1 land druid terrain, and 3 paladin oaths.

Misty Step (or other forms of short-range teleportation) is really easy to add to any caster that wants it, by a variety of means -- though Fey-Touched is the most common.

Yes, a non-caster can hypothetically take Fey-Touched too, but they benefit far less from it.


Wish

Clerics (aside from Arcana!) may not get Wish, but they do get Divine Intervention. Again, it's a different brand of wrench. Maybe a worse brand in this case, but it's still a damn good wrench.

[Waazraath]

Solid analysis. I don't think it's a really big problem to begin with, and there are some controls (the DM deceiding for instance on the availability of rare components, for spells like Planeshift), but overall I can follow your argument quite far, and I agree that the game would be better off if the wizard class would have been split up. Just ditch it in favor of the beguiler / warmage / dread necro (a la late 3.5) and you have a better and more interesting game, with more interesting thematic choices for people who want to play an arcane caster.

[NichG]

That's just all playing semantic games with "strategic". If you're granting extra-spell narrative power to things...well...that's your problem. You can give similar narrative powers to just about anything with as much rules backing. It doesn't really play into the greater caster/martial debate because it doesn't (or rarely) affects play, which was the whole point.

The whole point is that solving a problem right requires identifying the root cause. And I was showing that all the other classes, operationally, exist on a nice, fairly dense spectrum. Fighters are similar to barbarians, who are similar to paladins, who are similar to clerics, who are similar to druids and sorcerers. And then, WAY OUT THERE, there are wizards. And it's wizards who are used as the touchpoint, the "place everyone else has to meet or they're useless". When they're the outlier in many ways. Unless you fix wizards, you can't fix the disparity without causing more issues.

Wizards (more specifically the design of the wizard class) is the root of the problematic caster martial disparity. Take them away and it mostly goes away (at least until DMs start reading extra capabilities into spells "because magic", which no redesign can fix). It reduces the problem from massive (or so the constant complaints would have one believe) to, well, mostly tolerable. And way easier to fix. Because hitting "on par out of combat with the Cleric" is way easier and less disruptive than hitting "on par with Schrodinger's wizard who always has the right spells prepared for every situation."

I mean, I don't take 'having strategic capabilities' to be a bad thing. When spells have narrative power proportional to what their effects actually imply, that's a good thing! But I think dividing things up more carefully here is helpful because even if you get rid of the open-ended stuff, the things I marked 'strategic' are still just that - high-abstraction atomic actions that modify large-scale situations for people. And yes, even without stuff like Wish, I think if moves like 'feed a city' or 'delay an army' are atomic actions for one subset of characters, it makes sense to have similar scale of things be atomic actions for other characters if there's any pretense that the different categories of character are playing the same game.

I'm not disagreeing that wizards are 'way out there' compared to other casters in a particular direction, but I am disagreeing that if you remove them suddenly everything left is really same-scale appropriate to each-other. Not even close. As I said in the other thread, I'd play someone whose sole character ability was 'cantrips' over playing a Fighter if I was looking to have an impact on a setting.

[Dr.Samurai]

I'm not disagreeing that wizards are 'way out there' compared to other casters in a particular direction, but I am disagreeing that if you remove them suddenly everything left is really same-scale appropriate to each-other. Not even close.
But who is this a problem for exactly? Who decides to play a fighter, and then feels bad that they can't control the weather or make plants in the area grow really well for the next year? Where are these unicorns??

As I said in the other thread, I'd play someone whose sole character ability was 'cantrips' over playing a Fighter if I was looking to have an impact on a setting.
Did you mean "cantrips and a permissive DM, to have an impact on a setting"?

[Pex]

There is nothing wrong with wizards.

1) There is a point to wizards should not be able to do everything, but that is not the same thing as they should never be able to anything warriors can't do. It is absolutely perfectly acceptable for wizards to do things warriors could never do. If that Thing is versatile far distance traveling than so be it.

2) There is a point to a wizard should not be able to everything, but a wizard cannot do everything because contrary to popular belief they do not have the exact perfect spell needed for the situation at the moment it's needed. The wizard without Knock is not opening the Important Locked Door.

3) A wizard without the most perfect spell today is not still perfect because he can have the most perfect spell tomorrow. Having the perfect spell tomorrow is useless when the need for the spell is right now at this moment when the wizard hasn't prepared it. The wizard might not even have the spell at all in his spellbook. Just because a spell is published and listed on the spell list doesn't mean the wizard PC has that spell himself.

4) Then there are times when the wizard has prepared the exact perfect spell needed at the moment it's needed and saves the day. Hooray for the wizard. That's suppose to happen. Wizard players are entitled to have their turn of moment in the sun and be the MVP of the combat/encounter/adventure. Wizard players are entitled to have their fun.

[Rukelnikov]

But who is this a problem for exactly? Who decides to play a fighter, and then feels bad that they can't control the weather or make plants in the area grow really well for the next year? Where are these unicorns??

I don't get this, wouldn't that also apply to the suppossed wizard problem being talked about in the thread?


Did you mean "cantrips and a permissive DM, to have an impact on a setting"?

I think he meant cantrips and tbh, I kind of agree.

[NichG]

But who is this a problem for exactly? Who decides to play a fighter, and then feels bad that they can't control the weather or make plants in the area grow really well for the next year? Where are these unicorns??

There have been lots of people in these threads asking for at least having Tome of Battle levels of transmundane ability, and many asking for mythic abilities.

In personal experience I've certainly had even very clever players pick martial classes and then when the campaign significantly featured wide-spread events, geopolitics, natural disasters, and the like and other players were able to directly engage with and thwart those things, they ended up regretting picking that archetype to play. At which point my usual remedies were of the 'yes, you have the ability to cure a plague by calling out the god of disease and fighting it in a duel' variety, which did work.


Did you mean "cantrips and a permissive DM, to have an impact on a setting"?

Cantrips and a DM who is not actively hostile against proactive play would be fine. Or you could say 'cantrips and a DM of at least the minimum permissiveness that I would consider playing with at all'. Which does exclude people who are specifically setting out to just run a certain adventure path or module or dungeon crawl.

[LudicSavant]

I'm not disagreeing that wizards are 'way out there' compared to other casters in a particular direction, but I am disagreeing that if you remove them suddenly everything left is really same-scale appropriate to each-other. Not even close. As I said in the other thread, I'd play someone whose sole character ability was 'cantrips' over playing a Fighter if I was looking to have an impact on a setting.

But who is this a problem for exactly? Who decides to play a fighter, and then feels bad that they can't control the weather or make plants in the area grow really well for the next year? Where are these unicorns??

The "unicorns" who want martials to have better non-combat/"strategic" capabilities can be found on every single D&D forum. I'm one of those unicorns. Neigh. :smalltongue:

[PhoenixPhyre]

I mean, I don't take 'having strategic capabilities' to be a bad thing. When spells have narrative power proportional to what their effects actually imply, that's a good thing! But I think dividing things up more carefully here is helpful because even if you get rid of the open-ended stuff, the things I marked 'strategic' are still just that - high-abstraction atomic actions that modify large-scale situations for people. And yes, even without stuff like Wish, I think if moves like 'feed a city' or 'delay an army' are atomic actions for one subset of characters, it makes sense to have similar scale of things be atomic actions for other characters if there's any pretense that the different categories of character are playing the same game.

I'm not disagreeing that wizards are 'way out there' compared to other casters in a particular direction, but I am disagreeing that if you remove them suddenly everything left is really same-scale appropriate to each-other. Not even close. As I said in the other thread, I'd play someone whose sole character ability was 'cantrips' over playing a Fighter if I was looking to have an impact on a setting.

"Have an impact on the setting" isn't a power. It's not part of any spell unless the DM adds it in. And DMs do that entirely by fiat. And don't need spells to do so.

You're so firmly stuck in the "spells can do anything, including stuff they don't say they do, because magic" mold that nothing can help. Seriously--if that's the mindset you're coming from, no amount of buffing martials can compensate. Because "magic can do anything" has no limits, and no limits >> limits.

-------

@LudicSavant -- Again, you're taking the "it's similar, if I squint and read into it a lot of things." Let's take clerics and flying, for example. Conjure celestial is not a replacement for fly. For one thing, it comes in 8 levels higher (7th vs 3rd level spell). For another thing, what you get is entirely up to DM fiat. For a third thing, it relies on having a Large creature amount of space (plus the passenger). There is exactly 1 Large Celestial that qualifies at 7th level--the Pegasus. For a last thing...I already covered that type of spell with "have a flying mount". Which is something open to anyone, no spell needed. Or open to no one, if the DM doesn't allow it.

Fly...has none of those limits or caveats. For Conjure Celestial to be a replacement, you have to handwave away a lot of things. Just like you can get an almost teleport by planeshifting twice...as long as you're going to somewhere there's a teleport circle (because otherwise your precision is entirely up to the DM). And are willing to spend 2 7+th level spells to do so. And have a safe-ish location in another plane to bounce off of.

-----

And let me reiterate. Would there still be a disparity without wizards. YES, unequivocally Should martials get nice things. YES, unequivocally. But also, does fixing the wizard dramatically reduce the problem. YES, unequivocally

[LudicSavant]

@LudicSavant -- Again, you're taking the "it's similar, if I squint and read into it a lot of things." Let's take clerics and flying, for example. Conjure celestial is not a replacement for fly. For one thing, it comes in 8 levels higher (7th vs 3rd level spell). For another thing, what you get is entirely up to DM fiat. For a third thing, it relies on having a Large creature amount of space (plus the passenger). There is exactly 1 Large Celestial that qualifies at 7th level--the Pegasus. For a last thing...I already covered that type of spell with "have a flying mount". Which is something open to anyone, no spell needed. Or open to no one, if the DM doesn't allow it.

Fly...has none of those limits or caveats. For Conjure Celestial to be a replacement, you have to handwave away a lot of things. Just like you can get an almost teleport by planeshifting twice...as long as you're going to somewhere there's a teleport circle (because otherwise your precision is entirely up to the DM). And are willing to spend 2 7+th level spells to do so. And have a safe-ish location in another plane to bounce off of.

So first thing, I spoke about the 5th level spell, Summon Celestial, not the 7th level spell, Conjure Celestial. This seems like a repeat of the last time I spoke to you, where you spent the whole time arguing about Bless in response to the mention of Blessed Strikes -- a completely different mechanic.

Anyways, said spell is often cast by Clerics not as a 'replacement for Fly,' but just as a mainstay of their single target DPR strategy. And it happens to give you a flying creature that's large enough to ride, as a side effect.

It doesn't do everything Fly does, but it doesn't have to -- after all, the same is true in reverse. Summon Celestial has a lot of utility that Fly doesn't, too. And indeed, I could name quite a few "strategic" features that Clerics have that Wizards usually won't.

Being an exact replacement is not actually relevant to the question of whether or not these classes have significant "strategic" capabilities beyond martials.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One complete oddity I found while trawling through spells: druids don't get spider climb by default. Nope, that's reserved for arcane casters and a couple circle of the land choices. :wat: Edit: oh, and warlocks don't get Black Tentacles by default (and the fathomless doesn't get it at all, only GOO). Also...only druids get antilife shell by default? That seems...off.

Another couple I noted: The two "rest-safety-ensuring" spells (tiny hut and rope trick) are on, respectively, the bard/wizard list and the artificer/wizard list. Clerics? Druids? Warlocks? Even sorcerers? Nope, out of luck. Unless a bard spends a 2nd level Magical Secrets on Rope Trick (which means 6th level at the very earliest, with stiff competition, or 10th level normally, where it doesns't even rate), you need an artificer or wizard in the party for that one. Can't even use a scroll! And artificers get it at 5th level and don't get Ritual Casting by default. So it's a very expensive spell for them.

Also wall of force is a wizard exclusive, other than 1 oath and 2 artificer choices. Both of which only get it in T4.

[NichG]

"Have an impact on the setting" isn't a power. It's not part of any spell unless the DM adds it in. And DMs do that entirely by fiat. And don't need spells to do so.

You're so firmly stuck in the "spells can do anything, including stuff they don't say they do, because magic" mold that nothing can help. Seriously--if that's the mindset you're coming from, no amount of buffing martials can compensate. Because "magic can do anything" has no limits, and no limits >> limits.


Lets remove the actual 'spells' bit and just talk about 'things that happen' regardless of their source.

Being able to reverse aging is transformative to a setting
Being able to restore lost limbs or destroyed organs is transformative to a setting
Being able to choose the weather is transformative to a setting
Being able to bring back the dead is transformative to a setting
Being able to potentially track people in an undetectable and unremovable way is transformative to a setting
Being able to travel in a minute what would previously have taken a week is transformative to a setting

Any one of those things, you could have a sci-fi story entirely centered around 'this thing wasn't possible, but then someone figured out a way to make it possible, and things changed'.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Lets remove the actual 'spells' bit and just talk about 'things that happen' regardless of their source.

Being able to reverse aging is transformative to a setting
Being able to restore lost limbs or destroyed organs is transformative to a setting
Being able to choose the weather is transformative to a setting
Being able to bring back the dead is transformative to a setting
Being able to potentially track people in an undetectable and unremovable way is transformative to a setting

Any one of those things, you could have a sci-fi story entirely centered around 'this thing wasn't possible, but then someone figured out a way to make it possible, and things changed'.

If and only if the DM allows that this particular use transforms the setting. That's a big difference between D&D and telling a story--the DM is in affirmative control of the setting. No one gets to make changes beyond the exact scope of their abilities without the DM's approval. And the DM doesn't need you to reference abilities to do so. So that's an utter red herring.

[tiornys]

If I'm interpreting your argument right, your claim is essentially that Wizards >>> other full casters > half casters > non-casters. I agree with the ordering but I don't agree with the gaps. Every full caster has game-breaking shenanigans; Wizard just has the most and best of them. It's more like Wizards > other full casters >> half casters >> non-casters.

edit: note that in practice the gaps are smaller because most groups self-police the shenanigans

[NichG]

If and only if the DM allows that this particular use transforms the setting. That's a big difference between D&D and telling a story--the DM is in affirmative control of the setting. No one gets to make changes beyond the exact scope of their abilities without the DM's approval. And the DM doesn't need you to reference abilities to do so. So that's an utter red herring.

The DM can choose what happens, but they can't choose what needs to happen in order for the setting to have verisimilitude for the players. Having an ability that explicitly says 'this lets you regenerate lost limbs' and then having no one with lost limbs actually care would be a really severe immersion break.

The DM can likewise say whenever the wizard tries to cast the spell 'no, the aetheric winds aren't favorable today, your spell is lost'. But they'll soon not have any players.

[animorte]

"Have an impact on the setting" isn't a power. It's not part of any spell unless the DM adds it in. And DMs do that entirely by fiat. And don't need spells to do so.
Thank you for addressing this. The DM allows (or refuses to allow) changes within the setting based on any number of things, spells irrelevant.


note that in practice the gaps are smaller because most groups self-police the shenanigans
And I see that as somewhat an issue if most groups must police these shenanigans.

[MrStabby]

And let me reiterate. Would there still be a disparity without wizards. YES, unequivocally Should martials get nice things. YES, unequivocally. But also, does fixing the wizard dramatically reduce the problem. YES, unequivocally

So yeah, I get this. I agree with this... I think everyone does. What I don't get is what your trying to say that is controversial enough to need saying. I mean wizards get powerful spells... yeah. They are, at high levels anyway, more powerful than other class spells... sure. But so what?

You want to "fix" the wizard. Who doesn't? (acually on this point there does seem to be a vocal minority that thinks the wizard as is is just fine - maybe these are the people you are preaching to?)

I mean I get making things like this as a comment - I frequently make comments in a similar vein about the wizard. Bu you opened with a really long block of text. I probably took some ime to type. You are clearly exhibiting a lot of passion for the topic, but I don't get what you were hpoing to get out of writing this so I am assuming I am mssing something.

If any of this was a controversial opinion then I would kind of get it... but just now, I don't know.




There have been lots of people in these threads asking for at least having Tome of Battle levels of transmundane ability, and many asking for mythic abilities.

In personal experience I've certainly had even very clever players pick martial classes and then when the campaign significantly featured wide-spread events, geopolitics, natural disasters, and the like and other players were able to directly engage with and thwart those things, they ended up regretting picking that archetype to play. At which point my usual remedies were of the 'yes, you have the ability to cure a plague by calling out the god of disease and fighting it in a duel' variety, which did work.


Cantrips and a DM who is not actively hostile against proactive play would be fine. Or you could say 'cantrips and a DM of at least the minimum permissiveness that I would consider playing with at all'. Which does exclude people who are specifically setting out to just run a certain adventure path or module or dungeon crawl.

I think some of the first part is down to the DM. If they say they are running a campaign between levels 3 and 9 and players select characters based on that... but then the campaign runs to level 14, then thats on the DM. Where there is a mismatch between player expectations and the game, its always a bit sad (and I have had it on the other side, playing a wizard with relatively few combat spells, which took a turn for the worse when a barbarian joined the party for whom violence was the universal solution).

I think your tome of battle comment is pretty apt as well. Not just do people want more from some of the other classes but there is an existing template for that kind of thing which they love (I am personally no very familliar with ToB, so I wouldn't know if I agree) - but its a pretty strong start.

As for permissive DMs... less to my taste. I am very much of the belief that magic is not physics, and even physics in a D&D setting needn't be the same. Too often people think they are being "creative" using acid spells to corrode metal to get out of Jail or similar. Some spells do impact their environment, like firebolt, but they explicitly set player's expectations that they can do that in the spell description. Allowing this kind of creativity in the more mundane way is better (there is likely a closer alignment of expectations because we experience things like levers and wheels and other physical objects we use to solve problems. I guess this is a matter of taste though.



The DM can choose what happens, but they can't choose what needs to happen in order for the setting to have verisimilitude for the players. Having an ability that explicitly says 'this lets you regenerate lost limbs' and then having no one with lost limbs actually care would be a really severe immersion break.

The DM can likewise say whenever the wizard tries to cast the spell 'no, the aetheric winds aren't favorable today, your spell is lost'. But they'll soon not have any players.

Yeah, it would be like having an ability that lets you shoot a bow relly well but then no creaures not immune to piercing damage.

That said, they did populate the PHB with a load of enchantment spells then released Decent to Avernus campaign, so WotC don't exactly have a hard commitment that any given ability be useful in a campaign.

[NichG]

As for permissive DMs... less to my taste. I am very much of the belief that magic is not physics, and even physics in a D&D setting needn't be the same. Too often people think they are being "creative" using acid spells to corrode metal to get out of Jail or similar. Some spells do impact their environment, like firebolt, but they explicitly set player's expectations that they can do that in the spell description. Allowing this kind of creativity in the more mundane way is better (there is likely a closer alignment of expectations because we experience things like levers and wheels and other physical objects we use to solve problems. I guess this is a matter of taste though.

Yeah, it would be like having an ability that lets you shoot a bow relly well but then no creaures not immune to piercing damage.

That said, they did populate the PHB with a load of enchantment spells then released Decent to Avernus campaign, so WotC don't exactly have a hard commitment that any given ability be useful in a campaign.

I guess I'm talking about 'permissiveness' at an entirely different level. This isn't like creatively use firebolt to light the bar on fire, but rather just like - treat the world as a world and actions within it as those actions and play it straight, rather than going out of your way to find excuses for actions that someone could take to not matter because of metagame considerations.

Like, if the Lv1 character legitimately manages to find really good blackmail material on an emperor - not just like, they don't want it to come out, but with real consequences to the empire if it did come out - and comes up with a pretty solid plan for a deadman's switch to release the information if they are disappeared, does the DM say 'the emperor is way out of your league, we're going to start with the assumption that your plan is going to fail and figure out how?' or 'okay, you blackmail the emperor for level-appropriate amounts of wealth'. Or will the DM say that, yes, even if you're Lv1 and the empire has a top level of competency of Lv15, you got them this time and yes you can get the emperor to change the local laws requiring members of your home town to submit to conscription in case of war.

If I assume that a DM is going to act in good faith - that if they say 'you can take an ability that says it does X' then they will actually allow that ability to do X, and they won't try to find some semantic way to interpret 'X' that removes the point of the actual thing - then even really low level spells are pretty nice superpowers. That was kind of my point about cantrips. Mending is amazing - I'd love to have it in real life, much more than a second attack per round. I could easily imagine a spy getting enough of an edge from things like Message and Mage-Hand and Minor Illusion to be character-defining. Sure it won't help them kill a dragon, but killing dragons is actually a pretty inefficient way of bringing about global geopolitcal upheaval. Being able to light or extinguish small fires basically at will at range via Prestidigitation has a lot of potential. There's an entire school of sorcery in 7th Sea dedicated to fire magic and they can't even start a fire, only manipulate flames that already exist. And for what it's worth, I've had a character burn a Limited Wish to cast Message before in a 3.5e campaign because he didn't have Message but it really was the spell that the situation needed.

I'm not saying that these are broken abilities. Playing a 'permanently Lv1 cantrips-only character' would be hard-mode in some ways. But in terms of agency and ability to impact the world, it still feels like it brings more to the table than e.g. Lv15 Fighter does.

[Kane0]

Anecdotal evidence incoming.

The current game i'm playing in has gone from level 1 and is being wrapped up soon at level 13. I'm playing a Clockwork Sorcerer, my brother is playing a Warlock that swapped from Fiend to Fey over the course of the game. We also have a Conquest Paladin, Soulknife Rogue and Sidekick Warrior as well. This has been set in Planescape, so lots of interplanar shenanigans but also a distinct restriction of no Planeshifting or summoning within Sigil, which we have visited twice.

My character is entirely focused on Telekinesis and force-related abilities to the exclusion of all else. He does not fireball or mindread or vanish or shapeshift or summon or teleport. He moves things with his mind. This is his spell list:
Mage Hand, Blade Ward, Mold Earth, Sword Burst, Catapult, Feather Fall, Mage Armor, Shield, Earthen Grasp, Earthbind, Knock, Erupting Earth, Fly, Haste, Pulse Wave, Resilient Sphere, Bigby's Hand, Telekinesis, Wall of Force, Disintegrate, Reverse Gravity.

The Warlock (pact of the Tome) likes to try and pass himself off as a wizard to avoid scrutiny and thus has only selected spells/invocations that are also available to Wizards. This is his list from the last time I checked:
Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Firebolt, Shocking Grasp, Comprehend Languages, Witch Bolt, Mage Armor, Identify, Find Familiar, Alarm, Detect Magic, Unseen Servant, Invisibility, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Remove Curse, Slow, Tongues, Banishment, Dimension Door, Polymorph, Contact Other Plane, Hold Monster, True Seeing

The Paladin almost exclusively uses his spell slots to summon his Steed, Smite, or heal if he has run out of Lay On Hands juice. He has however cast Spiritual Weapon and Fear on occasion.

I feel like we have been a well balanced party, capable of handling most challenges between us. Magic items have not significantly expanded our selection with the notable exception of an Amulet of the Planes which we have recently acquired and has been quite a gamechanger given the setting.

I don't feel like either my or my brother's self-imposed restrictions have made us noticeably weaker than we should or could be. In fact, I believe it to be a large contributing factor to neither of us overshadowing each other or the others in the party; and if either of us just made a normal caster and picked whatever spells we wanted (especially the best ones) that would definitely have changed.

I think those restrictions made for a healthier party dynamic and an easier job for the DM, and were I in his shoes would absolutely prefer my players do this sort of thing.

If and how to do this in a concrete, mechanical manner during character creation I have no idea. Spell lists I think are a good starting point and i'm glad they exist, but as accurately pointed out Wizards have an absolutely massive selection as well as no restriction on picking from it like they used to have in the form of blocked schools. Given that the finger is being pointed at Wizards specifically, perhaps that is a good starting point to return to.

[Leon]

There is nothing wrong with wizards.

Indeed, the root of the problem is powerful magic with no cost or balancing factor to access that power. All these classes can just freely use magic to do X for entrance fee of a spell slot and nothing more, no risk if they miss the spell, no chance that it will backfire and inconvenience the caster or the party. Wish does have a downside to casting it but it is rather minor compared to what you can do with the spell and generally have access to at that point.

Magic of a higher level should carry with it a chance for things to not workout as you intended or to not be freely available by any idiot who leveled up to X in Y class but to have earned it by quest, deed or other worthy accomplishment. Even with a spell earned it should be more than just merely "I spend spell slot and cast" it should have a comparable effort to cast equal to its magnitude or potential drain on the caster.

[animorte]

Even with a spell earned it should be more than just merely "I spend spell slot and cast" it should have a comparable effort to cast equal to its magnitude or potential drain on the caster.
So basically Eragon in his early days. “I launch those two people back 20 feet with my mind… then fall over from exhaustion.”

[Kane0]

So basically Eragon in his early days. “I launch those two people back 20 feet with my mind… then fall over from exhaustion.”

Wizards gotta be fit and healthy to light people on fire by swearing at them!

[animorte]

Wizards gotta be fit and healthy to light people on fire by swearing at them!
Gives “spitting fire” a whole new meaning!

[Dr.Samurai]

I don't get this, wouldn't that also apply to the suppossed wizard problem being talked about in the thread?
Yes for me, but no for what PhoenixPhyre is getting at.

The OP is clarifying that the major call-outs in caster/martial disparity threads are really a problem with the wizard class, and not "casters" in general. In other words, it's a wizard disparity issue, mostly.

My point is that if someone says "well, even if you remove wizards the disparity is still there because druids can grow plants really really well", it begs the question of what is the overlap of people that play fighters and people that wish they could cast Plant Growth. It ties in to the OP because Plant Growth isn't mentioned because Plant Growth never comes up in these threads. It's a technical point to include Plant Growth, because presumably if you want to grow plants really well and it's important to your play experience, you would just play a druid instead of a fighter.

Things like Teleport and Fly and Plane Shift are much more directly impactful to traditional campaigns, hence their basis of the premise in the OP.

I think he meant cantrips and tbh, I kind of agree.
Sure. I'd love to know what sort of impact the cantrips will have on the setting that doesn't require DM buy-in and that is of a degree worthy of mentioning and making this point.

There have been lots of people in these threads asking for at least having Tome of Battle levels of transmundane ability, and many asking for mythic abilities.
Yeah but they're not asking to grow plants. The premise of the OP is to have precision in these conversations. Let's lay the issues specifically at the wizard's feet if they really are just exclusive to the wizard.

Likewise, wanting the fighter to lop off mountaintops and stomp earthquakes and arm wrestle titans is a different thing to "the druid can cast Plant Growth and the fighter can't, ergo the caster disparity should include Plant Growth".

In personal experience I've certainly had even very clever players pick martial classes and then when the campaign significantly featured wide-spread events, geopolitics, natural disasters, and the like and other players were able to directly engage with and thwart those things, they ended up regretting picking that archetype to play. At which point my usual remedies were of the 'yes, you have the ability to cure a plague by calling out the god of disease and fighting it in a duel' variety, which did work.
Sure, but the games you've described I would think are far removed from the expectations in the DMG. If you run games that REQUIRE all of these abilities, then I agree that playing a class that doesn't have those abilities might be disappointing.

The "unicorns" who want martials to have better non-combat/"strategic" capabilities can be found on every single D&D forum. I'm one of those unicorns. Neigh. :smalltongue:
Yeah, I'm someone that wants martials to have non-combat/strategic capabilities too. No, I'm talking about the unicorns that play a fighter and then later on ask "Why can't I cast Fly and Teleport and Plant Growth?".

[LudicSavant]

Yeah, I'm someone that wants martials to have non-combat/strategic capabilities too. No, I'm talking about the unicorns that play a fighter and then later on ask "Why can't I cast Fly and Teleport and Plant Growth?".

NichG wasn't asking why a Fighter can't cast Fly and Teleport and Plant Growth. Just about scale of strategic capabilities in general.

And even in the cases where martials do get things like flight, they tend to be second rate, even in cases where they really shouldn't be. For example, Ascendant Dragon gets a pretty bad "flight" feature, while Twilight Clerics (who arguably have less claim to the flight theme than dragon monks) get a far superior one at the same level, doubly so if considered primarily in light of non-combat uses. And it's not even one of the big highlights of their subclass or anything, it's just tossed in there like a cherry on top.

[JackPhoenix]

Well, I guess it's been some time since the last thread whinning about wizards....

[NichG]

Sure. I'd love to know what sort of impact the cantrips will have on the setting that doesn't require DM buy-in and that is of a degree worthy of mentioning and making this point.

Wasn't claiming that the cantrips are intrinsically 'strategic level' the way the other spells are. But they're a step in that direction if only a little bit, in the sense that they let you 'just do' things that others can't do. Being able to secretly feed someone information for example can be the core of a number of political, heist, courtroom malfeasance, competitive cheating, etc schemes, not to mention military applications. Even if its just a dinky Lv0 spell, it changes something about the world from 'to communicate, you have to be within hearing distance, and the less you want to be overheard the closer you need to be' to 'you can just send signals within a certain flat range, and they can only be overheard at the sender position'. Smoke signals, signal towers, semaphores, radio, etc are all transformative technologies based on moving along that axis, and collectively have totally reshaped what the world looks like. Message isn't as good as a radio network or satellite relay, true, but its a step in that direction. Higher level spells walk much further in that direction, and so really become 'strategic capabilities' in their own right.



Yeah but they're not asking to grow plants. The premise of the OP is to have precision in these conversations. Let's lay the issues specifically at the wizard's feet if they really are just exclusive to the wizard.


My point was that there are multiple categories of transformative things. The wizard has most of the stuff that is a metagame problem - things that make the game system itself run into difficulties. But the other casting classes have plenty of things that act at a fundamentally different scale than squad-based tactical combat can proactively achieve (e.g. without there being some MacGuffin or load-bearing-boss, which is usually the DM's prerogative to introduce rather than the players'). That's why I say that basically these characters are still playing different games. It's fine if you're okay with different people at the table playing different games - Ars Magica works on that principle for example. But its not great if you're designing the system from a belief that there isn't actually a separation in the sort of level of abstraction the different classes can act at.

Basically, you should only have it in your system if you intend for it to be there. If you have it because you didn't see or understand how something like plant growth can really change things at a large scale, then things can go poorly when you have (some) players at the table who do understand those connections and start to move those levers, and now you can end up either having things being made irrelevant that other people at the table still want to be relevant, or having to be really heavy-handed as a DM and take away things you already gave to people on the basis that you didn't think they could be used in such a way.

So if you do want to get the martials on the same page as a druid, you don't need the fighter to specifically have 'plant growth'. But you do need them to have actions to take which are at the same level of abstraction as the druid going to the fields and casting 'plant growth' to help with the famine. Maybe that's an ability to give a moving speech that sustains morale and strength even as people starve. Maybe that's the ability to call out the local nobility as dishonorably shirking their noblesse oblige and challenge them to a duel to force them to sell off their possessions to procure food for the people. Maybe its just the ability to move so quickly and carry so much that the martial character can personally hunt down hundreds of bandits and outlaws and carry their supplies back to give to the city.

But, like, plusses to damage or bonus attacks or things like that just aren't part of the same aspects of play.

[PhoenixPhyre]

So if you do want to get the martials on the same page as a druid, you don't need the fighter to specifically have 'plant growth'. But you do need them to have actions to take which are at the same level of abstraction as the druid going to the fields and casting 'plant growth' to help with the famine. Maybe that's an ability to give a moving speech that sustains morale and strength even as people starve. Maybe that's the ability to call out the local nobility as dishonorably shirking their noblesse oblige and challenge them to a duel to force them to sell off their possessions to procure food for the people.

Here's the thing. You can do all those things right now in any game. With just as much mechanical support for "changing the setting" as plant growth is, because 'makes plants grow faster' (on a time scale irrelevant to actual people starving right now, to be quite sure, since we're talking things that don't happen until the end of the growing season) has absolutely no mechanical import. But DMs (bad ones, I'll say), latch onto "it's magic, so it must be dramatic" and give it import. But that's entirely DM fiat. Giving a motivating speech? Totally doable. Challenging the nobility? Doable, no issue. Etc. It's only when DMs say "if it's not a button, it doesn't exist" that that goes wrong. But what's wrong is insisting on having a button. Button-itis is at the core of a lot of the challenges people have. They want "push button, get effect." And that's corrosive to any kind of imaginative game. It reduces it all to a bad board game, where only things programmed in can ever happen.

I'll say that it's really rare that the things that strongly affect settings when done by PCs are directly spells. Things like plant growth, resurrection, fast communication, etc? Those are already part of the setting from ancient days. The PCs aren't anyone new, they're not anyone special in that regard. They're not the first ones to do that kind of thing. That's old hat. The setting has already adapted to it. Sure, it makes the setting different than our world. But a coherent world already has "priced those in", so to speak. A PC can't say "well, I'll provide plant growth" as a significant contribution to a famine...because they already have dozens of people who can already do that, or they've already determined that it won't work. It's already factored in to the status quo ante. What PCs can do is act as catalysts. Be in the right place and shove the right levers (in the metaphysical sense). Push over the right domino. And those don't need mechanical buttons to press. A fighter, rogue, or barbarian can do those just as well as or better than in some circumstances some poncy dude in a pointy hat waving his hands.

[Leon]

So basically Eragon in his early days. “I launch those two people back 20 feet with my mind… then fall over from exhaustion.”

If it goes to having a cost of some time then yes. Many other games and media representations have a good set of costs and drawbacks to the power of magic or what is "magic" in that setting and yet here is the "market leader" without them and endless threads on a multitude of places about how magic imbalances and such between certain classes abound.

[Pex]

Indeed, the root of the problem is powerful magic with no cost or balancing factor to access that power. All these classes can just freely use magic to do X for entrance fee of a spell slot and nothing more, no risk if they miss the spell, no chance that it will backfire and inconvenience the caster or the party. Wish does have a downside to casting it but it is rather minor compared to what you can do with the spell and generally have access to at that point.

Magic of a higher level should carry with it a chance for things to not workout as you intended or to not be freely available by any idiot who leveled up to X in Y class but to have earned it by quest, deed or other worthy accomplishment. Even with a spell earned it should be more than just merely "I spend spell slot and cast" it should have a comparable effort to cast equal to its magnitude or potential drain on the caster.

No because players should not be punished for doing what the game says they can do. Players invoking effects that do fantastical things affecting the narrative is a feature, not a bug. It's part of the point of playing, as far as D&D is concerned. Limitations can and should exist, but limitations does not mean the player regretting he played a wizard for the audacity of casting a spell.

[Leon]

No because players should not be punished for doing what the game says they can do. Players invoking effects that do fantastical things affecting the narrative is a feature, not a bug. It's part of the point of playing, as far as D&D is concerned. Limitations can and should exist, but limitations does not mean the player regretting he played a wizard for the audacity of casting a spell.

And yet, players in other games can be limited and still thrive, there is never not someone wanting to play a Psyker in 40k game despite the risk that it can be to the player and the rest of their party and the persecution that character may face for what they can do inline with the setting. To claim otherwise in D&D is to admit that it only exists for pure powertrip fantasy and will keep on fueling the stupidly pointless threads about class divides till the cows come home. D&D is deeply flawed in a number of ways and magic is the worst of it ~ 5e (and assumedly D&Done will continue to) have been making it steadily a game where you cannot fail. Its been getting blander and blander for sometime.

[Psyren]

Fly and Teleport are fine as-is, and I'd rather just fix Plant Growth.

On the broader thread question, I agree, a number of the disparity issues laid at "casters'" feet go away if the only caster in the party is a Cleric or Warlock. (Druids are pretty up there though.)


Well, I guess it's been some time since the last thread whinning about wizards....

Heh.

[NichG]

Here's the thing. You can do all those things right now in any game. With just as much mechanical support for "changing the setting" as plant growth is, because 'makes plants grow faster' (on a time scale irrelevant to actual people starving right now, to be quite sure, since we're talking things that don't happen until the end of the growing season) has absolutely no mechanical import. But DMs (bad ones, I'll say), latch onto "it's magic, so it must be dramatic" and give it import. But that's entirely DM fiat. Giving a motivating speech? Totally doable. Challenging the nobility? Doable, no issue. Etc. It's only when DMs say "if it's not a button, it doesn't exist" that that goes wrong. But what's wrong is insisting on having a button. Button-itis is at the core of a lot of the challenges people have. They want "push button, get effect." And that's corrosive to any kind of imaginative game. It reduces it all to a bad board game, where only things programmed in can ever happen.


The issue is more that, for being able to do the exact same thing, having a button to do it is significantly more powerful than not having a button to do it. Furthermore, when you have a game where there's a lot of weight placed into a single character-defining choice like 'what class are you playing?', then some classes getting buttons to do things and other classes not getting buttons (but being told 'just do it anyhow') means you put a big emphasis on taking the classes that give you buttons - because for all the non-button stuff you can do it just as well as a cleric as you could as a fighter.

If you want to have a game that de-emphasizes buttons entirely and just resolves based on talking through how you get stuff done, you can totally do that! But you'd be best off doing it to everyone equally. Not just the wizard for being most egregious, but to the cleric and druid and warlock and even the barbarian or ranger or bard such as they are. Because otherwise the ones who do get buttons will be playing a different game than the ones who do not. At least assuming you don't want to make something where different players are playing different games - if you do, that's fine too, as long as you're doing it intentionally.

Personally I think buttons are a useful design element. Pick a concept that you want people at the table to engage with, but which they don't fully understand how to connect the pieces together to really effectively do so, and make buttons specifically to simplify and communicate how some of those connections work. Want to explore international economics? Don't make the 'win the economy' button, you'll erase the thing you're trying to explore. But if you make a 'form trade agreement' button or a 'arrange to purchase goods' button or things like that, you can get past the stage of people wondering 'wait, who do we talk to if we want to buy two hundred thousand tons of wood?' - if that particular thing tends to be a point that trips people up.



I'll say that it's really rare that the things that strongly affect settings when done by PCs are directly spells. Things like plant growth, resurrection, fast communication, etc? Those are already part of the setting from ancient days. The PCs aren't anyone new, they're not anyone special in that regard. They're not the first ones to do that kind of thing. That's old hat. The setting has already adapted to it. Sure, it makes the setting different than our world. But a coherent world already has "priced those in", so to speak. A PC can't say "well, I'll provide plant growth" as a significant contribution to a famine...because they already have dozens of people who can already do that, or they've already determined that it won't work. It's already factored in to the status quo ante. What PCs can do is act as catalysts. Be in the right place and shove the right levers (in the metaphysical sense). Push over the right domino. And those don't need mechanical buttons to press. A fighter, rogue, or barbarian can do those just as well as or better than in some circumstances some poncy dude in a pointy hat waving his hands.

I mean, great, but its like - if you have particular channels through which forces that carry the stability of the setting transmit along, having access to those channels does even let you do more in a steady state than if you're just out in some slack area of the space. If resurrection of the nobility is a commonplace practice, being a Professional Resurrector is still going to be a more lucrative and influential position than being a porter or farmer unless the setting has gone so far in that direction that everyone has mass-produced magic items that automatically resurrect them, or outsiders have set up life insurance agencies run by infinite armies of beings who have those abilities innately or whatever. Its like, if the setting had to be different because this power exists, that pretty well establishes that power as having setting-level import. Almost tautologically.

It's like, we're in a world with planes. Plane travel is normal. Many people will have done it, and even if they haven't, a significant portion of people will have benefited from goods or mail or whatnot sent by plane. That doesn't mean that 'owning a plane' would be a meaningless attribute for a character in a game set in the modern world. It'd actually be quite a big deal, unless their fellow party members had attributes like 'owns a news agency' or 'runs a research institute'.

[Tanarii]

5e isn't 3e, but agreed it would be improved if the Wizard class was removed.

Part of the problem is wizards are balanced in a no Multiclassing no feat campaign that mostly only runs up through level 10, possibly with a few forays to mid Tier 3, with a fair amount of combat as part of a full (or more than full) adventuring day. Because wizards specifically and Arcane casters (Sorc/Bard/Warlock) in general get splattered pretty easily without access to Medium or Heavy armor. And long rest full casters feel the resource limits strain in a full or more adventuring day until mid to late Tier 2.

Guess what kinds of games 5e was designed to play, and what was playtested the most?

[Unoriginal]

As I said in the other thread, I'd play someone whose sole character ability was 'cantrips' over playing a Fighter if I was looking to have an impact on a setting.


Lets remove the actual 'spells' bit and just talk about 'things that happen' regardless of their source.

Being able to reverse aging is transformative to a setting
Being able to restore lost limbs or destroyed organs is transformative to a setting
Being able to choose the weather is transformative to a setting
Being able to bring back the dead is transformative to a setting
Being able to potentially track people in an undetectable and unremovable way is transformative to a setting
Being able to travel in a minute what would previously have taken a week is transformative to a setting

Any one of those things, you could have a sci-fi story entirely centered around 'this thing wasn't possible, but then someone figured out a way to make it possible, and things changed'.

None of those things are transformative to a setting once the "someone figured out a way to make it possible" event happened.

D&D worlds have had people able to restore lost limbs, control the weather, bring back the dead and teleport since before *humans* started existing.

D&D is NOT a "this was a normal world, but then someone was able to do this one extraordinary thing and the world changed in reaction" narrative.

Saying that you can affect a setting more with cantrips than with a Fighter toolset is utterly ignoring and denying the kind of worlds D&D is happening in. Just for one example: there are literal thousands of individuals in a D&D world who are born with the innate capacity to cast cantrips. There are *more* people capable of casting Prestidigitation or Mold Earth than there are people capable of fighting a dragon armed with a sword & shield and survive.

In a world where thousands can cast Mold Earth, but where swordfighters with the capacity to challenge an adult dragon and win number maybe in the hundreds, then the exceptional one is the swordfighter who can do that.

As such, the swordfighter who is good enough to challenge an adult dragon and win is inherently, indisputably more transformative to a D&D setting than one of the thousands of people who have cantrips. Because that kind of martial might can and will change how the events of the world play out whenever they're involved.

Having cantrips does not make someone special. It does not make them a setting-shaker. Having enough might to defend a town against a Gnoll raid is setting-affecting though, be it from having big spells or just from being very good at swinging a sharp stick.

[NichG]

None of those things are transformative to a setting once the "someone figured out a way to make it possible" event happened.

D&D worlds have had people able to restore lost limbs, control the weather, bring back the dead and teleport since before *humans* started existing.

D&D is NOT a "this was a normal world, but then someone was able to do this one extraordinary thing and the world changed in reaction" narrative.


Already responded to this above. If there's a transformative system in the world and you don't happen to be able to partake of it, then you're at a strong disadvantage compared to the average person. Reading and writing was transformative when it emerged, and now it's commonplace, but being illiterate is still a huge disadvantage. Knowing how to work with computers was once something that let people build the future, now they're everywhere, but not knowing or being able to use computers, cell phones, internet, etc is still a huge disadvantage even though the transformation has already taken place. We've had modern medicine, such as it is, for quite some time now - enough for generations of doctors. Yet doctors are still a pretty highly paid profession.



Saying that you can affect a setting more with cantrips than with a Fighter toolset is utterly ignoring and denying the kind of worlds D&D is happening in. Just for one example: there are literal thousands of individuals in a D&D world who are born with the innate capacity to cast cantrips. There are *more* people capable of casting Prestidigitation or Mold Earth than there are people capable of fighting a dragon armed with a sword & shield and survive.

But I can absolutely do more proactively that matters with Prestidigitation and Message and Mage Hand than I can do with being able to fight a dragon. In the case of cantrips, again, I was not arguing that cantrips are transformative. I was saying that if given the mission 'change the setting' and the choice between a Lv15 Fighter or a Lv1 Commoner with 'all cantrips', I'd pick the commoner with the cantrips as a player, because that would give me more leverage to actually do things that weren't set up in advance for me to knock down. I'm not saying it would be easy with only cantrips and a Lv1 character, but rather that it would be harder to do with the Fighter. This is a statement about how little the Fighter gets along axes of play outside of the combat minigame rather than a statement about how particularly broken or special or transformative cantrips are.

Its just that given a choice between 'basically nothing useful' and 'a couple of tricks', I'll take 'a couple of tricks'. Both are hard mode.

[rel]

In a previous thread someone suggested deleting all utility spells along with anything long lasting or potent from the spell lists.
Then adding a utility powers system available to all classes equally.

It's a similar approach to deleting the wizard but a little more comprehensive.
Maybe worth considering as an alternative.

[Kane0]

In a previous thread someone suggested deleting all utility spells along with anything long lasting or potent from the spell lists.
Then adding a utility powers system available to all classes equally.

It's a similar approach to deleting the wizard but a little more comprehensive.
Maybe worth considering as an alternative.

Well, 4e had rituals that everybody could cast IIRC.

[Schwann145]

Even as a fan of the Wizard, OP makes a valid point and I agree.

So what to do about it? Seems easy enough to fix, tbh. For starters, give the problem Wizard spells the treatment they deserve. That list of spells is different for everyone, but it's probably safe to say the biggest offenders are Wish, Simulacrum, Forcecage, Wall of Force, and Magic Jar. So:
•Wish should not be mortal magic. Period. Leave it in the game and let players quest for it or stumble onto it (Ring of Wishes, bound Efreet, etc) but take it off any/all player character caster lists.
•Take Simulacrum off the spell list. If I have to jump through a bunch of hoops to create "physical golem(s)," then why is it so so so easy to create "caster golem?" No, that never made sense. Throw Simulacrum into the same rigamarole required for golem creation as it should have been from the start.
•"Spell-only" solutions to spell effects need to, in most cases, just go. Wall of Force only destroyable by a Disintegrate spell? Nonsense. Forcecage/WoF can't be damaged or dispelled? No, pick one but you can't have both. (How is WoF even the same level as Wall of Stone? smh...) (I'm actually fine with the Prismatic spells needing their specific counters; 1, because they're generally not as powerful as the other options end up being, and 2, because part of the fun of them is the "puzzle" of "unlocking" their effect).
•People complain about Magic Jar a lot, but there are not a lot of useful and interesting/fun spells to pick (most fall into one category or the other: effective spells aren't particularly interesting, and most interesting spells aren't particularly useful), so I'd leave it alone.

After that, we should really bring back Opposition Schools. The Wizard subclasses (generally speaking; not all of them) should really get a tune-up, but Wizards are specialists and there should be a drawback to that. I say we go halfway between how 2e and 3e did it: Bring back the 2e 8-sided diagram of opposing schools, ban the opposing school and let the player pick one of the two adjacent schools to be the 2nd banned school.
[So if Necromancy is opposed by Illusion, and Illusion is side-by-side with Transmutation and Enchantment, then a Necromancer Wizard would be forced to lose access to Illusion and their choice of either Trans or Ench.]
Not a perfect solution for subclasses like Bladesinger or Scribes, but it's a start.

[Brookshw]

And yet, players in other games can be limited and still thrive, there is never not someone wanting to play a Psyker in 40k game despite the risk that it can be to the player and the rest of their party and the persecution that character may face for what they can do inline with the setting. To claim otherwise in D&D is to admit that it only exists for pure powertrip fantasy and will keep on fueling the stupidly pointless threads about class divides till the cows come home. D&D is deeply flawed in a number of ways and magic is the worst of it ~ 5e (and assumedly D&Done will continue to) have been making it steadily a game where you cannot fail. Its been getting blander and blander for sometime.

Agreed. The argument for the status quo and "D&D doesn't have to apologize" is just a veiled argument for D&D being inherently right; if D&D changes, then whatever new form it takes would also be inherently right. It's also a strange argument because it's usually coupled with 'except for it's decisions I don't like', so it's therefore not inherently right.

Coffee's done brewing, back to the grind.

[Segev]

There is nothing wrong with wizards.

1) There is a point to wizards should not be able to do everything, but that is not the same thing as they should never be able to anything warriors can't do. It is absolutely perfectly acceptable for wizards to do things warriors could never do. If that Thing is versatile far distance traveling than so be it.

2) There is a point to a wizard should not be able to everything, but a wizard cannot do everything because contrary to popular belief they do not have the exact perfect spell needed for the situation at the moment it's needed. The wizard without Knock is not opening the Important Locked Door.

3) A wizard without the most perfect spell today is not still perfect because he can have the most perfect spell tomorrow. Having the perfect spell tomorrow is useless when the need for the spell is right now at this moment when the wizard hasn't prepared it. The wizard might not even have the spell at all in his spellbook. Just because a spell is published and listed on the spell list doesn't mean the wizard PC has that spell himself.

4) Then there are times when the wizard has prepared the exact perfect spell needed at the moment it's needed and saves the day. Hooray for the wizard. That's suppose to happen. Wizard players are entitled to have their turn of moment in the sun and be the MVP of the combat/encounter/adventure. Wizard players are entitled to have their fun.

All of these are excellent points.

The wizard, in practice, in play, rarely if ever is the problem that is portrayed here. I have, once, been in a game with somebody who felt the wizard (me, in this case) was a problem because he was solving all the problems and thus taking up all the oxygen in the room. This was only one player out of 4 or 5 others, and because he was a good friend, I took his complaints seriously and tried to step back and do less. His character still didn't step up and fill the void left behind, and I was very careful to try to stay out of any place he could have been doing it. After discussion with the DM, asking him to make sure I was not missing something I was doing (as an objective third party who was another mutual good friend), the DM was confused, because he didn't see how my character was in any way stepping on the other player's toes. And the other player didn't seem to be getting any happier with the game; just being increasingly upset by the limitations on his character. All of which were self-imposed build choices.

Exactly once in that campaign, for the record, did my wizard have "the exact perfect spell" for the encounter, and that was more a player quirk than anything else. I like necromancy, and my wizard happened, therefore, to have command undead prepared, which let us calm down and befriend a potentially-dangerous ghost rather than fighting it. (This was PF1, not 5e, but still.) The number of times I could say, "Wow, there IS a spell that would be perfect here, if I knew it," is a pretty solid indicator of how the Schroedinger's Wizard isn't actually a thing in real play.

In other games, aside from that one, I have not had people seem in any way put out by my wizards, and more often than not, I didn't have "the perfect spell" and we had to work around obstacles as a party. Most of the time, the real-play wizard, whether I'm playing him or not, is strongest when he has a suite of spells to back up other player characters' specialties, not when he is trying to have the bespoke spell solution to each problem. Even the most broken minionmancy tools take the same kind of preparation and faces the same problem with Schroedinger's Minions that the Schroedinger's Wizard does with spells: he doesn't actually have that overpowered perfect minion for the situation. Very few games actually have the kind of downtime and research time needed to permit a wizard to actually make an arsenal of "literally every monster out there." Or even of the most broken common examples.

Are there broken things that gentlemen's agreements and DM foot-down "no"s have to be applied to? Almost certainly. They exist for every class, somewhere. Are more of them present in the wizard's spell list, especially with certain abuses/combos? Maybe! Does that mean that they come up even often enough that the wizard is really the dreaded Schroedinger's Wizard and inevitably requires the DM to rule more often than any other class in most games? No.

[Bobthewizard]

In the interminable caster/martial debates, a common benchmark for "how strong martials need to be" involves pointing out certain capabilities that "casters" have and saying that martials need a way of doing those things.

But let's consider a few of them in particular.

Flight

Teleportation

Planar Travel

Long-duration minionmancy

Knock

Short-range teleportation

Find Familiar

Shenanigans:

Of these, the only ones that I think are a problem are the Shenanigans and Long-Duration Minionmancy. Those are definitely a problem that needs to be addressed. Otherwise, I think wizards are fine.

Teleportation, Flight, and Planar Travel are all just using the wizard as a bus driver. If I'm playing a fighter or even a sorcerer, I don't want to be responsible for that. Leave it to the nerdy wizard.

Knock and find familiar aren't problems. Familiars get killed a lot. I've never taken knock or seen someone take it, even though it shows up on this forum a lot. Short range teleportation is available to shader-kai and eladrin and anyone else with the fey-touched feat. Even flight is open to a lot of subclasses and a few races. I always take fly on Warlocks. It upcasts well to your 5th level slots, and warlocks get so many more preparations than they need, that it's good to have some situational spells.

Wizards only really become a problem in tier 3, maybe late tier 2 with wall of force. Before that, they are great for party utility but not overpowered. I like playing wizards, but I play other classes too, and when I do, I'm happy to have a wizard in my party, but I don't think they are required. I don't worry about if they can do utility things better than me. I can still role-play and will be more consistent in combat.

At high levels, I'd agree with banning the shenanigan spells and long-term minionmancy, adding wall of force and force cage to that list. But before that, I like that there is a class whose power budget is all in their spellcasting (Chronurgy excepted. That subclass is an OP mess). Then the other classes trade some of that versatility for other abilities.

Outside of optimization forums, I don't think wizards overshadow other classes at all. I play mostly tier 1 and tier 2, and they're almost never the most powerful character in the party.

Other than chronurgy subclass, wizards aren't in my top 5 OP cheesy builds. 1. Shepherd druid, 2. Twilight Cleric 3. Peace Cleric 4. 2 levels of paladin on a warlock, bard, or sorcerer 5. 1-2 levels of hexblade on a paladin, sorcerer or bard. 6. Eloquence/lore bard with changeling or mask of many faces. 7. Sentinel feat 8. Wizards

[MrStabby]

All of these are excellent points.

The wizard, in practice, in play, rarely if ever is the problem that is portrayed here. I have, once, been in a game with somebody who felt the wizard (me, in this case) was a problem because he was solving all the problems and thus taking up all the oxygen in the room. This was only one player out of 4 or 5 others, and because he was a good friend, I took his complaints seriously and tried to step back and do less. His character still didn't step up and fill the void left behind, and I was very careful to try to stay out of any place he could have been doing it. After discussion with the DM, asking him to make sure I was not missing something I was doing (as an objective third party who was another mutual good friend), the DM was confused, because he didn't see how my character was in any way stepping on the other player's toes. And the other player didn't seem to be getting any happier with the game; just being increasingly upset by the limitations on his character. All of which were self-imposed build choices.

Exactly once in that campaign, for the record, did my wizard have "the exact perfect spell" for the encounter, and that was more a player quirk than anything else. I like necromancy, and my wizard happened, therefore, to have command undead prepared, which let us calm down and befriend a potentially-dangerous ghost rather than fighting it. (This was PF1, not 5e, but still.) The number of times I could say, "Wow, there IS a spell that would be perfect here, if I knew it," is a pretty solid indicator of how the Schroedinger's Wizard isn't actually a thing in real play.

In other games, aside from that one, I have not had people seem in any way put out by my wizards, and more often than not, I didn't have "the perfect spell" and we had to work around obstacles as a party. Most of the time, the real-play wizard, whether I'm playing him or not, is strongest when he has a suite of spells to back up other player characters' specialties, not when he is trying to have the bespoke spell solution to each problem. Even the most broken minionmancy tools take the same kind of preparation and faces the same problem with Schroedinger's Minions that the Schroedinger's Wizard does with spells: he doesn't actually have that overpowered perfect minion for the situation. Very few games actually have the kind of downtime and research time needed to permit a wizard to actually make an arsenal of "literally every monster out there." Or even of the most broken common examples.

Are there broken things that gentlemen's agreements and DM foot-down "no"s have to be applied to? Almost certainly. They exist for every class, somewhere. Are more of them present in the wizard's spell list, especially with certain abuses/combos? Maybe! Does that mean that they come up even often enough that the wizard is really the dreaded Schroedinger's Wizard and inevitably requires the DM to rule more often than any other class in most games? No.

I think that I would push a different perspective.

Wizards are not overpowered. No class is overpowered - what can be overpowered are characters. An optimised wizard that takes all the best spells and acively shores up weaknesses with feats or multiclassing is not the same as a thematic wizard that narows down what they do to create a more interesting character to play alongside. This is why I worry about a number of ideas people throw round - anything that hits the suboptimised character as hard as the optimised one is probably not adding to balance well.

In that sense I agree with you - wizards doing cool things is fine. Wizards doing cool wizardy things - even better. The issue is when a "wizardy thing" can be anything the player wants (to be clear, anything a player wants is distinct from everything a player wants).

Where I think we might differ is how we might measure this. You focus on what a wizard does, thinks its reasonable and concludes there is no problem (broadly). I think my perspective would instead be to look at the other players and seeing if they also have a chance to shine - you can have a wizard not be doing much more than average but still have one person in a 5 person party be somewhat squeezed out by a few other characters just being a small bit above average. I think a focus on ensuring that other characters have a chance to shine also catches some of the other issues that casters can pose.

Taking the wizard, as that's the class you mentioned, you might have spells like leomund's tiny hut. Your party rogue may expect to excell when the party goes into combat low on resources and needs their at-will damage output, but leomund's tiny hut (or pass without trace or whatever other spell/effect) means that it is the type of encounters that they would shine in don't happen. The party might not see that the caster has overcome the encounters that never happened, but what is left is a rogue that has had fewer encounters in which they were able to shine.

Then there is proximity between character capability. I have seen one player be pretty grim as they were playing a ranger looking to be a tracker, but the divination wizard with locate person and locate object spells was just better at their thing than the ranger. The issue wasn't that the wizard was overpowered and unreasonably dominaed an encounter or two, but that their capability sucked the fun away from another character.

This is why I prefer to think about things from the perspecitve of the character playing alongside the caster rather than looking at the caster themselves.

[Segev]

Of these, the only ones that I think are a problem are the Shenanigans and Long-Duration Minionmancy. Those are definitely a problem that needs to be addressed. Otherwise, I think wizards are fine.

Teleportation, Flight, and Planar Travel are all just using the wizard as a bus driver. If I'm playing a fighter or even a sorcerer, I don't want to be responsible for that. Leave it to the nerdy wizard.

Knock and find familiar aren't problems. Familiars get killed a lot. I've never taken knock or seen someone take it, even though it shows up on this forum a lot. Short range teleportation is available to shader-kai and eladrin and anyone else with the fey-touched feat. Even flight is open to a lot of subclasses and a few races. I always take fly on Warlocks. It upcasts well to your 5th level slots, and warlocks get so many more preparations than they need, that it's good to have some situational spells.

Wizards only really become a problem in tier 3, maybe late tier 2 with wall of force. Before that, they are great for party utility but not overpowered. I like playing wizards, but I play other classes too, and when I do, I'm happy to have a wizard in my party, but I don't think they are required. I don't worry about if they can do utility things better than me. I can still role-play and will be more consistent in combat.

At high levels, I'd agree with banning the shenanigan spells and long-term minionmancy, adding wall of force and force cage to that list. But before that, I like that there is a class whose power budget is all in their spellcasting (Chronurgy excepted. That subclass is an OP mess). Then the other classes trade some of that versatility for other abilities.

Outside of optimization forums, I don't think wizards overshadow other classes at all. I play mostly tier 1 and tier 2, and they're almost never the most powerful character in the party.

As a fan of long-term minionmancy, there are two or three things that I think can be done to "solve" the problem better than just removing it:

Give other classes similar options. This, of course, is only a solution if the problem isn't minionmancy, itself, but if the complaint is "but minionmancy lets people do stuff and I don't want to have to feel like I have to spend resources to do that stuff," well, any option lets people do stuff, and if you don't want to do that stuff, don't complain if others do.
Make sure PCs are better - especially in combat - than minions that the PCs could potentially have, at least if the PCs are focused on the same thing the minions are. The cleric shouldn't be summoning things better at lockpicking than the rogue dedicated to lockpicking, or better at melee than the barbarian dedicated to melee, etc. The wizard should always find the fighter to be a better choice to focus his buffs on than a magically-bound minion. This may involve buffing the PC classes and even coming up with mechanics that make them better at accepting magical buffs.
Reduce effectiveness of hordes, at least when the PCs control them. This is harder to do, especially with bounded accuracy, but is one of the areas where minions tend to be the biggest problem, because too many actions bog down a combat.

To me, the allure of minionmancy is the fantasy of controlling powerful or interesting monsters, and not just of having a puppet that I can pretend is something it isn't. This is one of the biggest problems with 5e's approach to the issue. What needs to happen is to have minion control be geared such that it can't overshine a dedicated character of the master's level, and the mechanics of either controlling them or of engaging in battle with them need to limit how many can be used. Power projection is a big thing for minionmancy, and should be less impeded than it is, while direct involvement should be something that is more about enhancing the PC's action. But one of the frustrating things, conversely, about the Ranger Beastmaster is how it somehow has a stupider, less capable beast than if he just trained it using Animal Handling to fight on its own. This is not an easy set of dueling priorities to resolve.

[Dr.Samurai]

@NichG

I agree with your overall points. I just don't know of how much use they are. Most campaigns can't be played through spamming just cantrips. That's a unique campaign style that will interact with the classes and features differently, so it's a sentiment that doesn't seem very relevant to the discussion.

Same with pointing out that technically druids can do some stuff too. It's like sure, there could be a campaign out there where you're not killing the necromancer and his goons to stop the food shortage, or stopping the planar leakage, or the dragon regional effects, and instead you're tending crops and boosting morale. But that's a unique style of game. That's why OP is focusing on the spells (and class) that he is focusing on.

And to PhoenixPhyre's point, and I tend to agree, at that point the DM is really more involved and can do any number of things. And when you're playing at that level or in that scope, for me, a fighter that has that level of martial prowess AND can give rousing speeches that inspire the masses, as you suggest, should just be in charge and have political and/or military power. Because that's what would happen. And if that's the case, the fighter needs to take his army and get out of dodge and secure food before they revolt and/or abandon him. If the DM wants to deviate from the design intent of the game, where they're running games that don't lean on combat resolution, then they will need to make adjustments. The classes will never be designed for playing the game in a way that wasn't intended.

The spells that often come up in these conversations and that PP is focusing on are much more relevant because they directly interact with things that come up much more often.

[Segev]

I think that I would push a different perspective.

Wizards are not overpowered. No class is overpowered - what can be overpowered are characters. An optimised wizard that takes all the best spells and acively shores up weaknesses with feats or multiclassing is not the same as a thematic wizard that narows down what they do to create a more interesting character to play alongside. This is why I worry about a number of ideas people throw round - anything that hits the suboptimised character as hard as the optimised one is probably not adding to balance well.

In that sense I agree with you - wizards doing cool things is fine. Wizards doing cool wizardy things - even better. The issue is when a "wizardy thing" can be anything the player wants (to be clear, anything a player wants is distinct from everything a player wants).

Where I think we might differ is how we might measure this. You focus on what a wizard does, thinks its reasonable and concludes there is no problem (broadly). I think my perspective would instead be to look at the other players and seeing if they also have a chance to shine - you can have a wizard not be doing much more than average but still have one person in a 5 person party be somewhat squeezed out by a few other characters just being a small bit above average. I think a focus on ensuring that other characters have a chance to shine also catches some of the other issues that casters can pose.

Taking the wizard, as that's the class you mentioned, you might have spells like leomund's tiny hut. Your party rogue may expect to excell when the party goes into combat low on resources and needs their at-will damage output, but leomund's tiny hut (or pass without trace or whatever other spell/effect) means that it is the type of encounters that they would shine in don't happen. The party might not see that the caster has overcome the encounters that never happened, but what is left is a rogue that has had fewer encounters in which they were able to shine.

Then there is proximity between character capability. I have seen one player be pretty grim as they were playing a ranger looking to be a tracker, but the divination wizard with locate person and locate object spells was just better at their thing than the ranger. The issue wasn't that the wizard was overpowered and unreasonably dominaed an encounter or two, but that their capability sucked the fun away from another character.

This is why I prefer to think about things from the perspecitve of the character playing alongside the caster rather than looking at the caster themselves.

Part of this - the ranger example in particular - is just because the non-magical way to do those things is under-designed. Though I will also posit that there's a factor of range that is often unaccounted for. Locate creature and the like are surprisingly limited in range. Yes, the wizard may outshine the ranger if the game only takes place inside those ranges. This is unfortunate.

Leomund's tiny hut may honestly be too good at its job; anything that distorts play around it to the point that the DM's best solution is to have all the monsters in the area lurk just out of sight of it, waiting for the party to let it drop, or otherwise trap the party inside it forever as a challenge to replace the attrition they would have otherwise had from being ambushed or forced not to take a 5-minute adventuring day, is worth reconsidering. That said, mostly it's the 5-minute adventuring day that's the problem, and you don't need Leomund's tiny hut to have situations where trying to keep the PCs from holing up somewhere for 23 hours and 55 minutes to get through another long rest (because they completed their last one five minutes ago, just before the fight where they nova'd and decided long resting was better than risking going on with only 70% of their resources) is difficult to unreasonable. Addressing this is a longer discussion, though.

It's worth noting that in 3e and earlier editions, Leomund's tiny hut didn't keep creatures out. It wasn't a "dome of force" and it only protected against weather.

All of that said, I agree that it's important to look at niche protection within a given party. Depending on the game design, maybe the wizard can, in fact, replace another class in particular roles, even ones iconic to that class. This is probably a sign that the class isn't as well-designed for its role as it could be, but is definitely either a statement about the kind of game being run (if you've got all the knock spell slots you need to replace the rogue entirely, then perhaps the game wouldn't have really been good for the rogue focused on lock picking, anyway, given how little it comes up; if you're able to use the relatively short-range locate creature to replace the Ranger's dedication to Survival and Tracking, maybe the ranger would not have been as thrilled with the game even without you there, given how rarely it came up that you could afford to dedicate spell slots and concentration to it), or the area is poorly developed in the game mechanics when the only mechanical solutions are "eh, figure out a DC" and "push the bespoke spell button."

The reason - and this is game dependent - that I don't find locate creature to outshine the Survival specialist in practice has a lot to do with that range limitation. In my personal experience, the need to track something or someone for miles is at least as common as the need to track them down within 1000 feet. Locate creature doesn't help with that. At higher level, perhaps the diviner will be able to burn scry, divination, and teleport to get you there, replacing the ranger's ability to do long-term / -distance tracking, but that's a lot of resources, and the ranger hopefully has other things he's good at by then. That said, giving the ranger more tools to do supernatural, supernal tracking with at those levels? That's something I'm 100% on board for. HE's already a spellcaster; let's give him spells and features that enhance those spells if he has them so he can do the tracking thing as well as the Diviner, if not better. (I have proposed with the Experts UA, for example, that rangers maybe should have their hunter's mark class feature allow them to cast it on tracks, rather than on the creature itself, giving them a level 1 spell that can locate the creature anywhere.)

[Thunderous Mojo]

Yet another, “I HATE Wizards thread” from P.P.

Druids, rule the world. Druids, innately form groups: Druid Circles.
Wizards do not innately, in D&D Fantasy Fiction, always form Wizard Guilds.

Druids have more, and arguably better minionmancy through Conjure Animals and Conjure Fey. A Druid PC could have a Planar Bound Hag Coven, with very little difficulty.

Wizards that summon Demons and Devils have to contend with the fact that those summons start off as hostile, where as most Druidical Summons bring forth Friendly creatures.

This is before the fact that every powerful Druid has an extra long life. Druids, can summon insects to eat the crops of their foes, and boost the agriculture of their allies, and can have spies everywhere…be it Humanoid, Monstrous, Beast or Leaf…it might be a source of information for a Druid. Earthquake, the spell, does indeed, level cities.

Narratively speaking, Druidical Organizations should be some of the most powerful rulers of the game world.

The Freemasons are Druids! 🃏

Now back to your regularly scheduled, and utterly dull topic of Wizard hate.

[Tanarii]

But I can absolutely do more proactively that matters with Prestidigitation and Message and Mage Hand than I can do with being able to fight a dragon. In the case of cantrips, again, I was not arguing that cantrips are transformative. I was saying that if given the mission 'change the setting' and the choice between a Lv15 Fighter or a Lv1 Commoner with 'all cantrips', I'd pick the commoner with the cantrips as a player, because that would give me more leverage to actually do things that weren't set up in advance for me to knock down. I'm not saying it would be easy with only cantrips and a Lv1 character, but rather that it would be harder to do with the Fighter. This is a statement about how little the Fighter gets along axes of play outside of the combat minigame rather than a statement about how particularly broken or special or transformative cantrips are.
A level 15 fighter can do more during table time to impact the lives of a large number of folks than a lvl 1 commoner with 'all cantrips'. You're basically picking to play an NPC who's transformative power is all used by not actually playing the character, just parking them long term in downtime to effect their transformations. Versus one that has huge transformative power just by playing for one adventuring session.

[Unoriginal]

But I can absolutely do more proactively that matters with Prestidigitation and Message and Mage Hand than I can do with being able to fight a dragon.

Absolutely no one can do more that matters with cantrips than with being able to fight a dragon. Be it proactively, reactively, or non-actively.


because that would give me more leverage to actually do things that weren't set up in advance for me to knock down.

NichG, Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop RPG, and as such, everything you can do is something that was set up in advance for you to knock down.

Even if something the DM improvises on the spot, it will always be Step 1: the DM set up X, Step 2: the player decides what the PC try to do with X.



I'm not saying it would be easy with only cantrips and a Lv1 character, but rather that it would be harder to do with the Fighter. This is a statement about how little the Fighter gets along axes of play outside of the combat minigame rather than a statement about how particularly broken or special or transformative cantrips are.

It's an insulting statement made to dismiss the Fighter, and a statement that ignores/denies a) the reality of what D&D is as a game b) the in-setting reality of the D&D world c) everything that possessing martial might let you do.



Its just that given a choice between 'basically nothing useful' and 'a couple of tricks', I'll take 'a couple of tricks'. Both are hard mode.

Again, considering "being strong enough to fight a dragon" to be "basically nothing useful" is deliberately ignoring and/or denying the realities of what D&D as a game is and the in-setting state of the world.

[Dr.Samurai]

A level 15 fighter can do more during table time to impact the lives of a large number of folks than a lvl 1 commoner with 'all cantrips'. You're basically picking to play an NPC who's transformative power is all used by not actually playing the character, just parking them long term in downtime to effect their transformations. Versus one that has huge transformative power just by playing for one adventuring session.
I think it's better to jump off this response than to multi-quote everyone, but Tanarii has the right of it.

When we're talking about D&D, we need to respect what the design intentions and expectations are for running and playing the game.

If you can have a bigger impact on the game by spamming Message than you can by being a full fledged fighter, you're not really playing D&D. You're playing something, and you're using some D&D mechanics, but you're not playing D&D in a manner that is relevant to discussions about D&D game balance.

The reason that PhoenixPhyre chose the spells he did in the OP is because those are the ones that come up most in these disparity threads, and the reason for that is because they directly impact common elements of the game.

The druid stuff is less relevant because it's less prevalent. If there's a famine in your game due to food shortages, it's because there is a necromancer that needs to get murderized, or a blight druid, or a dragon, or a fey lord, etc etc etc. That's the expectation that D&D has. If the famine is caused by a dry season that led to crops failing, and the resolution is "let's play medieval simulator and tend crops and keep morale up", you can do that with some stuff from D&D rulebooks, but you're not really playing D&D. And to say "the fighter isn't thriving in this scenario" seems disingenuous. At that point, you're far enough removed from the premise of the game that the DM should be ad hoc'ing this stuff anyways. If the fighter is good enough to keep morale high during a famine, they should just be in charge, because someone that lethal in combat and that inspiring would wield political/military power anyways. That's what people should keep in mind when we start leaving the books and getting very open-minded about "world building". Your fighter is a landed knight or a duke or baron or renowned enough to gather his own forces and take a barony or duchy etc. And if you can't do stuff out of combat with that, I don't know what to say.

[KorvinStarmast]

Message isn't as good as a radio network or satellite relay, true, but its a step in that direction. Higher level spells walk much further in that direction, and so really become 'strategic capabilities' in their own right. My general point of frustration is that magic doesn't exact a cost as the level of spells go up. Message in the hands of a clever player is a neat tool. Sending can work at the strategic level. :smallwink: But it is unreliable for cross plane communications.

Part of the problem is wizards are balanced in a no Multiclassing no feat campaign that mostly only runs up through level 10, possibly with a few forays to mid Tier 3, with a fair amount of combat as part of a full (or more than full) adventuring day. Because wizards specifically and Arcane casters (Sorc/Bard/Warlock) in general get splattered pretty easily without access to Medium or Heavy armor. And long rest full casters feel the resource limits strain in a full or more adventuring day until mid to late Tier 2. Guess what kinds of games 5e was designed to play, and what was playtested the most? :smallbiggrin: High level play really is a different breed of cat.

Druids, rule the world. Great post. I cackled. :smallsmile:

[Angelalex242]

As a Paladin player, I think I synergize pretty well with wizards. Particularly Divination Wizards. One of my favorite campaigns had my powerful Paladin playing next to a twinked out Divination wizard who had entirely too many portents and a bunch of 20s on standby.

What happened? He fed me crit smites. Unsurprisingly, things died. Even the final boss in an Adventure's League Epic.

[Unoriginal]

A level 15 fighter can do more during table time to impact the lives of a large number of folks than a lvl 1 commoner with 'all cantrips'. You're basically picking to play an NPC who's transformative power is all used by not actually playing the character, just parking them long term in downtime to effect their transformations. Versus one that has huge transformative power just by playing for one adventuring session.

That's overly optimistic.

Take a Commoner who has every cantrip they may ask for, and have them try to do they want in a D&D world.

Even imagining that they come up with an use for those cantrips that no one in the long history of this D&D world had before AND that somehow they don't get their idea stolen by the numerous NPCs who can also use those cantrips...

What is Cantrip Commoner going to do when the first Bandit Captain shows up and demand their money or else?

What is Cantrip Commoner going to do when all the king's men and all the king's horses show up to throw Cantrip Commoner in jail under false prestances because the king is a jealous, greedy tyrant who want to exploit Cantrip Commoner?

What is Cantrip Commoner going to do if they got enough gold to be noticeable and the local dragon shows up to steal the money?

What is the Cantrip Commoner going to do when the Thieves' Guild think they have a nice setup here and now Cantrip Commoner is working for them exclusively?

What is Cantrip Commoner going to do when the Most Noble Council of the West decides Cantrip Commoner has too much influence and should be removed from the board via an assassin's dagger?

What is Cantrip Commoner going to do when the neighboring village is getting eaten by Gnolls? When a trade route is made unusable by a mysterious fire-cloaked horse-riding figure? When their suppliers are being enslaved by Duergars? When their sponsors are getting mind-controlled by a Vampire? When a Demonic cult kidnap the mayor's children to sacrifice at the full moon in order to summon their Demon Prince?

Cantrip Commoner isn't going to do anything themselves, because they can't. The best they can do is ask people with factual might for help, among them the guy who can swing a sharp stick so good even dragons hesitate to bother them.



If there's a famine in your game due to food shortages, it's because there is a necromancer that needs to get murderized, or a blight druid, or a dragon, or a fey lord, etc etc etc. That's the expectation that D&D has. If the famine is caused by a dry season that led to crops failing, and the resolution is "let's play medieval simulator and tend crops and keep morale up", you can do that with some stuff from D&D rulebooks, but you're not really playing D&D.

Indeed.

Even if the famine is caused by something like a dry season or the like, then a D&D adventure would be "protect the caravane transporting the food for those suffering form the famine" or "go on a pilgrimage to X temple so the town cleric can make a special offering" or something like that.



And to say "the fighter isn't thriving in this scenario" seems disingenuous. At that point, you're far enough removed from the premise of the game that the DM should be ad hoc'ing this stuff anyways. If the fighter is good enough to keep morale high during a famine, they should just be in charge, because someone that lethal in combat and that inspiring would wield political/military power anyways. That's what people should keep in mind when we start leaving the books and getting very open-minded about "world building". Your fighter is a landed knight or a duke or baron or renowned enough to gather his own forces and take a barony or duchy etc. And if you can't do stuff out of combat with that, I don't know what to say.

Also indeed.

Declaring the casters, even someone with cantrips, can play out of the limits but Fighters/martials are strictly stuck in the limits (and also ignoring everything someone with martial might can accomplish in such a situation) is just next-level, transparent double standard.

[OvisCaedo]

I know it's all very tangential, but people keep mentioning the "Message" cantrip. I personally think 5e's version of it is impressively terrible in most situations. It lasts one round, and as spell components are defined, has a perceptible vocal component. And somatic, and material. So you have to keep speaking the magic activation words every six seconds while trying to frantically whisper as much as you can into the gap between castings, if you want to actually maintain contact. There are still situations where it might not matter if everyone around the Messager can tell that they're casting a spell, but a lot of subterfuge would find itself troubled by that.

[NichG]

A level 15 fighter can do more during table time to impact the lives of a large number of folks than a lvl 1 commoner with 'all cantrips'. You're basically picking to play an NPC who's transformative power is all used by not actually playing the character, just parking them long term in downtime to effect their transformations. Versus one that has huge transformative power just by playing for one adventuring session.


Absolutely no one can do more that matters with cantrips than with being able to fight a dragon. Be it proactively, reactively, or non-actively.

NichG, Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop RPG, and as such, everything you can do is something that was set up in advance for you to knock down.




When we're talking about D&D, we need to respect what the design intentions and expectations are for running and playing the game.

If you can have a bigger impact on the game by spamming Message than you can by being a full fledged fighter, you're not really playing D&D. You're playing something, and you're using some D&D mechanics, but you're not playing D&D in a manner that is relevant to discussions about D&D game balance.


This all falls within what I've been talking about as 'reactive play'. The thing is, if you have a DM who sets up a sequence of encounters for the party to overcome, and players who are all fine with that being how they play the game, then that's a game that - voluntarily because of the choices of all hands at the table - basically has no strategic layer, even if strategic abilities exist. Tables like that also tend to not be the ones that end up bothered by the existence of wizard shenanigans stuff. And it may be that you (the particular people responding that they don't see how I could pick cantrips over fighter) primarily play at tables like that, where you really can't just say 'you know, I don't care about the necromancer, lets infiltrate the court of the duke and go looking for some secrets to steal'.

But when people are complaining about wizardly shenanigans, that indicates that at least the player of the wizard at the table is approaching the game from the perspective of 'I am going to make things happen the way I envision them happening' rather than 'I am going to rise to the challenge set to me by the DM'. And one form of tension comes from the situation where the DM isn't expecting a player to be able to just make things happen because of course they're the DM and the player is a player and doesn't have that right - but then when you read through the stuff the player was given by the rules or by prior DM decisions and think through the consequences, the player's line of actions are pretty persuasive of 'yeah actually its hard to say that shouldn't work'. This can be as simple of a tension as the DM creating something to be a hook leading to a larger adventure, which then gets bypassed because the symptom presented by the hook can be resolved directly at the strategic layer. But it can also be a player wanting to go and start to assemble hag covens or clone armies or do city-building stuff or whatever when the DM was expecting this to be 'we all sit down and have some combat minigame'.

Of course that's a very negative way to look at things because you can also DM the game by accepting 'okay, such stuff does exist within the system, there are levers which do allow players to on their own recognizance step up and start things', and you can run things such that a player deciding they want to start building a chain of cities along a major desert trade route is great because that just created the plot for you - now you don't have to invent the necromancer plague of the week to get characters to do things, you just use the fact that strategic-scale actions create large consequences and there's always going to be something or someone who wants a say in those sorts of actions.

Whether you're struggling with players having the tools to plausibly either bypass or shift large parts of your game or force you to railroad, or if you want play that can include such strategic moves, I think its important to recognize what specifically it is about specific abilities which lead to connecting to that level of play, as compared to abilities which are fundamentally compartmentalized. And I think that a lot of people - some of whom to be fair have said they don't have a martial-caster balance issue at their tables, but not all here - just have a blind spot about the nature of strategic level play and the basic steps to how to go about doing it even if you have a character with no particular direct strategic-level buttons.

That's really what I'm getting at with the cantrips thing. If you give me a character with no abilities, there are a series of things I would do to try to elevate that character towards making strategic-level choices. I'd be looking for levers of power, things which scale according to the things around me rather than to my own personal power. In a system that has been scrupulously scrubbed clean of such things, the one that almost always remains is that there are usually hierarchies in the world formed by people, and people at the top of those hierarchies make decisions on the basis of the information they have or do not have. Money and organization into businesses, guilds, etc is another avenue that almost always exists. So even in the settings most hardened against it, the mostly reliable gateways to strategic level play is espionage, information brokering, merchant-y stuff, etc. Even if you're going a military route, ability to command gets you to the strategic level whereas ability to fight doesn't escape the tactical level. The Fighter basically gives only things which help with the combat minigame when compared to a blank slate character sheet. Cantrips don't get you to the strategic level directly, but they do give things that can interface with the world outside of that minigame, even if only in relatively small ways.

So maybe Message only gives me a 0.01% higher chance of gaining the emperor's ear. That's a 0.01% chance of moving things with the emperor's power. Whereas extra attacks might make me more powerful in a fight, its only a plus to one person doing one thing at one place. And especially in 5e with bounded accuracy and armies still being a threat to high level characters, 0.01% of the power of a nation is going to be a lot more than the difference in personal power available from fighting better.

[Tanarii]

Even with non-reactive play, a level 15 Fighter can go on transformative table time adventures. Whereas a commoner with all cantrips being transformative is still just an NPC sitting doing stuff that is downtime activity, not worth table time.

[Dr.Samurai]

I know it's all very tangential, but people keep mentioning the "Message" cantrip. I personally think 5e's version of it is impressively terrible in most situations. It lasts one round, and as spell components are defined, has a perceptible vocal component. And somatic, and material. So you have to keep speaking the magic activation words every six seconds while trying to frantically whisper as much as you can into the gap between castings, if you want to actually maintain contact. There are still situations where it might not matter if everyone around the Messager can tell that they're casting a spell, but a lot of subterfuge would find itself troubled by that.
This is why there's an assumption on my part, and others, that anyone gaining so much traction from cantrips in the way being discussed has a permissive DM that is allowing magic to get away with stuff it shouldn't be able to do.

@NichG: Conan is tasked with rescuing the King's daughter because of his prowess as a thief and warrior. A high level fighter has many more chances to gain the emperor's ear than a commoner using a cantrip. Like, it's not even close. It's a bad example. Cantrips aren't as strong as you think they are unless you just make them that way in the game. Fighters, as highly proficient warriors, should have a large impact in the setting of your game world. People should want to talk to them, because they can get stuff done and physicality and martial combat are obvious and relatable to everyone, because burglars and thieves and other criminals use physicality to assault the common people, guards and enforcers use physicality to enforce the laws, etc. Monsters that threaten people and overwhelm the guards are killed through violence, not cantrips.

Conan winds up killing the sorcerer cult leader that took the king's daughter by the way, which, presumably, has a tremendous impact on the setting. D&D is designed to impact the setting primarily through combat.

[NichG]

What is Cantrip Commoner going to do when the first Bandit Captain shows up and demand their money or else?


Give them money. Don't be there. Join the bandits and agree to act as a spy for them to find juicy targets, then use that to gain strategic-level influence. Placate the captain this time, then have everyone in the village move to a secondary location while hiding lots of 'small campfire sized' bundles of kindling and wood with oil trails connecting them and the next time the bandits come by, use Prestidigitation to catch the bandits in a blaze, Mage Hand to trigger various traps from a remote location.



What is Cantrip Commoner going to do when all the king's men and all the king's horses show up to throw Cantrip Commoner in jail under false prestances because the king is a jealous, greedy tyrant who want to exploit Cantrip Commoner?


Let yourself get exploited. That's an inroad to power. Now you have contact with movers and shakers in the setting and more to the point, you're being depended on. If you've got a different psychology than the king assumes you do, you've got a good opportunity to betray them at an opportune moment. See the Locke Lamora series, which is basically about a character who is endlessly laboring under this sort of circumstance and uses it to screw over his masters.



What is Cantrip Commoner going to do if they got enough gold to be noticeable and the local dragon shows up to steal the money?


Give the dragon the money. If you've gotten some juicy information at this point, leak key things to the dragon while omitting other things, in order to direct the dragon's interest to targets you want harassed. If you've got a good money making scheme, maybe negotiate with the dragon to give them 95% of the proceeds of that scheme in exchange for one or two moments of combat support. Maybe get eaten - high risk, high reward.



What is the Cantrip Commoner going to do when the Thieves' Guild think they have a nice setup here and now Cantrip Commoner is working for them exclusively?


See the king exploit situation - its an inroad to power.



What is Cantrip Commoner going to do when the Most Noble Council of the West decides Cantrip Commoner has too much influence and should be removed from the board via an assassin's dagger?


If you've gotten 'too much influence' to the extent that a noble council is bumping you off as a Lv1 commoner, that's already pretty good! And why didn't you use that influence to get yourself some bodyguards? Or some dead man's switch blackmail material on people who are likely to be pissed off by your actions? Basically if you got to this stage without turning some of that influence into personal power, you made a mistake awhile back and this is just the natural consequence of that.



What is Cantrip Commoner going to do when the neighboring village is getting eaten by Gnolls? When a trade route is made unusable by a mysterious fire-cloaked horse-riding figure? When their suppliers are being enslaved by Duergars? When their sponsors are getting mind-controlled by a Vampire? When a Demonic cult kidnap the mayor's children to sacrifice at the full moon in order to summon their Demon Prince?


Depends on whether they're at the getting started stage or the 'enough influence to be the target of assassins' stage. The ironic answer is that adventuring parties are known to risk their lives for a pittance of reward offered by influential figures. Practically speaking, some of these things may just not matter to the character and can be ignored and allowed to happen. Some are opportunities in disguise. Others, if you're at the level where you're say the head of an organization you can make organization-level moves to respond to - move the trade-route by investing in ships or hiring druids to carry goods through plants, bypassing the adventure entirely; evacuate the village and hire them on at your factories; threaten the country you're doing business in with a loss of essential goods you provide unless their military takes care of the problem; etc.

If you're just getting started, most of these can just be 'scrap your progress and start again'. Sucks, but a controlled loss is better than a suicidal charge.

[Waazraath]

Declaring the casters, even someone with cantrips, can play out of the limits but Fighters/martials are strictly stuck in the limits (and also ignoring everything someone with martial might can accomplish in such a situation) is just next-level, transparent double standard.

This. And remarkable that this is a serious topic of conversation for an entire page.

[Dr.Samurai]

The amount of work necessary to make these suggestions feasible is far and away more than being advertised here and requires tremendous buy-in. Convincing everyone to move their village in secret? Setting up a fire death trap that doesn't get spotted? Rigging the forest with booby traps and being in the right place and time to trigger them as needed? Sure, go ahead Captain Cantrip.

Meanwhile, the fighter can just... kill bandits and thieves and kingsmen, etc. But somehow, this doesn't translate into any influence.

There is nothing stopping a fighter character from also trying to make these inroads. And while they can't cast mage hand to trigger traps at a distance, they can pull out a sword and just kill people in person.

[Unoriginal]

Give them money. Don't be there. Join the bandits and agree to act as a spy for them to find juicy targets, then use that to gain strategic-level influence. Placate the captain this time, then have everyone in the village move to a secondary location while hiding lots of 'small campfire sized' bundles of kindling and wood with oil trails connecting them and the next time the bandits come by, use Prestidigitation to catch the bandits in a blaze, Mage Hand to trigger various traps from a remote location.

Let yourself get exploited. That's an inroad to power. Now you have contact with movers and shakers in the setting and more to the point, you're being depended on. If you've got a different psychology than the king assumes you do, you've got a good opportunity to betray them at an opportune moment. See the Locke Lamora series, which is basically about a character who is endlessly laboring under this sort of circumstance and uses it to screw over his masters.

Give the dragon the money. If you've gotten some juicy information at this point, leak key things to the dragon while omitting other things, in order to direct the dragon's interest to targets you want harassed. If you've got a good money making scheme, maybe negotiate with the dragon to give them 95% of the proceeds of that scheme in exchange for one or two moments of combat support. Maybe get eaten - high risk, high reward.

See the king exploit situation - its an inroad to power.

If you've gotten 'too much influence' to the extent that a noble council is bumping you off as a Lv1 commoner, that's already pretty good! And why didn't you use that influence to get yourself some bodyguards? Or some dead man's switch blackmail material on people who are likely to be pissed off by your actions? Basically if you got to this stage without turning some of that influence into personal power, you made a mistake awhile back and this is just the natural consequence of that.

Depends on whether they're at the getting started stage or the 'enough influence to be the target of assassins' stage. The ironic answer is that adventuring parties are known to risk their lives for a pittance of reward offered by influential figures. Practically speaking, some of these things may just not matter to the character and can be ignored and allowed to happen. Some are opportunities in disguise. Others, if you're at the level where you're say the head of an organization you can make organization-level moves to respond to - move the trade-route by investing in ships or hiring druids to carry goods through plants, bypassing the adventure entirely; evacuate the village and hire them on at your factories; threaten the country you're doing business in with a loss of essential goods you provide unless their military takes care of the problem; etc.

If you're just getting started, most of these can just be 'scrap your progress and start again'. Sucks, but a controlled loss is better than a suicidal charge.


So essentially:

1) Give the bullies what they want and hope they want to keep you alive
2) Flee and start again
3) Hope to have reached a point in your enterprise where you have the means to hire the people with factual might you've spent several posts dismissing as unable of affecting the setting to solve the problem in your stead.

And that is after Cantrip Commoner somehow got an idea to use their cantrips that a) no one in the present time of this world had b) that the other people who also have cantrips didn't steal for their own use and exploit better than Cantrip Commoner could thanks to their other ressources, reducing once again Cantrip Commoner to just another Joe.

Because, in the end...



So maybe Message only gives me a 0.01% higher chance of gaining the emperor's ear. That's a 0.01% chance of moving things with the emperor's power. Whereas extra attacks might make me more powerful in a fight, its only a plus to one person doing one thing at one place. And especially in 5e with bounded accuracy and armies still being a threat to high level characters, 0.01% of the power of a nation is going to be a lot more than the difference in personal power available from fighting better.

Even if there is a 0.01% chance of gaining the emperor's ear via having Message, but there is no reason why Cantrip Commoner would be the one to get that chance.

There are thousands of people in the D&D world with the capacity to cast Message. An emperor can choose between hundreds of candidate most likely, or at least dozens, and aside from their capacity to cast other cantrips there is nothing that makes Cantrip Commoner stands out from other candidates who likely are either smarter, more charismatic, stronger or with access to other useful abilities.

[PhoenixPhyre]

So essentially:

1) Give the bullies what they want and hope they want to keep you alive
2) Flee and start again
3) Hope to have reached a point in your enterprise where you have the means to hire the people with factual might you've spent several posts dismissing as unable of affecting the setting to solve the problem in your stead.

And that is after Cantrip Commoner somehow got an idea to use their cantrips that a) no one in the present time of this world had b) that the other people who also have cantrips didn't steal for their own use and exploit better than Cantrip Commoner could thanks to their other ressources, reducing once again Cantrip Commoner to just another Joe.

Because, in the end...



Even if there is a 0.01% chance of gaining the emperor's ear via having Message, but there is no reason why Cantrip Commoner would be the one to get that chance.

There are thousands of people in the D&D world with the capacity to cast Message. An emperor can choose between hundreds of candidate most likely, or at least dozens, and aside from their capacity to cast other cantrips there is nothing that makes Cantrip Commoner stands out from other candidates who likely are either smarter, more charismatic, stronger or with access to other useful abilities.

Exactly. Cantrip Commoner is entirely a product of special pleading (but my guy is special!/magic is special) and an incoherent, cardboard world.

It also demands that the rest of the party accept this total liability in their party. Because, after all, this is D&D. Which revolves around the party. Not around individuals and their solo stories. Given a choice between someone who can actually accompany them on their chosen missions (whatever those are) and assist and someone who must be sheltered and cannot have any reasonable impact (the definition of the Load) except by playing the DM and demanding special handling...I know what I'd pick.

And your points about the rest of the world having already figured out all of that are on point. Any reasonable, coherent world already has magic baked into the cake. If a "message influencer" was going to work...someone else would already be doing it. Or, if by some DM fiat you're the first one to ever think about such an obvious thing, then anyone else can pick it up instantly as well. No barrier to entry at all, no special sauce. Merely a cantrip which a huge chunk of the population has.

If a "problem" can be solved by a straightforward application of a character-sheet button, it's not really a problem. Because someone with that character-sheet button would have already solved it that way. Adventurers get called in to do things that can't be solved by simple button pushes.

[Unoriginal]

This is why there's an assumption on my part, and others, that anyone gaining so much traction from cantrips in the way being discussed has a permissive DM that is allowing magic to get away with stuff it shouldn't be able to do.

@NichG: Conan is tasked with rescuing the King's daughter because of his prowess as a thief and warrior. A high level fighter has many more chances to gain the emperor's ear than a commoner using a cantrip. Like, it's not even close. It's a bad example. Cantrips aren't as strong as you think they are unless you just make them that way in the game. Fighters, as highly proficient warriors, should have a large impact in the setting of your game world. People should want to talk to them, because they can get stuff done and physicality and martial combat are obvious and relatable to everyone, because burglars and thieves and other criminals use physicality to assault the common people, guards and enforcers use physicality to enforce the laws, etc. Monsters that threaten people and overwhelm the guards are killed through violence, not cantrips.

Conan winds up killing the sorcerer cult leader that took the king's daughter by the way, which, presumably, has a tremendous impact on the setting. D&D is designed to impact the setting primarily through combat.

There is an actual Robert E. Howard story where a group of evil sorcerers have killed the current Queen's brother, and everyone think that sending the army against them would be useless. But the governor of the region where the evil sorcerers live hears that Conan is rallying tribes under his banner nearby, is aware of Conan's reputation and figures he's the only person who has a chance against the sorcerers. So he lets it know the tribes' leaders his soldiers have captured will be executed pretty soon, knowing Conan can't let them die without losing their people's support, and in consequence the governor gets the adventurer to show up.

Which is already quite the impact on the setting, before Conan even shows up.



There is nothing stopping a fighter character from also trying to make these inroads. And while they can't cast mage hand to trigger traps at a distance, they can pull out a sword and just kill people in person.

Plus there are many ways for a Fighter to get Mage Hand or better, if they want to. Without diminishing their capacity to pull out a sword and kill people.

[OvisCaedo]

Great! I guess there's not a wizard problem then, huh? It's DnD and everything is geared around the party solving things through combat. Sometimes the Wizard being there means the DM doesn't have to throw a solution to the party to get them to where the fighter will kill things with a sword.

edit: though some spells like simulacrum ARE clearly broken and probably shouldn't exist, or should have been way weaker

[NichG]

This. And remarkable that this is a serious topic of conversation for an entire page.

That was not the original claim. The original claim was that cantrips provide more ability to play outside of bounds than anything the Fighter gets from their class. Of course a Fighter can do anything 'a character in the setting' can do, just like any other character. The question is whether they get anything at all from their class that actually lets them do more than just that, outside of responding to pitches the DM sends their way to hit.

[Unoriginal]

Great! I guess there's not a wizard problem then, huh?

Indeed, there isn't a wizard problem, there is a people-talking-about-wizards/D&D-magic-as-if-they're-something-they're-not problem.


The question is whether they get anything at all from their class that actually lets them do more than just that, outside of responding to pitches the DM sends their way to hit.

No one gets anything from their class aside from responding to pitches the DM sends their way to hit.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That was not the original claim. The original claim was that cantrips provide more ability to play outside of bounds than anything the Fighter gets from their class. Of course a Fighter can do anything 'a character in the setting' can do, just like any other character. The question is whether they get anything at all from their class that actually lets them do more than just that, outside of responding to pitches the DM sends their way to hit.

No one anyone gets lets them play "outside the bounds". Because the bounds are entirely and only what the DM decides they are. Nothing a player does has any in-world effect until and unless the DM says it does. So there is no such thing. And that's foundational to D&D. If you don't like it, play a different game.

[NichG]

Indeed, there isn't a wizard problem, there is a people-talking-about-wizards/D&D-magic-as-if-they're-something-they're-not problem.



No one gets anything from their class aside from responding to pitches the DM sends their way to hit.


No one anyone gets lets them play "outside the bounds". Because the bounds are entirely and only what the DM decides they are. Nothing a player does has any in-world effect until and unless the DM says it does. So there is no such thing. And that's foundational to D&D. If you don't like it, play a different game.

If you really believe this and run game this way, I never want to hear you ever complaining about something a player did in your games.

[Ignimortis]

5e isn't 3e, but agreed it would be improved if the Wizard class was removed.

Part of the problem is wizards are balanced in a no Multiclassing no feat campaign that mostly only runs up through level 10, possibly with a few forays to mid Tier 3, with a fair amount of combat as part of a full (or more than full) adventuring day. Because wizards specifically and Arcane casters (Sorc/Bard/Warlock) in general get splattered pretty easily without access to Medium or Heavy armor. And long rest full casters feel the resource limits strain in a full or more adventuring day until mid to late Tier 2.

Guess what kinds of games 5e was designed to play, and what was playtested the most?

See, I can even agree to everything that's said here, aside from being "easily splattered" after tier 2 starts. But sure, this is still true, more or less. The first 8-10 levels kinda sorta work without much disparity, and then everything falls apart at increased speed with every level beyond 10.

Which is part of why I consider that 5e could've cleaned up by going "ok there are only 11 levels, ancient dragons are like this: (insert CR13-15 statblocks here), have fun". It would solve the vast majority of issues in the game, and while casters would still be slightly superior by the end of the game, it'd be much less of a gap. It seems almost natural for 5e (then again, I think that 5e was at least in part designed for E6 enthusiasts, while I personally detest that set of rules).

Re: OP; My feelings on the Wizard class are probably well-known at this point. Burn it to the ground and institute a new "Wizard" who is actually five different spellcasting classes and you get to choose only one per Wizard.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Re: OP; My feelings on the Wizard class are probably well-known at this point. Burn it to the ground and institute a new "Wizard" who is actually five different spellcasting classes and you get to choose only one per Wizard.

For the record, I agree (modulo the details). I don't think I'd keep them all in one base class, because some things need to be half-casters and that fits oddly as subclasses.

I think I'd split it into
- a generalist/ritual master who is a half caster[1]. Sort of an "intelligence-focused, half-caster rogue". Maybe alchemist-flavored?
- a "card master" tactical-divination-flavored buff/debuff (in combat) type
- a conjuration-specialist as a pet class (ie PF's summoner, except less nutso power-scale wise). Very much not a mass conjurer--leave that for druids (if it needs to exist at all).
- a magus-style gish half-caster. This can absorb pieces of EK and AA if needed, or not.
- a "transmuter" specializing in battle-field control, especially wall-type spells and terrain manipulation.

Necromancy/life manipulation? Let that be a cleric thing. Mind manipulation/Enchantment? Bards. Evocation Blaster? Sorcerers. Etc.

The resulting classes wouldn't be incapable of blasting or other basic functions, but their spell lists would be way more focused, more like the cleric list is now. And they'd have real class features to support the theme. Heck, they could all keep the book.

[1] one idea I've had but never really worked out is decoupling max spell on list and max spell slot and spell level progression. So you could be a full-caster in spell slot progression but cap at 5th level spells. The rest would be for (upgraded via class feature) upcasting. Possibly with features that allow (very limited) "stealing" from other lists. But you'd have like 1-2 total 6+th level spells.

@NichG--Funny thing is...I don't complain about the things my players do in the world. Why? Because I recognize the awesome (in the original meaning) power and responsibility inherent in being a DM. Everything that gets narrated is narrated with my approval. I may delegate some narrations, but nothing exists or can exist in the world that I didn't accept being there. Which means I bear full responsibility (blame is not conserved) for it all. I am the game engine and the voice of the world. In that, I'm merely following the "How to Play" guidance at the beginning of the PHB. Which says that the DM is the one who (a) decides how to resolve all actions, sometimes using rules to do so, and (b) narrates the effects that the actions (successful or failed or anything in between) have on the world and the new state.

And in fact, my players buy into this. And we collaborate heavily and constantly, both in session and not, to decide what is best for the characters, the narrative built up, and the world. They have added and changed many things. But mostly not by pushing buttons on the character sheet and demanding that the world change according to forum logic. Instead, they interact with the world by playing their characters. Many of the most influential actions have not relied on what character-sheet buttons the character had and instead on their character, decisions, and history (including reputation built up through the campaign). Character sheet abilities make small, day-to-day detail differences. But large ones that bubble out to change the world? No. Because anything that could be done by simply pressing a character sheet button is something the world has already taken into account; pushing it again doesn't move the needle at all.

[Pex]

And yet, players in other games can be limited and still thrive, there is never not someone wanting to play a Psyker in 40k game despite the risk that it can be to the player and the rest of their party and the persecution that character may face for what they can do inline with the setting. To claim otherwise in D&D is to admit that it only exists for pure powertrip fantasy and will keep on fueling the stupidly pointless threads about class divides till the cows come home. D&D is deeply flawed in a number of ways and magic is the worst of it ~ 5e (and assumedly D&Done will continue to) have been making it steadily a game where you cannot fail. Its been getting blander and blander for sometime.

I don't care what other games do. I don't play those games. Just because it's published doesn't make it good game design. D&D does not have to apologize for being a "power trip fantasy". If D&D offends you then play those other games that don't. 5E magic does not always work already. You can miss on the attack roll or the monster makes its saving throw. There's no need to tell the player because you cast a spell you don't get to play for the next half-hour while your character recuperates or whatever.

[NichG]

@NichG--Funny thing is...I don't complain about the things my players do in the world. Why? Because I recognize the awesome (in the original meaning) power and responsibility inherent in being a DM. Everything that gets narrated is narrated with my approval. I may delegate some narrations, but nothing exists or can exist in the world that I didn't accept being there. Which means I bear full responsibility (blame is not conserved) for it all. I am the game engine and the voice of the world. In that, I'm merely following the "How to Play" guidance at the beginning of the PHB. Which says that the DM is the one who (a) decides how to resolve all actions, sometimes using rules to do so, and (b) narrates the effects that the actions (successful or failed or anything in between) have on the world and the new state.

And in fact, my players buy into this. And we collaborate heavily and constantly, both in session and not, to decide what is best for the characters, the narrative built up, and the world. They have added and changed many things. But mostly not by pushing buttons on the character sheet and demanding that the world change according to forum logic. Instead, they interact with the world by playing their characters. Many of the most influential actions have not relied on what character-sheet buttons the character had and instead on their character, decisions, and history (including reputation built up through the campaign). Character sheet abilities make small, day-to-day detail differences. But large ones that bubble out to change the world? No. Because anything that could be done by simply pressing a character sheet button is something the world has already taken into account; pushing it again doesn't move the needle at all.

In this case, there should be no need for you to be bothered by wizards no matter what the spells are mechanics are.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I don't care what other games do. I don't play those games. Just because it's published doesn't make it good game design. D&D does not have to apologize for being a "power trip fantasy". If D&D offends you then play those other games that don't. 5E magic does not always work already. You can miss on the attack roll or the monster makes its saving throw. There's no need to tell the player because you cast a spell you don't get to play for the next half-hour while your character recuperates or whatever.

Also for the record, I agree with you that "endurance" stuff is kinda annoying and I'd rather not see it. I'd rather balance things by just not providing stuff that breaks the model. The AD&D style (which worked but sucked to use) of "you normally can't get these spells off, but if you can you're a god" is too error prone in my mind. Especially since the natural inclination is to do what WotC has done ever since--remove the restrictions in the name of simplifying things but leaving the power the same (or nearly so).

If I were to overhaul spells, I'd probably move a lot of the contentious spells out to something non-spell. Capabilities that anyone of the appropriate power level can access. Balance them in some other way than spell slots. Leave the things that have to happen now or are otherwise an issue alone. My current draft (here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/18BwA_2ZVFezeVr7DaCrmSEvHE3DMsUHYsHoY8ADqnL8/edit?usp=sharing)) moves about 50-ish spells out across many classes. It's not done and not balanced, to be sure. But it's a start.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In this case, there should be no need for you to be bothered by wizards no matter what the spells are mechanics are.

Design smells are design smells, even if I can route around them.

[Pex]

Agreed. The argument for the status quo and "D&D doesn't have to apologize" is just a veiled argument for D&D being inherently right; if D&D changes, then whatever new form it takes would also be inherently right. It's also a strange argument because it's usually coupled with 'except for it's decisions I don't like', so it's therefore not inherently right.

Coffee's done brewing, back to the grind.

No. It means D&D is its own game and is not wrong for not being like other games. All RPGs do their own thing in their own way. They have their rules to have players interact in specific ways. They're fine to do it their way and D&D can do it its way. As a player you have your personal preferences of the game mechanics you like, the power level a PC can have, the aesthetics of the gameworld the rules tends to produce. You don't have to like any particular game, but it's not a mistake of one game doing things differently than another. They're two different games by inherent tautology. Let them do their Thing differently and play the one you like.

Edit: Wait, I did use the words "doesn't make it good game design" which looks hypocritical. Perhaps. It's saying those games are badwrongfun. I can take back those words and just replace with since I don't like them I don't play them. I still maintain D&D should not emulate them. I don't want such things I don't like in D&D. I'll still fight on the hill they are bad rules for D&D to implement.

[sithlordnergal]

So...unsurprisingly, I disagree with your base premise here. The crux of the martial/caster disparity is not caused by wizards being "out of step" with the rest of the casters. The crux of the martial/caster disparity is caused solely by the fact that spells are stronger than what a mundane martial can do. Not saying that's good or bad by the way, personally I don't have any problems with it, and if people do have problems with the disparity then buff your martials to be closer to the power level of casters. But for that list you brought up? I'd honestly say the ONLY thing that falls under the Wizard specifically is Teleportation. And even then...teleportation isn't exactly good. It allows for faster travel, yes...but by the time you can reliably teleport long distances, either by Teleport or Teleportation Circle, your party will already have reliable mundane methods of travel that allow you to bring more things with you, and are often cheaper.

As for the rest...well:

Flight: The only two casting classes that don't have an early, reliable method of flight are Clerics and Artificers. Clerics never really get it, Artificers have to wait till level 10 Don't get me wrong, Fly does exist, and Fly is a fine spell, but Fly is, ironically, not that great for flight. Or rather, its not that great for sustained flight. Its good for scouting, and good for combat, but that's about it. And even then, I don't think I've ever seen a Wizard cast the Fly spell on a party member in order to let them get into combat. Wanna know the best spells for flight? Polymorph, Find Greater Steed, and Conjure Animal, depending on how the DM runs it and what they give you. The Fly spell itself is not really a major game breaking thing.


Teleportation: This one does belong to Wizards, as does short range teleportation. But as I said in my first statement, Teleportation isn't really good or game breaking. Its only use is if you need to get somewhere instantly, that's it. And even then, its either unreliable or can only send you to specific places in the world. Either way, by the time you get these spells your party will be well experienced with mundane travel. In fact, your party will likely prefer mundane travel because a cart, two chests, and a horse allow you to carry far more than what you could with any form of teleportation.


Planar Travel: Yeah, Plane shift is the only reasonable spell here. Only other one is Gate, but that's a 9th level spell. But as you already said, everyone except Druids and Artificers get this spell. So not exactly "Wizard only" territory.


Long-duration minionmancy: I'm not sure what you mean by saying this is something wizards are great at. Druids, Clerics, and Wizards are all on par with each other when it comes to long-duration minionmancy. Wizards and Clerics can both create undead, Druids and Wizards can Conjure Elementals, all of them can use Planar Binding, and Magic circle can be used by Clerics and Wizards. Their summons are all equally powerful, with the Necromancy Wizard giving their undead bonus HP and damage, the Cleric giving better support spells, and Sheppard Druid making all of their summons have higher HP and magical attacks. As for short-duration minionmancy, I'd say Druids beat out everyone. Sure, Dominate Person/Monster may be nice, and Mass Suggestion is weird...but lets be honest. Conjure Animals beats them all, and a Sheppard Druid with Conjure Animals is a far better minionmancer specialist than any class or subclass. Even if your DM purposely gives you bad CR 1/4th beasts...if you can't find a way to use 8 to 16 beasts. all with magical attacks and bonus hp, then I don't know what to tell you.


Knock: I mean...handy spell but not so strong that I'd put it in its own category...Rogues with Thieves' Tools Expertise are equal to knock, and most locks can be dealt with via simple proficiency.


Short-range teleportation: This is squarely in the Wizard domain. A few subclasses get decent short range teleportation methods, such as Misty Step or the Dream Druid at level 10, but I agree. This one belongs to the wizard


Find Familiar: I wouldn't really call this a wizard exclusive thing. Yes, its only on the Wizard spell list, however 2 out of 3 PHB warlocks can get it, and Druids can now get a temporary familiar via Wild Shape. Warlock Familiars are also a bit better.


Shenanigans: Everyone has shenanigans. Sorcerers and genie warlocks have Wish, which means they can use Clone, Simulacrum, and Magic Jar. Druids have Shape Change, which is basically True Polymorph with limited forms you can take, but the added benefi9t of keeping your class features. Clerics have simultaneously the strongest and weakest shenanigans, cause their high level spells suck, but a level 20 Cleric has Divine Intervention. Bards can take Wish, have True Polymorph, and then some.


Given that all the spell casters have ways to match,. emulate, or improve upon what the Wizard has, I don't really think Wizards are the cause of that particular issue. All spellcasters are in this specific case, because spells are just that good and varied in their power.

[Pex]

Are there broken things that gentlemen's agreements and DM foot-down "no"s have to be applied to? Almost certainly. They exist for every class, somewhere. Are more of them present in the wizard's spell list, especially with certain abuses/combos? Maybe! Does that mean that they come up even often enough that the wizard is really the dreaded Schroedinger's Wizard and inevitably requires the DM to rule more often than any other class in most games? No.

Of course. A particular spell can be a problem that needs to be fixed or finally decided just shouldn't exist. That's a different argument than wizards need to be exterminated. Get to the true source of the alleged problem, the spell not the caster. People, including me, still might disagree a particular spell is a problem, but a more narrow focus of the issue will tend to yield a better result if only a more rational conversation.

There's still room to look at the wizard overall as with any class, but I will fight on the hill that extermination or making the player regret playing one is not a sensible solution to its alleged problems. Limitations on PC power is fine. Their existence is not a problem. What matters is what those limitations are.

[Sneak Dog]

I think that if the cantrip commoner gains a magical item that summons a level 15 monster to fight in combats, and only combats, then the cantrip commoner has achieved more competence than the fighter. They can both pull their weight in combat. They can both make ability checks, though the fighter is slightly better at them. But the commoner has cantrips of oddly great utility with which they can perform feats no ability check can equal. Probably. Depends how much the GM feels like letting ability checks do.

It's not like fighters are particularly good at fighting anyway. Not outstandingly better than a barbarian or a wizard.

[Brookshw]

No. It means D&D is its own game and is not wrong for not being like other games. All RPGs do their own thing in their own way. They have their rules to have players interact in specific ways. They're fine to do it their way and D&D can do it its way. As a player you have your personal preferences of the game mechanics you like, the power level a PC can have, the aesthetics of the gameworld the rules tends to produce. You don't have to like any particular game, but it's not a mistake of one game doing things differently than another. They're two different games by inherent tautology. Let them do their Thing differently and play the one you like.

Edit: Wait, I did use the words "doesn't make it good game design" which looks hypocritical. Perhaps. It's saying those games are badwrongfun. I can take back those words and just replace with since I don't like them I don't play them. I still maintain D&D should not emulate them. I don't want such things I don't like in D&D. I'll still fight on the hill they are bad rules for D&D to implement.

Disagreed with the interpretation, but for the sake of argument, then sure, D&D doesn't have to apologize for making casters superior to martials, or about any other aspect. Now, if people said "okay" to that, we'd have a lot fewer contentious discussion on the topic, or anything about D&D's game design. No one would complain about lack of established DCs for skill checks, or their character being able to climb a particular tree on one game, but not a particular tree in another. Because it's okay for D&D to be its own game, and do its own thing. So what's there to complain about?

I now return you to the regularly scheduled debate where no one agrees with that.

[Leon]

I don't care what other games do. I don't play those games. Just because it's published doesn't make it good game design. D&D does not have to apologize for being a "power trip fantasy". If D&D offends you then play those other games that don't. 5E magic does not always work already. You can miss on the attack roll or the monster makes its saving throw. There's no need to tell the player because you cast a spell you don't get to play for the next half-hour while your character recuperates or whatever.

Maybe you should play those other games and get out of the D&D rut you seem to be in.
D&D doesn't offend me, it disappoints me. 5e and onward from what Ive seen more so Largely through loss of options. 5e magic just works, missing an attack or a target making a save means little it still just works for the mere use of a spell slot, no effort or creativity.

[Pex]

Disagreed with the interpretation, but for the sake of argument, then sure, D&D doesn't have to apologize for making casters superior to martials, or about any other aspect. Now, if people said "okay" to that, we'd have a lot fewer contentious discussion on the topic, or anything about D&D's game design. No one would complain about lack of established DCs for skill checks, or their character being able to climb a particular tree on one game, but not a particular tree in another. Because it's okay for D&D to be its own game, and do its own thing. So what's there to complain about?

I now return you to the regularly scheduled debate where no one agrees with that.

Nice try.

I still stand by what I said. I find it bad for D&D to create rules for wizards that make a player regret playing one. I believe that for all classes. It is a mistake for 5E, right at this moment, to punish Berzerker Barbarians with exhaustion for doing what the game says they can do. What I don't say is therefore Berzerker Barbarians or Barbarians as a whole should not exist. I don't call D&D the worst game ever or words to that effect. To this day I have never played 4E. I refuse to play 4E. I hate 4E. I do not go onto the 4E Forums and yell about its existence to argue with people who do enjoy it. No, I don't like 5E's Skill system. I still play the game. It's not a deal breaker. I DM the game. I don't tell people who like the system to shut up about it as I was in threads past.

That's the difference between criticizing something you don't like about a game system and demanding it apologize for existing.

[Unoriginal]

I think that if the cantrip commoner gains a magical item that summons a level 15 monster to fight in combats, and only combats, then the cantrip commoner has achieved more competence than the fighter.

You realize that such a magic item would literally be stronger than all 5e magic items, including artifacts?

Saying that Cantrip Commoner would be more competent than the Fighter if they have a magic item that is stronger than the Sword of Zariel, the Hand of Vecna and the Robe of the Archmage combined is not exactly an endorsement against the Fighter.

It still would be incorrect, though, because...



They can both pull their weight in combat.

Even with this far-more-powerful-than-any-other magic item, Cantrip Commoner still can't pull their weight in combat, because they're still a 4 HPs, no-armor-proficiency, +0-to-all-stats, +0 initiative joe. Meaning that anyone from the Guard to the Demon Prince can easily take the magic item from Cantrip Commoner or kill them before the summoned entity can save them.

Furthermore...



They can both make ability checks, though the fighter is slightly better at them.

Cantrip Commoner has +0 for all stat mods and no proficiency of any kind. The Fighter is not "slightly better", they're objectively outmatching Cantrip Commoner in every category except the Fighter's proficiency-less ability checks for their dump stat.




But the commoner has cantrips of oddly great utility with which they can perform feats no ability check can equal.

Such as? Digging holes and moving 10-pounds-items with the power of their mind?



It's not like fighters are particularly good at fighting anyway.

Yet they're good enough that Cantrip Commoner needs to be given a powerful-beyond-god-granted-artifacts-(plural) item to even begin the argument that they can match the Fighter.

[rel]

In a previous thread someone suggested deleting all utility spells along with anything long lasting or potent from the spell lists.
Then adding a utility powers system available to all classes equally.

It's a similar approach to deleting the wizard but a little more comprehensive.
Maybe worth considering as an alternative.


Well, 4e had rituals that everybody could cast IIRC.

I think the 3.5 incantations optional rule would be a better basis. Long rituals with esoteric conditions and costs.
Both because they are thematically very different to basic spells and because they allow for lot more granularity in terms of powers, costs and constraints.

This makes the generic utility powers seem like their own seperate thing which helps with class differentiation and keeps spellcasting unique and special in its own way.

I also think a good idea is emphasising that the utility powers, whatever final form they take, are not necessarily magical. They can be, but a lot of them could be simple expressions of mundane skill in a fantasy world; breaking magic with raw strength, finding the cracks in reality that lead to other worlds, that sort of thing.

[NichG]

Never made any claim that the cantrip commoner would be effective or hold their own in combat.

My point was highlighting just how much stuff totally outside of combat can matter and how it's amenable to (but requires) a much more proactive approach as a player, versus the reactive approach of waiting for bad stuff to happen and then fighting through it. In particular it can be a blind spot for people who are having trouble at their table either playing a martial character and feeling overshadowed by other players' characters, or DMs who are having trouble keeping spotlight and agency balance at their tables. E.g. the frequent 'fighter fix' threads that amount to higher ability scores, higher damage, break the action economy better in fights, etc kinds of design. That sort of thing doesn't fix anything because it's trying to balance non-interchangeable aspects of play. There is not some particular damage number that is numerically equivalent and balanced against the ability to talk with the dead.

[Frogreaver]

and if people do have problems with the disparity then buff your martials to be closer to the power level of casters.

It's often said the cure can be worse than the disease. This is one cure that for many people would be worse than the disease. As such, it's really a non-solution. IMO, to move forward, it really needs to be acknowledged by all sides that a significant number of people do not want martials to be anywhere near the power level of 5e casters as they currently exist.


Never made any claim that the cantrip commoner would be effective or hold their own in combat.

My point was highlighting just how much stuff totally outside of combat can matter and how it's amenable to (but requires) a much more proactive approach as a player, versus the reactive approach of waiting for bad stuff to happen and then fighting through it. In particular it can be a blind spot for people who are having trouble at their table either playing a martial character and feeling overshadowed by other players' characters, or DMs who are having trouble keeping spotlight and agency balance at their tables. E.g. the frequent 'fighter fix' threads that amount to higher ability scores, higher damage, break the action economy better in fights, etc kinds of design. That sort of thing doesn't fix anything because it's trying to balance non-interchangeable aspects of play. There is not some particular damage number that is numerically equivalent and balanced against the ability to talk with the dead.

IMO asymmetry is a good thing. If the fighters are better enough at combat then it's okay that they aren't as good at other aspects of the game. The problem is that fighters really aren't better at combat, especially as level increases. Then consider that even if they were perfectly balanced with casters in combat that still would mean casters can do all this out of combat stuff and still fight as well as the fighter.

So IMO, providing fighters a more explicit 'best' at combat niche is a solution for asymmetrical balance caused by casters being better out of combat. It's also a solution that doesn't require fighters to be at the power level of casters, at least for out of combat.

[MrStabby]

So...unsurprisingly, I disagree with your base premise here. The crux of the martial/caster disparity is not caused by wizards being "out of step" with the rest of the casters. The crux of the martial/caster disparity is caused solely by the fact that spells are stronger than what a mundane martial can do. Not saying that's good or bad by the way, personally I don't have any problems with it, and if people do have problems with the disparity then buff your martials to be closer to the power level of casters. But for that list you brought up? I'd honestly say the ONLY thing that falls under the Wizard specifically is Teleportation. And even then...teleportation isn't exactly good. It allows for faster travel, yes...but by the time you can reliably teleport long distances, either by Teleport or Teleportation Circle, your party will already have reliable mundane methods of travel that allow you to bring more things with you, and are often cheaper.

I think the problem is how to buff the martial without causing other problems. I have seen a few suggestions, which all have issues for me.

1) Give them magic items to help. From a character perspective this doesn't work for me. I want my character to be awesome, not just to own awesome things.
2) Have some demarkation and have martials be better at combat and other classes better outside of combat. This sucks in two ways - firstly for everyone to have fun the DM needs to get an appropriate balance of combat and non combat so the idea is tying the DMs hands. It makes kick-the-door-down violent dungeon crawling a non-viable game type. The second issue is that players get to decide the makeup of the game - the barbarian can throw punches at the palace ball to turn a non-combat scene into a combat scene.
3) Hand out the ritual caster feat or similar for free. Let the martials have a bit more to do - though this doesn't line up with a lot of how people see their characters.
4) Cap what casters can do - again two problems here. The first is that sometimes people like these abilities and find them fun. Personally, for example, I love the cleric's Divine Intervention ability and finding domain thematic ways to use it to shape the world brings be pleasure. The second issue is that most suggestions hit both optimised and unoptimised characters just as hard.

As a DM my approach is a very subjective, hand-wavey and imperfect affair. I try and understand what is important to each character and what isn't. The important things the character should be good at get table time, the less important bits get hand waved away. Then try and balance the PCs times that they excell. If there is just one charisma based character and a lot of uncharismatic barbarians in a party, I am quite likely to hand-wave away a lot of social scenes if not everyone can take part (also, I generally don't use a lot of ability checks for social as it cuts a lot of people out of a whole pillar of the game). I see spells the same way - if you teleport accross the country there will be no florid description of what happens, no build up - just moving on to the next stage where everyone can take an equal part in advancing the plot. As a DM you can't always be fair in what is allowed or disalowed and please everyone, but you can regulate how much table time it takes.

[Brookshw]

Nice try.

I still stand by what I said. I find it bad for D&D to create rules for wizards that make a player regret playing one. I believe that for all classes. It is a mistake for 5E, right at this moment, to punish Berzerker Barbarians with exhaustion for doing what the game says they can do. What I don't say is therefore Berzerker Barbarians or Barbarians as a whole should not exist. I don't call D&D the worst game ever or words to that effect. To this day I have never played 4E. I refuse to play 4E. I hate 4E. I do not go onto the 4E Forums and yell about its existence to argue with people who do enjoy it. No, I don't like 5E's Skill system. I still play the game. It's not a deal breaker. I DM the game. I don't tell people who like the system to shut up about it as I was in threads past.

That's the difference between criticizing something you don't like about a game system and demanding it apologize for existing.

So D&D does have to apologize, got it.:smallwink::smallbiggrin:

[Tanarii]

I think the problem is how to buff the martial without causing other problems.

No, the OP premise is correct. The primary problem based on my personal amalgam of all complaints I've ever seen in 5e about martial-caster is to significantly nerf Wizard flexibility, primarily their spell access and list. Make gaining new spells relatively limited (random treasure table scrolls ok, enemy spellbooks basically never), and truncate a bunch of spells from the game but especially from wizard spell list. Maybe even slash spells learned to 1/level after 1st.

To fix low to medium level wizards, bring back arcane spell failure for armor, just make casting wizard/sorc spells in armor impossible, and warlock spells in light armor at most. It's armored arcane casters that are the issue at these levels.

But the best solution is just remove the class. Sorcerers and Warlocks already do the job, and the key point is they aren't the casters that people are complaining are overpowered compared to martials.

Edit: I'm not opposed to martial buffs. In particular, I'd love to see abilities like 4e Martials had. They were the best D&D Martials I've ever played since 2e C&T. Of course, they were also highly battlemat dependent, and 5e isn't tuned for battlemats. But the problem isn't martials need a buff to compete with casters. It's that wizards specifically need a haircut. Or just to be removed or reworked as a class entirely.


My point was highlighting just how much stuff totally outside of combat can matter and how it's amenable to (but requires) a much more proactive approach as a player, versus the reactive approach of waiting for bad stuff to happen and then fighting through it. Ah. See, the problem here is you're viewing combat as some kind of reactive only / failure state. It isn't. It often is a high-player-agency proactive tool, and very often the most effective tool.

There are times when initiating combat is a terrible idea. Anywhere it will get you killed because you're outmatched in total power for starters. But might makes the right tool in a lot of cases, and PCs have plenty of it. And trust me, they know how to use it to proactively cause all sorts of campaign world transformative changes.

So the fact a cantrip commoner is useless in combat and a level 15 fighter is very good at it is very relevant.

In other games, including earlier versions of D&D, this was less true. But in WoTC D&D, it's very true.

[Thunderous Mojo]

No, the OP premise is correct. The primary problem based on my personal amalgam of all complaints I've ever seen in 5e about martial-caster is to significantly nerf Wizard flexibility, primarily their spell access and list. .

So if I am reading this correctly, you think P.P. Is correct based off 💩 posted on the internet?

I’ve played at Cleric and a Wizard at level 5. The Cleric was more versatile.

Wizards have to make hard choices about spell selection at low level.
Prepared casters such as Druids and Clerics, do not, outside which daily spells to select.

A 5th level cleric can spend a day Animating the Dead with a 5th Level Wizard that has Animate Dead and Fireball as their 3rd Level spells, and then the next day send a Sending message to an Ally to let the Ally know that the party is going to meet them. The following day, the Cleric could have completely different array of spells.

This leads to a cleric or druid, often having the correct tool for a situation, whereas a Wizard, much like other Arcane Casters have to deal with the situation, only with the limited tools they have.

Using the Augury Ritual to aid in Spell Selection, is very useful.

[Waazraath]

I’ve played at Cleric and a Wizard at level 5. The Cleric was more versatile.


I don't know if this is relevant for the issue - the whole caster/martial disparity argument only starts to make a tiny bit of sense mid tier 3. At level 5, classes are balanced excellently, and I'd even argue that some full casters are, within that balance, among the weaker ones. Once it might start to become an issue, mid tier 3, it is stuff like Simulacrum and Force Cage which can be a bit annoying to deal with, not the high level cleric spells.

[Dr.Samurai]

Using the Augury Ritual to aid in Spell Selection, is very useful.
How does this work? :smallconfused:

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think the 3.5 incantations optional rule would be a better basis. Long rituals with esoteric conditions and costs.
Both because they are thematically very different to basic spells and because they allow for lot more granularity in terms of powers, costs and constraints.

This makes the generic utility powers seem like their own seperate thing which helps with class differentiation and keeps spellcasting unique and special in its own way.

I also think a good idea is emphasising that the utility powers, whatever final form they take, are not necessarily magical. They can be, but a lot of them could be simple expressions of mundane skill in a fantasy world; breaking magic with raw strength, finding the cracks in reality that lead to other worlds, that sort of thing.

That other person was me (and I think I repeated it on this thread as well?), and it's a long-running project of mine. Google Doc Here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/18BwA_2ZVFezeVr7DaCrmSEvHE3DMsUHYsHoY8ADqnL8/edit?usp=sharing)

I decided to go with a large mix of balancing conditions



Costly (X): This incantation requires a component with value of at least X gp, and that component is consumed per performance.
Focus (X): This incantation requires a component with value of at least X gp, but that component is not consumed in the casting.
Debilitating (X): Performing this incantation is exhausting. If you perform it again before finishing a long rest, anyone participating gains X levels of exhaustion, with subsequent performances causing stacking penalties.
Debilitating (Major, X): Like Debilitating, except takes place immediately on first use per long rest as well as subsequent uses.
Exclusive: The effects of this incantation immediately end if the incantation is performed again or if the target of the incantation is targeted by any other incantation.
Cooldown (X): This incantation can only be performed once every X amount of time.
Group (N): This incantation requires N people who all know the incantation. All share in any negative effects/costs.
Location: This incantation can only be performed at specific locations as described in the text. Implies Immobile.
Immobile: Those performing the incantation cannot move more than 5 feet during the time required to perform the incantation and for the duration of the incantation; if they do, the incantation fails.


Costly and Focus are just regularizations of the current material components. Immobile is a very light penalty and mostly used for thematic effect.

Learning them basically requires acquiring "scrolls" of them, which fade after use and can be created as if they were spell scrolls. Some spells I left partially in place (plant growth's combat use, for instance, is still a spell). Lots of them I removed and then only added a piece. But a lot of them are just "see spell".

It's not done, as there are non-PHB spells I want to convert as well as lots of balancing and tweaking and play-test to be done. But in a way, this can be done piecemeal--DMs can give out "scrolls" of these incantations to people as rewards without changing the current process (ie without removing them from lists). That lets individual incantations be play-tested without being an all or nothing overhaul.

If anyone is interested in further discussion, I'll open a Homebrew thread for it.

[Segev]

Necromancy/life manipulation? Let that be a cleric thing. I will always fight for arcane minionmancers. The notion that the monstrous villain willing to tell the natural order where to shove it MUST kneel before a god to gain the power to defy death closes off my favorite classical concept of a necromancer. This may be a personal preference issue, but I will fight for it. I want my lord of the horde to be a wizard, not a cleric. He isn't praying to some deity for permission to direct the corpses; he has ripped them from their graves by his own blasphemous power and might, and owes no fealty to any divine source for his ability to command them.


Of course. A particular spell can be a problem that needs to be fixed or finally decided just shouldn't exist. That's a different argument than wizards need to be exterminated. Get to the true source of the alleged problem, the spell not the caster. People, including me, still might disagree a particular spell is a problem, but a more narrow focus of the issue will tend to yield a better result if only a more rational conversation.

There's still room to look at the wizard overall as with any class, but I will fight on the hill that extermination or making the player regret playing one is not a sensible solution to its alleged problems. Limitations on PC power is fine. Their existence is not a problem. What matters is what those limitations are.Indeed. And "shatter the wizard so that he can't actually be the wizard, but instead has to be one of a dozen classes" is extermination, in my book.


Maybe you should play those other games and get out of the D&D rut you seem to be in.
D&D doesn't offend me, it disappoints me. 5e and onward from what Ive seen more so Largely through loss of options. 5e magic just works, missing an attack or a target making a save means little it still just works for the mere use of a spell slot, no effort or creativity.:smallconfused:

This seems an odd response to, "D&D is fine; I like it as it is." I know that's an oversimplification of what Pex said, but it is, I think, a fair one, as far as oversimplifications go.

It seems to me that Pex said, "I like this; please stop trying to change it into something it's not," and that you're responding by telling him, "You should go play something else that's more like what I like, and leave me to change this thing you're currently doing into something I prefer while you're not here."

[Unoriginal]

How does this work? :smallconfused:

It doesn't, as per Augury's description.

I really have to wonder why people keep claiming 5e Divination spells can do X thing when the spell's description is clear about the limits of what can be divined.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I will always fight for arcane minionmancers. The notion that the monstrous villain willing to tell the natural order where to shove it MUST kneel before a god to gain the power to defy death closes off my favorite classical concept of a necromancer. This may be a personal preference issue, but I will fight for it. I want my lord of the horde to be a wizard, not a cleric. He isn't praying to some deity for permission to direct the corpses; he has ripped them from their graves by his own blasphemous power and might, and owes no fealty to any divine source for his ability to command them.


But that doesn't have to be a PC option. PCs and NPCs are built completely differently from different options.

[Segev]

But that doesn't have to be a PC option. PCs and NPCs are built completely differently from different options.

Speaking personally: I want to play one, darn it!

So, yes, I will fight for it.

:P

[PhoenixPhyre]

Speaking personally: I want to play one, darn it!

So, yes, I will fight for it.

:P

Ah. Well. There's that. In that case, I can see some logic in having one. For operational reasons, the "horde of X" minionmancy option is really messy and nearly impossible to balance (no matter what X is), especially with semi-permanent X. Which, in my mind, suggests that having "necromancer" as a sub-class of "summoner" (ie a summoner whose One Big Pet is an undead that scales with them in some fashion and can be customized) might be the proper home for that archetype.

[Tanarii]

I don't know if this is relevant for the issue - the whole caster/martial disparity argument only starts to make a tiny bit of sense mid tier 3. At level 5, classes are balanced excellently, and I'd even argue that some full casters are, within that balance, among the weaker ones. Once it might start to become an issue, mid tier 3, it is stuff like Simulacrum and Force Cage which can be a bit annoying to deal with, not the high level cleric spells.
Medium or Heavy armor on arcane casters can also break the balance in Tier 1 and Tier 2. Without it, they're definitely a kind of weaker until mid to late Tier 2 over a full or longer adventuring day.

Not that players having their PC lob a Fireball onto a crowd of baddies 2-3 times in that long adventuring day feels bad about being squishy. :smallamused: But if they do it too early in the day, they'll feel the pinch later on.

But yes, caster vs Martial complaints seem to focus on what is basically end-game, late Tier 3+. For most WotC adventure paths, that's even post-game, since they often target ending around 14.

[Segev]

Ah. Well. There's that. In that case, I can see some logic in having one. For operational reasons, the "horde of X" minionmancy option is really messy and nearly impossible to balance (no matter what X is), especially with semi-permanent X. Which, in my mind, suggests that having "necromancer" as a sub-class of "summoner" (ie a summoner whose One Big Pet is an undead that scales with them in some fashion and can be customized) might be the proper home for that archetype.

Oh, I'm well aware that it is problematic. The biggest one being simple OOC logistics of trying to manage lots of things. The "one big thing" is one way to handle it. Sadly, I have yet to see a good ipmlementation of "horde" or "troop" rules that doesn't make you feel like going from standard handle-them-as-individual-creatures rules to handle-them-as-a-grouped-unit rules feel like a big nerf. It might actually be impossible without a completely different paradigm of combat that doesn't involve specifically being hit by multiple things, or something.

Doesn't change that I want to do it. Just makes it hard to design. And I applaud efforts to design it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Oh, I'm well aware that it is problematic. The biggest one being simple OOC logistics of trying to manage lots of things. The "one big thing" is one way to handle it. Sadly, I have yet to see a good ipmlementation of "horde" or "troop" rules that doesn't make you feel like going from standard handle-them-as-individual-creatures rules to handle-them-as-a-grouped-unit rules feel like a big nerf. It might actually be impossible without a completely different paradigm of combat that doesn't involve specifically being hit by multiple things, or something.

Doesn't change that I want to do it. Just makes it hard to design. And I applaud efforts to design it.

IMO, "hoard summoner" is just in a bad place with the rest of the system. And that goes for any form of "get lots of new actions". It's not really something that can be fixed without ripping out all the guts of the combat/turn/action economy system and replacing them with something utterly different (and probably more abstract). Which is a huge lift.

And doing it via spell is the worst possible option, especially if it uses existing NPC stat blocks, because it runs into a bunch of cross-system balancing issues. And stapling that on a class as just one option among many (cough shepherd druid) compounds the brokenness--the class has to function without it, which means that with it it's a monster.

I think I could manage a class where
1. Your "normal big thing" is you have a pet that makes up a lot of your combat capabilities. Without them, you're hurting (imagine a half-caster without extra attack), with them you're normal.
2. You have infrequent-use "flood the battlefield" abilities. Things like danse macabre would kinda work. Where you send a flood of minions at them, but it only lasts a couple rounds and they're calibrated to be a boost, but not a major one. For instance, if instead of having a bunch of creatures with their own actions, turns, etc. that you can micromanage, you had a few pre-defined commands. Sort of a multi-target spiritual weapon that occupies one or more spaces, flavored as a bunch of creatures.

[NichG]

IMO asymmetry is a good thing. If the fighters are better enough at combat then it's okay that they aren't as good at other aspects of the game. The problem is that fighters really aren't better at combat, especially as level increases. Then consider that even if they were perfectly balanced with casters in combat that still would mean casters can do all this out of combat stuff and still fight as well as the fighter.

So IMO, providing fighters a more explicit 'best' at combat niche is a solution for asymmetrical balance caused by casters being better out of combat. It's also a solution that doesn't require fighters to be at the power level of casters, at least for out of combat.

I'm not arguing that asymmetry is inherently bad. Games like Ars Magica design for it explicitly and make it work. Games like Shadowrun on the other hand have run into metagame issues with their asymmetry that have hounded them for editions, the so-called decker problem.

What I'd argue is that if you're going to be playing with that sort of extreme niche asymmetry as a design element, you had best understand the niches. When people dismiss the out-of-combat impact of things like resurrection of the dead or having the ability to track anyone you've ever met within a city, I don't get the impression that they're actually considering deeply the sorts of things that stuff outside of combat lets you leverage - they're handwaving it away or just considering it DM's domain and therefore they don't have to worry about it because they control it or 'the game isn't about that sort of thing so of course it can't matter'. So with that mindset, I don't think those people are going to be capable of solving the design problem of making that asymmetry actually work, especially at tables that are not their own where people are likely going to hold different views and run the game differently.

In particular in a thread that proposes a thesis about 'which spells and classes are the real problem', I think that's an issue of core relevance to the thread's claims.



Ah. See, the problem here is you're viewing combat as some kind of reactive only / failure state. It isn't. It often is a high-player-agency proactive tool, and very often the most effective tool.

There are times when initiating combat is a terrible idea. Anywhere it will get you killed because you're outmatched in total power for starters. But might makes the right tool in a lot of cases, and PCs have plenty of it. And trust me, they know how to use it to proactively cause all sorts of campaign world transformative changes.

So the fact a cantrip commoner is useless in combat and a level 15 fighter is very good at it is very relevant.

In other games, including earlier versions of D&D, this was less true. But in WoTC D&D, it's very true.

Notice all of the examples that were thrown at me by Unoriginal about 'why you shouldn't want to play the cantrip commoner' were basically 'but what if I force you into combat as the DM?'. They also didn't really like the answers that were 'well, I don't engage with the obvious trap, I keep my head down and ignore or compromise with things that aren't relevant to my own goals'. Strong reactive mindset.

I'll throw PhoenixPhyre's words back at you here and say that whether its true or not that combat can be impactful is entirely within the control of the DM. So 'WoTC D&D' is not the relevant measure here, but rather 'playing with DMs who like to establish load-bearing bosses for the party to knock down'. And not just that, but DMs whose load-bearing bosses bear the loads that are actually the ones you want to collapse as part of your proactive plan.

I've for example had players convinced that the answer to an empire's invading army was to go and assassinate the emperor. In that setting, that campaign, that would not have worked - and I basically communicated as such to them - because under the emperor were vassals who were just as interested in having the war against the weaker neighbor they could annex, the emperors' heirs were on the same page, etc. Another DM might have set up that emperor intentionally as a load-bearing boss where if you go attack them you find out they were secretly a demon in disguise running the empire into the ground and everyone would be grateful to be out of under their thumb. Another DM might have it be that anyone who is threatened or killed by violence on the part of a small number of characters ends up as a martyr and the setting turns against the PCs.

This probably should be the contentious part of this post, but I'd say that absent the particular intentional setups, a world that is run in a realistic and impartial manner will have more outsized (e.g. disproportionate to the power of the actor) opportunities for things to be changed by virtue of information or modification of infrastructure than by virtue of violence. Because information and infrastructures are levers - they bring about effects proportional to the whole that can access them - whereas violence is local. This is the same way that, when speaking of combat rules design in a game that can see an order of magnitude or more of growth in things like damage numbers, a power that does something like 'reflects 25% of the damage you take back to the source' or 'deals 25% of the target's maximum HP in damage' are potentially much more potent than any ability that does any fixed amount of damage.

[Sorinth]

I sometimes think the a lot of problems related to wizards and spell selection could be potentially solved by limiting the free learning of spells on level up. It makes sense to me for the low level spells that the wizard could be doing some spell research while adventuring, but once we get to higher level spells that logic kind of falls apart for me. Especially since NPC wizards tend to be very research focused, so there's that big narrative disconnect.

So for example suppose the spells gained on level up for wizards were limited to those of 5th level or lower. To get spells level 6 and up it's either acquire a spell scroll/book with the spells you want or significant downtime cost in both money and time. Perhaps lessening the blow by adding some unique upcasting options based on subclass. For example an Evoker upcasting spells adds twice the normal number of dice, an enchanter upcasting at twice the normal slot imposes disadvantage on the saving throws, etc...

Another option would be having prerequisite spells, so for example to get Chain Lightning you need Lightning Bolt, and Control Winds. To get Wish you need to first know 8 spells of level 7 or higher each from a different spell school. And since each of the required spells might have their own prerequisites you can build out a large chain making those bigger "problem" spells both harder to get automatically, and more rewarding when you find a spell scroll (Since you can then skip the prereqs and copy it directly). It gives the wizard a little mini-game of trying to find the best path to get the spells they want.

[Dr.Samurai]

This probably should be the contentious part of this post, but I'd say that absent the particular intentional setups, a world that is run in a realistic and impartial manner will have more outsized (e.g. disproportionate to the power of the actor) opportunities for things to be changed by virtue of information or modification of infrastructure than by virtue of violence. Because information and infrastructures are levers - they bring about effects proportional to the whole that can access them - whereas violence is local. This is the same way that, when speaking of combat rules design in a game that can see an order of magnitude or more of growth in things like damage numbers, a power that does something like 'reflects 25% of the damage you take back to the source' or 'deals 25% of the target's maximum HP in damage' are potentially much more potent than any ability that does any fixed amount of damage.
I don't think this is contentious, really. I think the idea that many campaigns pull out the D&D rulebooks and then say "let's ignore combat mostly and just play a downtime campaign" is what is contentious. I get your point overall, that someone with these abilities can put in the time and effort and be creative and clever and patient and achieve things that wouldn't necessarily be achieved through combat.

But, and I'm sorry for sounding like a broken record, that's not really what D&D is about.

[NichG]

I don't think this is contentious, really. I think the idea that many campaigns pull out the D&D rulebooks and then say "let's ignore combat mostly and just play a downtime campaign" is what is contentious. I get your point overall, that someone with these abilities can put in the time and effort and be creative and clever and patient and achieve things that wouldn't necessarily be achieved through combat.

But, and I'm sorry for sounding like a broken record, that's not really what D&D is about.

'What D&D is about' is a goal rather than a means. Part of the reason people have trouble with this disparity is that one person shows up at the table with a martial character believing 'D&D is about going into dungeons and killing dragons, this is a good character for that', and then it turns out that someone else at the table wants to transcend the boundaries of life and death by playing an arcane minionmancer. And then the system gives them better tools to push the game to be about their necromancy plotline than the person with the martial character gets. Because as much as D&D might claim or desire to be about the dungeon crawl, it definitely prints things that let people say 'no, actually the game is going to be about this other thing instead'.

And in that situation maybe the DM feels torn between railroading or letting things go off plan, and that tension feels bad and feels like the fault of the caster, and you get DMs complaining about wizards being broken. Or the DM says 'okay, lets do that', and the player of the martial character feels bad that their stuff isn't relevant, comes onto the forum, and complains about casters being broken.

And you get some tables where everyone is on the same page about what they want to be doing or are flexible enough to change the direction of their characters based on how things seem to be going, and those tables don't come and complain - but they may very well also not end up playing what you say 'D&D is about' either. And in the end that's better for those tables than if they tried to follow that prescription religiously.

[ProsecutorGodot]

It doesn't, as per Augury's description.

I really have to wonder why people keep claiming 5e Divination spells can do X thing when the spell's description is clear about the limits of what can be divined.

Even if you could ritual cast augury during your long rest, which you would have to do to meet the 30 minute time limit of "when I prepare my spells for the day" which is an in world process, there are several hitches.

- First, and most important "The spell doesn't take into account any possible circumstances that might change the outcome, such as the casting of additional spells or the loss or gain of a companion." which kind of throws the idea away immediately. Your divination can probably see Cure Wounds as a good outcome choice, because having the ability to heal is good. It can't see any of the results of casting Cure Wounds though. This applies to all of your spells, the primary reason you'd do this is for spells that are only situationally useful. Your spell list will likely always ping a good result, because those abilities are useful to you, but this doesn't ever consider whether the spells will actually be used at all.

For example, say you prepare Plane Shift. Augury says "good" (though it could just as easily say "good and bad" or "nothing") and you're satisfied that this preperation will be useful. You then adventure the entire day, seeing no useful opportunity to cast the spell. Has Augury failed here? Was the portent incorrect? No, it just has no way of knowing what the results will be if you do use the spell so it doesn't assume you ever will.

- After a certain point, even assuming the best case scenario, your preperation process could extend beyond your ability to divine. After a combined total of over 30 levels of newly prepared spells is reached for your preperation you simply can't use Augury for this course of action at all as you'll be spending over 30 minutes dedicated to the process of preparing your spells, the results of those choices (again, assuming best case scenario where you can divine perfectly) are outside of the time limit.

- Bouncing off the previous point, it would force you to prepare new spells each day rather than maintain your current list. You don't need to meditate to keep your currently prepared spells, but if you don't spend the time on that process there is no future course of action to use Augury on.

I'd say, even under the most generous interpretations, you're not gleaning useful information from this process.

Oh, and the Wizard can do it too, Augury is on their Tasha's expanded spell list.

[Slipjig]

In personal experience I've certainly had even very clever players pick martial classes and then when the campaign significantly featured wide-spread events, geopolitics, natural disasters, and the like and other players were able to directly engage with and thwart those things, they ended up regretting picking that archetype to play. At which point my usual remedies were of the 'yes, you have the ability to cure a plague by calling out the god of disease and fighting it in a duel' variety, which did work.

Well, yes, if you create a campaign where there is nothing to stab, then the classes that revolve around stabbing things will be largely sidelined. However, given that the standard D&D campaign offers plenty of opportunities for stabbing things, if you are going to run a combat-free campaign that's definitely something that should be addressed prior to character creation.

D&D is a flexible enough system to tell lots of different kinds of stories. That doesn't mean that all types of characters are suited for all those different kinds of stories.

[Dr.Samurai]

'What D&D is about' is a goal rather than a means. Part of the reason people have trouble with this disparity is that one person shows up at the table with a martial character believing 'D&D is about going into dungeons and killing dragons, this is a good character for that', and then it turns out that someone else at the table wants to transcend the boundaries of life and death by playing an arcane minionmancer. And then the system gives them better tools to push the game to be about their necromancy plotline than the person with the martial character gets. Because as much as D&D might claim or desire to be about the dungeon crawl, it definitely prints things that let people say 'no, actually the game is going to be about this other thing instead'.

And in that situation maybe the DM feels torn between railroading or letting things go off plan, and that tension feels bad and feels like the fault of the caster, and you get DMs complaining about wizards being broken. Or the DM says 'okay, lets do that', and the player of the martial character feels bad that their stuff isn't relevant, comes onto the forum, and complains about casters being broken.

And you get some tables where everyone is on the same page about what they want to be doing or are flexible enough to change the direction of their characters based on how things seem to be going, and those tables don't come and complain - but they may very well also not end up playing what you say 'D&D is about' either. And in the end that's better for those tables than if they tried to follow that prescription religiously.
Sorry NichG, but saying that other types of games can be played using the D&D rules doesn't allow you to act as if there isn't an expected type of game to be played.

I can grant you for all of eternity that you can play a game about transcending life and death using D&D rules and a nice DM. Sure, no problem. That's not the same as proving that D&D isn't about combat, crawls, and saving the day. There's no adventure path published, as an example, that deviates from this concept very far and turns the game into an out of combat, downtime, exploration of metaphysical concepts, etc.

I'm not saying that it's wrong to play that way. But it shouldn't be a standard by which to judge rules interactions. You can use chess pieces to play checkers, but you shouldn't balance out the rules for chess based on the game of checkers.

[NichG]

Sorry NichG, but saying that other types of games can be played using the D&D rules doesn't allow you to act as if there isn't an expected type of game to be played.

I can grant you for all of eternity that you can play a game about transcending life and death using D&D rules and a nice DM. Sure, no problem. That's not the same as proving that D&D isn't about combat, crawls, and saving the day. There's no adventure path published, as an example, that deviates from this concept very far and turns the game into an out of combat, downtime, exploration of metaphysical concepts, etc.

I'm not saying that it's wrong to play that way. But it shouldn't be a standard by which to judge rules interactions. You can use chess pieces to play checkers, but you shouldn't balance out the rules for chess based on the game of checkers.

I'm saying that expecting 'there is an expecting type of game to be played' to actually do anything for you is a mistake.

If you have a design goal, you have to make the system support that goal. Saying 'but the goal is X' when the system ends up pushing things in a thousand other directions won't actually fix the fact that the system is pushing in those different directions than you wanted to support.

If you make a system that is supposed to be about a tactical minigame and dungeon crawl but you print spells that change the yields of harvests a year out or allow casters to bide their time building an army of undead, you've failed as a designer in making a system that actually supports your intended goal.

[Dork_Forge]

As for the rest...well:

Flight: The only two casting classes that don't have an early, reliable method of flight are Clerics and Artificers. Clerics never really get it, Artificers have to wait till level 10 Don't get me wrong, Fly does exist, and Fly is a fine spell, but Fly is, ironically, not that great for flight. Or rather, its not that great for sustained flight. Its good for scouting, and good for combat, but that's about it. And even then, I don't think I've ever seen a Wizard cast the Fly spell on a party member in order to let them get into combat. Wanna know the best spells for flight? Polymorph, Find Greater Steed, and Conjure Animal, depending on how the DM runs it and what they give you. The Fly spell itself is not really a major game breaking thing.

Fly is not intended to turn someone into a commercial airliner, it's intended to let you scout, overcome certain environmental obstacles, and most importantly play 4D combat. Polymorphing someone to let them fly in combat is only relevant if you don't care about any of their inherent abilities, or the fact that they will only be able to contribute mundane BPS, both of which are massive hang ups.

I think a recurring theme here is that you look at a spell through a certain lense, and through that lense things aren't an issue. Fly is bad at overland travel, but that was never the spell's purpose, it's far more impactful at what it's actually meant to do.


Teleportation: This one does belong to Wizards, as does short range teleportation. But as I said in my first statement, Teleportation isn't really good or game breaking. Its only use is if you need to get somewhere instantly, that's it. And even then, its either unreliable or can only send you to specific places in the world. Either way, by the time you get these spells your party will be well experienced with mundane travel. In fact, your party will likely prefer mundane travel because a cart, two chests, and a horse allow you to carry far more than what you could with any form of teleportation.

You're only thinking of Teleport as 'well time to magically commute to work,' which would be fine if Teleport had a 10 minute casting time, or even a 1 minute casting time. But it doesn't it takes an action. That means, providing that it's available, you can use it as a nope out of a fight.

Considering what it should really be limited to 'mass travel over long distances,' Teleport has worryingly few restrictions that keep it in that realm, and no, the mishap table doesn't count as it's incredibly trivial to have a selection of safe spaces via objects to fall back to.


Planar Travel: Yeah, Plane shift is the only reasonable spell here. Only other one is Gate, but that's a 9th level spell. But as you already said, everyone except Druids and Artificers get this spell. So not exactly "Wizard only" territory.

I don't really have much to say on this one because I don't really care about PC planar travel, if the PCs are plane hopping it's for story reasons and would happen regardless of who is in the party.


Long-duration minionmancy: I'm not sure what you mean by saying this is something wizards are great at. Druids, Clerics, and Wizards are all on par with each other when it comes to long-duration minionmancy. Wizards and Clerics can both create undead, Druids and Wizards can Conjure Elementals, all of them can use Planar Binding, and Magic circle can be used by Clerics and Wizards. Their summons are all equally powerful, with the Necromancy Wizard giving their undead bonus HP and damage, the Cleric giving better support spells, and Sheppard Druid making all of their summons have higher HP and magical attacks. As for short-duration minionmancy, I'd say Druids beat out everyone. Sure, Dominate Person/Monster may be nice, and Mass Suggestion is weird...but lets be honest. Conjure Animals beats them all, and a Sheppard Druid with Conjure Animals is a far better minionmancer specialist than any class or subclass. Even if your DM purposely gives you bad CR 1/4th beasts...if you can't find a way to use 8 to 16 beasts. all with magical attacks and bonus hp, then I don't know what to tell you.

I'm not really sure why you took the topic of long-duration minionmancy and then hard pivoted into short-duration, but it's entirely irrelevant. As for why Wizard's fall into this category, it's because they are really good at it.

Subclasses:

Necromancy gets more undead and can leverage Create Magen with no drawbacks.

Transmutation can hand a minion their stone and Polymorph them for free.

Conjuration can give their summons 30 temp hp, and for short duration (since you brought it up) can ignore damage for concentration breaking.

Spells:

- Find familiar is listed separately, but is long duration minionmancy.

- Create Homunculus

- Create Magen

- Animate Dead etc.

That's not getting into Planar Binding, which I find more unrealistic personally. A Wizard gets a bunch of spells, a lot of them largely Wizard exclusive, that gives them long duration minions. They then have subclasses, plural, which can synergise with this strategy, and thanks to the entirely unnecessary Arcane Recovery, can sustain things like Animate Dead with minimal cost relative to other full casters.


Knock: I mean...handy spell but not so strong that I'd put it in its own category...Rogues with Thieves' Tools Expertise are equal to knock, and most locks can be dealt with via simple proficiency.

I agree with this, Knock is more problematic than anything (and demolishing things in Silence is ridiculous), but I understand why PP listed it, it does come up a lot in these conversations.


Short-range teleportation: This is squarely in the Wizard domain. A few subclasses get decent short range teleportation methods, such as Misty Step or the Dream Druid at level 10, but I agree. This one belongs to the wizard

Most confusingly and part of the issue, is that they basically get all of the options for this, and a subclass that can teleport.


Find Familiar: I wouldn't really call this a wizard exclusive thing. Yes, its only on the Wizard spell list, however 2 out of 3 PHB warlocks can get it, and Druids can now get a temporary familiar via Wild Shape. Warlock Familiars are also a bit better.

I believe the scope of PP's initial post was at the class level looking at lists, not exceptions from specific subclass (or subclassish) choices, or Tasha's optional options that some Druids can't really afford to use.

I will say though that whilst two out of three PHB Warlocks can, only one has to. And given the sheer number of subclasses available now, most Warlocks won't.


Shenanigans: Everyone has shenanigans. Sorcerers and genie warlocks have Wish, which means they can use Clone, Simulacrum, and Magic Jar. Druids have Shape Change, which is basically True Polymorph with limited forms you can take, but the added benefi9t of keeping your class features. Clerics have simultaneously the strongest and weakest shenanigans, cause their high level spells suck, but a level 20 Cleric has Divine Intervention. Bards can take Wish, have True Polymorph, and then some.

I would like to point out that whilst the Wizard's shenanigans run the gamut in both levels and features. Your counter example is basically 9th level spells and a DM-dependent capstone. Do you really not see the issue here? Especially when the Wizard also has Wish like you're saying here..?


Given that all the spell casters have ways to match,. emulate, or improve upon what the Wizard has, I don't really think Wizards are the cause of that particular issue. All spellcasters are in this specific case, because spells are just that good and varied in their power.

But... they aren't all in this case. They don't all have good emulation and the Wizard is egregious not only in the sheer scope of their list, but in how they prepare spells for the day, cake and eat it Ritual Casting, and Arcane Recovery.


So if I am reading this correctly, you think P.P. Is correct based off 💩 posted on the internet?

I read their comment as being based on their experience, which would not limit it to things posted on forums, but also their play. I think Tanarii did AL before things happened, so I'd wager they've seen a fair few different players.


I’ve played at Cleric and a Wizard at level 5. The Cleric was more versatile.

Wizards have to make hard choices about spell selection at low level.
Prepared casters such as Druids and Clerics, do not, outside which daily spells to select.

A 5th level cleric can spend a day Animating the Dead with a 5th Level Wizard that has Animate Dead and Fireball as their 3rd Level spells, and then the next day send a Sending message to an Ally to let the Ally know that the party is going to meet them. The following day, the Cleric could have completely different array of spells.

This leads to a cleric or druid, often having the correct tool for a situation, whereas a Wizard, much like other Arcane Casters have to deal with the situation, only with the limited tools they have.

This is misleading. A Druid or Cleric are more versatile in their spell selection between long rests, and assuming they have relevant spells available to them. Given that a Wizard doesn't need to prepare their rituals, their actual versatility throughout the adventuring day is much higher.


Using the Augury Ritual to aid in Spell Selection, is very useful.

That's not how that spell works, at all. I can't conceive of any way that Augury could be used for this purpose.

[Unoriginal]

If you make a system that is supposed to be about a tactical minigame and dungeon crawl but you print spells that change the yields of harvests a year out or allow casters to bide their time building an army of undead, you've failed as a designer in making a system that actually supports your intended goal.

It's a good thing that WotC never printed spells that allow you to do that for 5e, then.

[NichG]

It's a good thing that WotC never printed spells that allow you to do that for 5e, then.

Literally Plant Growth:



If you cast this spell over 8 hours, you enrich the land. All plants in a half-mile radius centered on a point within range become enriched for 1 year. The plants yield twice the normal amount of food when harvested.


As far as the long-term minionmancy stuff I'll leave it to people who know it better, but Create Undead has permanent effect as does Find Familiar and I guess whatever Create Magen is. Barring all of that, Vampires can create unlimited spawn.

[Unoriginal]

Literally Plant Growth:


Right, Plant Growth can double the ammount of food harvested in the area, when it's time to harvest. I admit it does fit what you said. It is also far less impactful that what you implied.



As far as the long-term minionmancy stuff I'll leave it to people who know it better, but Create Undead has permanent effect

Permanent creation, yes, not permanent control. Create Undead will not get you an army.



as does Find Familiar

Find Familiar will never get you more than one, weak minion.



and I guess whatever Create Magen is.

Trying to create an army with Create Magen will literally kill you.



Barring all of that, Vampires can create unlimited spawn.

It's highly debatable if True Polymorph can turn you into a vampire. The spell doesn't have effect on shapechangers, which vampires are, meaning that if you True Polymorphed into a vampire True Polymorph wouldn't have any effect on your new statblock, which generally result in the spell just not working.

[NichG]

Right, Plant Growth can double the ammount of food harvested in the area, when it's time to harvest. I admit it does fit what you said. It is also far less impactful that what you implied.

Permanent creation, yes, not permanent control. Create Undead will not get you an army.

Find Familiar will never get you more than one, weak minion.

Trying to create an army with Create Magen will literally kill you.

It's highly debatable if True Polymorph can turn you into a vampire. The spell doesn't have effect on shapechangers, which vampires are, meaning that if you True Polymorphed into a vampire True Polymorph wouldn't have any effect on your new statblock, which generally result in the spell just not working.

None of this is relevant to my point.

[Unoriginal]

None of this is relevant to my point.

How is the fact that the powers you pointed out as a failure of the devs either do not work as you said or are far less impactful as what you implied not relevant?

[NichG]

How is the fact that the powers you pointed out as a failure of the devs either do not work as you said or are far less impactful as what you implied not relevant?

What do you think my point was?

[Unoriginal]

What do you think my point was?

The point you were making was "the existence of those powers as presented by you = the game designers have failed to make a game about adventurers doing dungeon crawls."

[Tanarii]

This probably should be the contentious part of this post, but I'd say that absent the particular intentional setups, a world that is run in a realistic and impartial manner will have more outsized (e.g. disproportionate to the power of the actor) opportunities for things to be changed by virtue of information or modification of infrastructure than by virtue of violence.
It's D&D power levels. Even in the powered down scaling of 5e, a party can dominate a kingdom through the application of violence, and an entire region by the time they hit 10th. The only thing stopping that is other powerful beings in the area, armies, or them choosing to focus on other activities. And given parties tend to operate like swat teams, being able to take out 20 guards six times a day at 5th, almost 50 at 10th, and over 100 by 15th is plenty of opportunity to take proactive transformative activities far in excess of anything a cantrip commoner can do.

[NichG]

The point you were making was "the existence of those powers as presented by you = the game designers have failed to make a game about adventurers doing dungeon crawls."

If you go back a bit, the purpose of this line of argument had to do with the assertion that 'but the game is about X!' resolves these things. So this is a point about communication. Here's a system that's supposed to encourage people to go into dungeons and fight things. The system tells a subset of players 'some of the powers that you get involve things like impacting harvests and building structures and talking to someone across the room'. The system is telling people 'actually there's more than just the dungeon crawl and fight stuff - these other things are also part of the game'. It then does not tell a different subset of players these things.

There are two totally independent games in D&D.

[Dork_Forge]

As far as the long-term minionmancy stuff I'll leave it to people who know it better, but Create Undead has permanent effect as does Find Familiar and I guess whatever Create Magen is. Barring all of that, Vampires can create unlimited spawn.

Just to be clear, Create Magen is not an army, or even a mob, spell unless you're a high level Necromancer. I only mentioned it as a long-term minion, because it's permanent until it dies and is designed to be combat-relevant. When I was listing long term minons, I wasn't making a list of army stuff, just giving examples of how any Wizard can cobble together a permanent entourage of magical creatures, which few other classes can.

The only thing that gives a generic Wizard a run for their money in that kind of entourage building is a Battle Smith Artificer going for minions.

[Unoriginal]

It's D&D power levels. Even in the powered down scaling of 5e, a party can dominate a kingdom through the application of violence, and an entire region by the time they hit 10th. The only thing stopping that is other powerful beings in the area, armies, or them choosing to focus on other activities. And given parties tend to operate like swat teams, being able to take out 20 guards six times a day at 5th, almost 50 at 10th, and over 100 by 15th is plenty of opportunity to take proactive transformative activities far in excess of anything a cantrip commoner can do.

Yeah, the claim that violence is *not* a lever for proactive effects but that information and infrastructure are is particularly puzzling.

Violence is just as much a lever than information and infrastructure. Arguably more than them, as one of the major reasons information and infrastructure are desired is to make the application of violence easier, by providing the means for it and analyzing when, where and against whom it should be applied.

[NichG]

Just to be clear, Create Magen is not an army, or even a mob, spell unless you're a high level Necromancer. I only mentioned it as a long-term minion, because it's permanent until it dies and is designed to be combat-relevant. When I was listing long term minons, I wasn't making a list of army stuff, just giving examples of how any Wizard can cobble together a permanent entourage of magical creatures, which few other classes can.

The only thing that gives a generic Wizard a run for their money in that kind of entourage building is a Battle Smith Artificer going for minions.

The point of the Necromancer/Create Magen combo is to negate the max hitpoint cost no? Doesn't that let you get minions proportional to money+time?

[Pex]

Also for the record, I agree with you that "endurance" stuff is kinda annoying and I'd rather not see it. I'd rather balance things by just not providing stuff that breaks the model. The AD&D style (which worked but sucked to use) of "you normally can't get these spells off, but if you can you're a god" is too error prone in my mind. Especially since the natural inclination is to do what WotC has done ever since--remove the restrictions in the name of simplifying things but leaving the power the same (or nearly so).

If I were to overhaul spells, I'd probably move a lot of the contentious spells out to something non-spell. Capabilities that anyone of the appropriate power level can access. Balance them in some other way than spell slots. Leave the things that have to happen now or are otherwise an issue alone. My current draft (here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/18BwA_2ZVFezeVr7DaCrmSEvHE3DMsUHYsHoY8ADqnL8/edit?usp=sharing)) moves about 50-ish spells out across many classes. It's not done and not balanced, to be sure. But it's a start.

I have a higher tolerance of PC power than other people, but that's not the same as PCs should do everything anything they want. Rules permit and restrict, and I place value on those restrictions. Restrictions that make the game not fun to play should go away. That leaves room for restrictions I'm not a fan of, but I can get over it and still have fun. Concentration is one such rule. Some spells that are concentration I don't think should be, and I would prefer allowing more than one concentrated spell at higher levels. However, the rule as it works does not impede fun since I still get to cast flashy spells. As a cleric I may be concentrating on Bless, but I can still cast Guiding Bolt. The wizard is casting Fireball even if he has to concentrate on Magic Weapon for the Fighter. If a spell is problematic fix that spell. Not being able to cast these awesome spells, but I get to cast those awesome spells is fine. Restrictions that tell me I don't get to play for the rest of the combat or put be closer to death are not fun and don't belong in D&D. I don't care if other game systems do that. I'm not playing those games, and I don't have to. If I'm in a "rut" playing D&D I'm ecstatic I'm in that rut. (I know those weren't your words.)

Where we disagree is not really your premise. I did say I don't think there's a problem with wizards. Technically, yes, we disagree on the premise, but that's not really my issue. The real issue is your solution - get rid of wizard. That's throwing away the proverbial baby. A cure worse than the disease perhaps. Pick your proverb. Better solutions exist to fix your issue. On the bright side you will have your chance to tell the Powers That Be your issues. Maybe they'll fix your issues, Maybe they won't. You'll get your chance. I'm in the same boat with skill use. :smallyuk:


So D&D does have to apologize, got it.:smallwink::smallbiggrin:

For 4E, yes.

[Dork_Forge]

The point of the Necromancer/Create Magen combo is to negate the max hitpoint cost no? Doesn't that let you get minions proportional to money+time?

Yes, that's why I said unless you're a high-level Necromancer. For all other Wizards, it's a bodyguard or two, potentially more if there are mitigating factors to the HP loss.

[Pex]

But that doesn't have to be a PC option. PCs and NPCs are built completely differently from different options.


Speaking personally: I want to play one, darn it!

So, yes, I will fight for it.

:P

I wouldn't object if this was restricted to a wizard subclass option. Suppose they do overhaul wizard for D&Done. Get rid of all the current subclasses based on schools and make new ones based on what wizards do with their spells. A minionmancy of one type of creature wizard would be fine. This Minionmancer uses undead. That Minionmancer uses fiends. The other Minionmancer likes to have an army of goblinoids. In exchange, the Minionmancer is not polymorphing himself or anyone. That power belongs to the Mutator subclass. He's specializing in changing his own form and those of others as buffs and debuffs. The wizard can still have a bit diversity in their spells. Being too specialized makes you a one-trick pony, but still limit that diversity.


Oh, I'm well aware that it is problematic. The biggest one being simple OOC logistics of trying to manage lots of things. The "one big thing" is one way to handle it. Sadly, I have yet to see a good ipmlementation of "horde" or "troop" rules that doesn't make you feel like going from standard handle-them-as-individual-creatures rules to handle-them-as-a-grouped-unit rules feel like a big nerf. It might actually be impossible without a completely different paradigm of combat that doesn't involve specifically being hit by multiple things, or something.

Doesn't change that I want to do it. Just makes it hard to design. And I applaud efforts to design it.

A simple idea is treat a group as one creature. You can have a troop of 5 undead with a total of 75 hit points. It has one attack with numbers to hit and damage based on how many are in the group and have special powers too. It is one creature for purposes of being attacked by weapons or spells. When 15 points of damage is done to it one undead creature is destroyed. The squad now has 4 creatures. Adjust math as necessary. Your class abilities and spells can buff the squad, such as having more than one attack, buff hit points, add a special power, devil in the details.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Where we disagree is not really your premise. I did say I don't think there's a problem with wizards. Technically, yes, we disagree on the premise, but that's not really my issue. The real issue is your solution - get rid of wizard. That's throwing away the proverbial baby. A cure worse than the disease perhaps. Pick your proverb. Better solutions exist to fix your issue. On the bright side you will have your chance to tell the Powers That Be your issues. Maybe they'll fix your issues, Maybe they won't. You'll get your chance. I'm in the same boat with skill use. :smallyuk:


Point of order--that's not my solution. It's a solution. But it isn't where I'd start, because it's a massive amount of work to do it right.

I'd start by addressing the couple-few spells that are just horribly out of keeping with the rest of things. For example, simulacrum is never going to work like it is currently. "I get an extra, disposable character to play that's just as strong as the strongest guy I can find" isn't a valid thing at all. Are there variants of simulacrum's idea that could work? Probably. But as it is currently, no. The polymorph line should be addressed either by slashing the CRs (CR <= spell level is probably fine, but more work's needed to nail it down) or moving it to a Summon X-type "here's a fixed stat block" option. A few other specific, targeted changes.

If that didn't accomplish the necessary changes, I'd step back and be a bit more wholistic. Start moving selected utility spells into "incantations" that anyone can learn to perform that are balanced by other things other than spell slots.

Yes, I think that the current wizard design is the absolute, bar none, worst class design in 5e. But that's not really due to power reasons (although it exacerbates existing ones). It's because it has no thematic identity and can't be given one without blowing its already stretched power budget all to kingdom come.

My main point throughout all of this is precision. "Caster vs martial" isn't really the real issue. We should say what we really mean and identify problems correctly. Because inaccurate problem identification means half-baked, more-harm-than-help "fixes". If you raise up martials to be as strong as the strongest wizards...you'll also have to raise up a whole lot of casters too. Because wizards are head and shoulders above everyone else right now. Or at least have the uncertain potential to be so. If a wizard "self-nerfs" and sticks to a theme strongly (a theme that isn't "I take the strongest spells"), they're likely ok. But that just means that it can get accidentally broken. And that's a design smell. It was in 3e, where Sir Bearington could happen accidentally. And it's one now.

[Witty Username]

Caster-martial, even this wizard-martial disparity is mostly an illusion. Wizards aren't actually out of step with the rest of the game in term of power but of interest.

Say I am a 5th level wizard, if I choose to go to level 6 I get interesting abilities that improve my role as a caster.

Compare to a 5th level fighter, it's not really until level 11 that I get anything interesting, and I will get 1 new thing (indomitable), which will be the last new thing I get (not even until level 20)

Only the Paladin avoids this problem, with interesting features throughout its career.

As long as level 9 is max level for martials, the disparity will continue to exist. No nerfs to wizard will correct this, short of removing them from the game, No nerfs to casters will fix this, short of removing them from the game.

[Tanarii]

Where we disagree is not really your premise. I did say I don't think there's a problem with wizards. Technically, yes, we disagree on the premise, but that's not really my issue. The real issue is your solution - get rid of wizard. That's throwing away the proverbial baby. A cure worse than the disease perhaps. Pick your proverb. Better solutions exist to fix your issue. On the bright side you will have your chance to tell the Powers That Be your issues. Maybe they'll fix your issues, Maybe they won't. You'll get your chance. I'm in the same boat with skill use. :smallyuk:

The problem is WotC already threw away the baby and made magic-users specifically and D&D generally less fun when they took away meaningful restrictions like not casting in melee combat / being hit, not having effectively unlimited resource, being able to set up armored wizards, etc.

After the 3e fiasco, they did a great job of balancing them in a way that allowed them to cast all day long and not dominate the game in 4e. Unfortunately that was too much of a combat machine for folks, being designed for battlemat play. They've done an okayish job in staying 3e-ish without being totally broken, mainly by bringing effectively unlimited resources under control, but unfortunately almost everyone (and most importantly AL) uses the optional feats and Multiclassing rules that break them in 5e, with none of the meaningful and fun restrictions TSR magic-users had.

If they aren't going back the things that made them TSR Magic-Users instead of WoTC Wizards, it's time to stop ignoring that WoTC wizards aren't what makes D&D into D&D, and ditch the "Wizards and Dragons" model they've adopted. Instead, take lesson from the highly successful Warlock and Sorcerer classes, and do something other than "guy who casts all spells and keeps them in a book."

Edit: to be clear, to feel like D&D, the class needs to be "guy who casts all spells until he runs out and keeps them in a book and is totally screwed when caught in melee." Without that, it doesn't feel like the core arcane D&D caster class and you might as well do something useful with the space. As far as I'm concerned, WotC D&D absolute DOES need to apologize for that. Because they're the ones that screwed it up. The running out and being screwed in melee are what defines core arcane classes, both in D&D before WotC and in most D&D inspired fantasy TTRPGs and CRPGs (which is of course most of them), not the casting all spells and keeping them in a book.

[animorte]

Instead, take lesson from the highly successful Warlock and Sorcerer classes, and do something other than "guy who casts all spells and keeps them in a book."
One more time for the people in the back.

[Frogreaver]

I'm not arguing that asymmetry is inherently bad. Games like Ars Magica design for it explicitly and make it work. Games like Shadowrun on the other hand have run into metagame issues with their asymmetry that have hounded them for editions, the so-called decker problem.

Good Start.


What I'd argue is that if you're going to be playing with that sort of extreme niche asymmetry as a design element, you had best understand the niches.

And now it goes off the rails. My position doesn't rest on 'extreme niche asymmetry'. It doesn't even really rely on niches, just asymmetry. Barbarians share the same niche as fighters. Rangers and Paladins share that niche to a large degree, even in a world where their casting utility might mean they are a bit weaker at combat than the fighters and barbarians.


When people dismiss the out-of-combat impact of things like resurrection of the dead or having the ability to track anyone you've ever met within a city, I don't get the impression that they're actually considering deeply the sorts of things that stuff outside of combat lets you leverage - they're handwaving it away or just considering it DM's domain and therefore they don't have to worry about it because they control it or 'the game isn't about that sort of thing so of course it can't matter'. So with that mindset, I don't think those people are going to be capable of solving the design problem of making that asymmetry actually work, especially at tables that are not their own where people are likely going to hold different views and run the game differently.

Let me phrase it this way. If the game is asymmetric, then some characters should shine more in some adventures and other characters shine more in other adventures. You are never going to balance through asymmetry for all games styles and adventures simultaneously.


In particular in a thread that proposes a thesis about 'which spells and classes are the real problem', I think that's an issue of core relevance to the thread's claims.

I think the thread mostly gets this right when considering an abilities power in a given situation alongside the probability of such a situation. Resurrection is really powerful, but the probability it comes up is much smaller than a spell like teleportation.

But I also find most of these discussions on balance and spell hierarchies and power hierarchies in general really miss the mark. Fun is the most important factor and I really feel sorry for players that cannot have fun playing fighters or barbarians because some of my most fun experiences came playing those classes.

[Tanarii]

One more time for the people in the back.
My edit for edge opinions on limited resources and sucking in melee may end detracting from this core point :smallamused:

[NichG]

Good Start.

And now it goes off the rails. My position doesn't rest on 'extreme niche asymmetry'. It doesn't even really rely on niches, just asymmetry. Barbarians share the same niche as fighters. Rangers and Paladins share that niche to a large degree, even in a world where their casting utility might mean they are a bit weaker at combat than the fighters and barbarians.


The niche asymmetry is between combat minigame and everything else. Not between each individual pair of classes.



Let me phrase it this way. If the game is asymmetric, then some characters should shine more in some adventures and other characters shine more in other adventures. You are never going to balance through asymmetry for all games styles and adventures simultaneously.


So in the example of Ars Magica, it works well because every player has one character belonging to each of the levels of abstraction that the game spans. When the game is focusing on high abstraction magical matters, players play their magi. When the game is focusing on high politics and acts of heroism or skill, the players play their companion characters. When the game is focusing on a mysterious smell coming from the larder and why all the clover has gone missing, they play their grogs. While characters have niches, players don't have niches, so spotlight time is shared well. The designers understood that they wanted to capture multiple different scales of action and abstraction in a single game and in individual stories, organized those scales as separate, and then gave every player an equal ability to participate in each niche but through the lenses of fundamentally unequal characters they could swap between.

Shadowrun as the other example basically created characters whose central things were pretty much exclusive to them and required full focus of the game to engage in. So you have the decker problem (and the related rigger problem), where during a dive the decker is doing things and everyone else is waiting for them to finish, and during a combat the decker and rigger are staying home safe and sound while the rest of the group fights for their lives. Narratively it could work, but because players are each tied to a single character, that means in practice that for large swathes of the game, players are sitting and twiddling their thumbs. Bad implementation of what could have been a good idea.

So there are ways of 'balancing against all game styles and adventures simultaneously'. But they really require understanding what the axes of play are and making sure that everyone has a way to have something to do along each of those axes, even if those are different things or even different characters.

For the record I don't think its a good idea to try to do this kind of asymmetry in D&D with 'a social character, a combat character, an exploration character' etc. But if you wanted to make that work, you could use Ars Magica's solution and just have each player have a stable of multiple PCs and the ability to choose which one is participating in a given scene or segment of adventure. It would be better to take each aspect of play and each archetype and have some particular thing within each aspect that that archetype is good at - asymmetry, but in the form of qualitatively different ways to participate in every level of abstraction you're going to have, rather than having preferred levels of abstraction. But I also acknowledge people's preferences will vary in that regard and they may prefer other solutions. I don't think people are doing themselves a favor if they outright ignore this consideration or pretend like it doesn't exist - answer it as you like, work with it as you like, but do so with intentionality.

[Dork_Forge]

Caster-martial, even this wizard-martial disparity is mostly an illusion. Wizards aren't actually out of step with the rest of the game in term of power but of interest.

I don't really agree (though nor do I think Wizards are straight more powerful) but let's see where it goes...


Say I am a 5th level wizard, if I choose to go to level 6 I get interesting abilities that improve my role as a caster.

Compare to a 5th level fighter, it's not really until level 11 that I get anything interesting, and I will get 1 new thing (indomitable), which will be the last new thing I get (not even until level 20)

It looks like you're talking about subclass abilities at 6, but you ignore Fighter subclass abilities at 7th?

And I've never seen a Fighter player find the 6th level ASI uninteresting, and I don't think they'd call the ASI that normally gets spent on a built-relelvant feat as not getting something interesting. ASI at 6th is huge and you just skipped over it because it isn't a new feature?

And then you ignore the other Fighter subclass abilities and discount the increase in indomitable and Action Surge, but count an increase in attacks? I've seen colanders more water tight than this argument.


As long as level 9 is max level for martials, the disparity will continue to exist. No nerfs to wizard will correct this, short of removing them from the game, No nerfs to casters will fix this, short of removing them from the game.

9th level isn't a cap for martials at all, even the Fighter you used as an example is eyeing immediately the next level for their subclass, the level after that for their 3rd attack, and after that for their ASI etc.

You haven't expressed anything here but you think the Fighter's progression isn't interesting. This makes no sense to me when the Wizard's core progression is just getting more spells. They don't get any interesting abilities because they're entirely reliant on their spells in a way that no other caster in the game is. How is that interesting compared to any other caster that's getting new spells and features?

Heck, from your argument there's no real reason why you wouldn't love the Monk, they not only get things all the time, they get things when other classes have nothing in comparison. Yet, I suspect that your logic won't apply to the Monk even though it's a bunch of different abilities?

[Witty Username]

9th level is when fighter gets their last new base class feature, indomitable. Everything past that is upgrades to existing features. New and interesting are different things in this context, the last interesting thing is at 11th, where the third attack comes in.

One could say that new spells are not new features, but rather upgrades to the existing feature of spellcasting. But that is mostly semantics, adding spells dramatically increases when a caster casts in useful ways. And every level on every caster matters.

Fighter, gets more uses of the things they did from level 2.

Barbarian, gets more uses of things they could do from level 1.

Ranger, gets features that are a waste of text to say "does nothing" (and it actually does better than the others, half-caster puts in work even if it is all you get)

This is a base class observation, as subclasses can vary wildly, but still, shouldn't a class be functional without having to choose the "good" subclass?

[Bohandas]

Not to mention, all casters but especially wizards in that kind of white room theorycrafting "casters are superior" threads have an always-correct, ever-adapting spell loadout to handle the specific challenges of the adventure they're about to face.

Yeah. Basically in order for a pre[aration caster to dominate an adventure their player has to have already read the adventure

[Dork_Forge]

9th level is when fighter gets their last new base class feature, indomitable. Everything past that is upgrades to existing features. New and interesting are different things in this context, the last interesting thing is at 11th, where the third attack comes in.

One could say that new spells are not new features, but rather upgrades to the existing feature of spellcasting. But that is mostly semantics, adding spells dramatically increases when a caster casts in useful ways. And every level on every caster matters.

Fighter, gets more uses of the things they did from level 2.

Barbarian, gets more uses of things they could do from level 1.

Ranger, gets features that are a waste of text to say "does nothing" (and it actually does better than the others, half-caster puts in work even if it is all you get)

This is a base class observation, as subclasses can vary wildly, but still, shouldn't a class be functional without having to choose the "good" subclass?

Your argument seems to be 'gets different stuff' except for when it doesn't hold up.

Barbarian: Relentless Rage isn't 'more Rages' it's a different thing. Indomitable Might is a different thing. Primal Champion is a different thing.

Fighter: ASIs aren't new or interesting, despite giving you access to feats. Making spells 'interesting new features' but the feature that gives you access to feats, not, is baffling.

Ranger: Gets a bunch of things and spells.

Rogue: you've left out

Monk: You seem to have chosen to ignore.

Paladin: You're okay with.

What doesn't make sense, is that your argument is new things are better than increased uses/potency of existing features. Power of those things don't matter, it's about interest, not power.

...Except the Ranger, who's features I will declare too bad to count as new things, and who I will significantly discount the spells of, despite it being the only thing Wizards get.

It isn't a consistent argument, it doesn't make sense, and that's before you even consider that different classes depend on their subclasses to a differing amount. Wizard cares some of the least about their subclasses because they're so heavily skewed towards their casting, so of course most discussions that ignore subclasses, especially just counting different features, favours them.

This doesn't even consider that you're hanging so much on spells, when they can't even have them all prepared at once. So those new interesting things, might not even be available to use, rituals don't alleviate all of that.

[Witty Username]

I have chosen to ignore monk because of the inevitable 20 page argument whether or not it is the strongest class in the game or the weakest in the game for the however many times it's been.

Rogue is less intentional, so much as I am not sure if they are considered a martial for this discussion.

Barbarian, gets reckless at level 2 sure, and advantage on initiative, +10 foot movespeed, advantage on dex saves, rage and 2 rage upgrades, a weird gimmick ability with strength checks, extra crit dice, and the capstone. Oh and unarmored defense.
That is all the features they get, about half of them are by level 5. Overall level by level chances with barbarian peater out after about level 7, and then it is subclass or bust until 20.

Fighter can get feats, everyone can get feats, wizards get feats. Feats are optional. I don't feel this is a wow, I get a feat, more hm, I get PAM( or GWM) 2 levels early.

Ranger, tell me, what does hide in plain sight actually do? That is the kind of thing I am talking about and Ranger has a bunch of those kind of issues throughout.

[Dork_Forge]

I have chosen to ignore monk because of the inevitable 20 page argument whether or not it is the strongest class in the game or the weakest in the game for the however many times it's been.

You framed this as a problem of interest, not power. The pillar you've built this around is the number of different features a class gets. It seems very odd to ignore the martial that (just going to make a safe assumption) gets the highest number of different features.

Is this about interest and quantity, like you said, or about power, like you keep using as an exception when it fits you?


Rogue is less intentional, so much as I am not sure if they are considered a martial for this discussion.

Fair, for reference I consider them two categories, you're one or the other and that's defined by what your go to in combat as a class is. Disclaimer: I don't treat the Artificer this way because of how it's structured.


Barbarian, gets reckless at level 2 sure, and advantage on initiative, +10 foot movespeed, advantage on dex saves, rage and 2 rage upgrades, a weird gimmick ability with strength checks, extra crit dice, and the capstone. Oh and unarmored defense.
That is all the features they get, about half of them are by level 5. Overall level by level chances with barbarian peater out after about level 7, and then it is subclass or bust until 20.

Subclass or bust after level 7 until 20? Two of the things you even listed come after that point. You're again throwing judgement about the calibre of the features, whilst arguing it's about quantity. Indomitable Might isn't a gimmick, it makes Barbarians incredible consistent at shoving and grappling, setting their floor, realistically at that level, at 20, and tacking more value onto Primal Champion.

Though this really raises the question of how many different things do you actually need to be good in your mind? Especially for a class that has a clear singular focus point, that you want to keep improving, because it's your core ability.

You also don't seem to be counting Extra Attack as a feature, which is weird.


Fighter can get feats, everyone can get feats, wizards get feats. Feats are optional. I don't feel this is a wow, I get a feat, more hm, I get PAM( or GWM) 2 levels early.

'Everyone can get feats' belittles the value of gaining two additional ASIs in a game where they're thin on the ground. Especially when one of them comes at a very easily attained level. You're also just seeing it as 'early' instead of 'as well as x' where x can be other feats, or improving your stats.

A Fighter at level 8 can max their primary stat like everyone else and have a feat. That is significant, especially at such an early part of character progression.


Ranger, tell me, what does hide in plain sight actually do? That is the kind of thing I am talking about and Ranger has a bunch of those kind of issues throughout.

It makes you Arnold in Predator. You've singled out a feature for a quality concern, again not addressing that your whole argument was quantity, or that they also get spells throughout.

By level 20 Rangers have 11 spells and 10 features, ignoring spellcasting as a feature and not breaking up features into multiple abilities. Breaking them up most certainly pushes that number higher, but let's be conservative.

So that's an average of two features per level, with slightly better than that on spells, on a class that is heavily dependent on their subclass for their variety and boosts. I'm not seeing how that is low in variety?

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

Let's pluck another flaw from your model:

You consider spells features for the Wizard, but you don't consider:

- That they're features that need to be prepared, a 20th Wizard has a minimum of 44 spells, but can only prepare 27 at most, and that's including their capstone.

- They're features that require you to choose to spend slots on them, which also eat your action economy. This drastically changes their inherent value and amount of use compared to improvement and passive features.

- Not all spells are created equally, you criticise features willingly on martials, but I doubt you'll claim all spells are good. Or even all spells are decent.

And the big one IMO:

Wizards start in a deficit compared to martials, because their spells are intended to bridge the gap.

The Wizard needs to use spells to compensate for base things that martials don't.

You could not take Mage Armor or Shield on a Wizard, but you probably will because they don't inherently get armor profs. You're also going to skew heavily into defensive spells in general, because they have the lowest Hit Die in the game and need to compensate for that.

So whilst you're treating spells like fun, interesting, new things to do, you need to bear in mind that you have shortfalls to overcome, which will eat spells and slots. This eats away at the variety and ability to freely choose the interesting and different, at any given time a chunk of a Wizard's list is going to be dedicated to keeping them alive, solving problems that the martials have solutions for built-in. You'll always want Mage Armor, Shield, and probably Absorb Elements, so even if you strip your defenses down to basic 1st level spells, it's a significant chunk of what you can actually do for a lot of your career.

So, your argument of spells = more variety = better is flawed in how Wizards actually work and how their real world spell selection works.

Your argument of some features are too bad to count doesn't hold up because you're selectively applying it.

You want to ignore subclasses and talk about the number of core features a class gets. The reality is that a Wizard gets no features from their class after 1st level until 18th level.

They are the only class that does that. Every other caster does better than that.And if you don't count enhancements, which you seem to not want to, then they get no features besides Spellcasting.

[Ignimortis]

The problem is WotC already threw away the baby and made magic-users specifically and D&D generally less fun when they took away meaningful restrictions like not casting in melee combat / being hit, not having effectively unlimited resource, being able to set up armored wizards, etc.
I kind of agree, except not really? The issue here is, generally, that WotC, on one hand, keeps designing certain classes around "they can wear armor, deal damage well and take hits in melee!", which matches the TSR days design, while handing out the very same features like candy to other classes when they ask for it. Getting an armor/shields proficiency or a martial weapons proficiency on a caster is ludicrously easy for everyone but maybe Sorcerer and Druid (and Druid starts out with medium+shields anyway).

You don't even need multiclassing or feats - a Bladesinger wizard, by level 10, gets about 90% of things that make martials tick by 5e's definition (higher durability, Extra Attack, extra damage), while still being a full 9-circle caster. The only downside is that they're not exactly at-will, as the major part of their kit is limited to four combats a day (at that point) - but so is the Barbarian. Bladesong is, quite literally, Bladesinger's Rage. And when it runs out, you still have a full Wizard behind it, just one without much incentive to go into melee anymore, while the Barbarian is reduced to being a basic attack machine with no oomph behind it.

Same with Hexblade, except Warlock's base damage-dealing chassis is so strong, a Hexblade actually has no real reason to go into melee to make it work, as Hex+Hexblade Curse+Agonizing Blast are enough to match a martial's DPR, while Medium Armor+Shields prof is enough to match their durability.

Same with Clerics (Heavy Armor on half of domains for free, MWP on several also, including features that improve DPR to martial levels at least for a while) and Bard (Valor's literally in the PHB). So 4/6 full casters have at least one way to get in on the martial game, one more does it unconventionally (Moon Druid), and only Sorcerer, which is possibly the best caster design in 5e (actually has to think hard about spell choices, doesn't have ways to shore up common weaknesses of casters, good at dealing with basic caster mechanics but not much else beyond that), not coincidentally, does not have any finished (non-UA) ways to become a part-time martial. And it usually only costs a subclass choice, which might account for maybe 15-20% of your total power.

If a martial subclass did that to spellcasting to the same extent, you would get Sorcerer casting, in full (no class features), on something like EK, and Bard spellcasting on AT. I.e. "yeah I can caster it up for a while, but when I run out, I am still a full martial behind that".

[Witty Username]

Ah, my complaint isn't strictly quantity, it is sense of progression, lack of features is part of it, like fighter and its lack of new past level 9. Features that don't have impact is another, things like the phb hide in plain sight (use case never) or brutal critical (neat but has a negligible effect on the game).

For monk, the number of features is about right, they do have this usual thing of the first 5 levels feel like alot of stuff and the next 10 feel like a slog, I think that is because the draw abilities, martial arts, flurry of blows, stunning strike, etc. are all in the first 5 levels. That and the TWF style of scaling on martial arts (1-4, strong, then everyone gets extra attack, and everyone starts hitting harder)

Extra attack isn't a bad feature, I just don't think it helps this direction, all the martials get it at level 5, so "martials feel like they stop getting things in T3" isn't really helped by it. And as for why I didn't list it with Barbarian, all martials get it.

Subclasses, like say battlemaster, can help with this problem, providing this sense of progression, but they can also contribute to this problem, like say champion. One could argue, that one can simply not pick bad subclasses, and I am open to that being part of the problem. I am not convinced that is the whole problem though.

[Sneak Dog]

All full-casters get an awesome new thing every two levels: A higher spell level. On top of that they may get some class features too. Fighters tend to just get more uses of what they were doing, or to pick another thing from the list they already picked from. At times they get an upgrade to what they were already doing, like a third or a fourth attack. But new things are sparse after the first five levels.

[Pex]

The problem is WotC already threw away the baby and made magic-users specifically and D&D generally less fun when they took away meaningful restrictions like not casting in melee combat / being hit, not having effectively unlimited resource, being able to set up armored wizards, etc.

After the 3e fiasco, they did a great job of balancing them in a way that allowed them to cast all day long and not dominate the game in 4e. Unfortunately that was too much of a combat machine for folks, being designed for battlemat play. They've done an okayish job in staying 3e-ish without being totally broken, mainly by bringing effectively unlimited resources under control, but unfortunately almost everyone (and most importantly AL) uses the optional feats and Multiclassing rules that break them in 5e, with none of the meaningful and fun restrictions TSR magic-users had.

If they aren't going back the things that made them TSR Magic-Users instead of WoTC Wizards, it's time to stop ignoring that WoTC wizards aren't what makes D&D into D&D, and ditch the "Wizards and Dragons" model they've adopted. Instead, take lesson from the highly successful Warlock and Sorcerer classes, and do something other than "guy who casts all spells and keeps them in a book."

Edit: to be clear, to feel like D&D, the class needs to be "guy who casts all spells until he runs out and keeps them in a book and is totally screwed when caught in melee." Without that, it doesn't feel like the core arcane D&D caster class and you might as well do something useful with the space. As far as I'm concerned, WotC D&D absolute DOES need to apologize for that. Because they're the ones that screwed it up. The running out and being screwed in melee are what defines core arcane classes, both in D&D before WotC and in most D&D inspired fantasy TTRPGs and CRPGs (which is of course most of them), not the casting all spells and keeping them in a book.

If you want to get into the nitty-gritty you're actually speaking to the choir when you want wizards no longer being able to cast in armor. Remember, I said I don't want restrictions that make me regret playing a wizard, not that there shouldn't be restrictions. Difficulty in melee I agree with you, but I do have a caveat that some spells require the wizard be in melee so they need some assurance those spells will work or be cast at all. One solution might be not have any melee spells. Let it suck for the wizard when the orc approaches him attacking with his great axe, but in fairness don't force the wizard to have to approach the orc to cast his attack spell. It's not an issue for me a cleric/paladin should have no problems at all casting a spell in melee. Let it be their niche compared to wizards. Restrict wizards, but don't make them useless and they are entitled to have cool things, even cool things no one else, including warriors, can do.

[Tanarii]

I kind of agree, except not really?


If you want to get into the nitty-gritty you're actually speaking to the choir when you want wizards no longer being able to cast in armor.

I'm appalled that my little rant about the old ways being best and WotC being the terrible Wizard loving evil didn't draw a defensive response :smallamused:

I did read your full posts and thought they were well thought out. Pex in particular I agree there are some arcane spells that probably need to be castable in melee.

My short but more moderate opinion boils down to:
- arcane casters in general shouldn't have too easy access to buff AC or HPs
- Wizard theme and design of "guy who casts all arcane spells and keeps them in a book" doesn't have to go, but it wouldn't hurt at all if it did and was replaced by classes with more interesting thematic and design concepts. C.f. see warlock

[tiornys]

Wizards get access to new class features at levels 3, 5, 7, and 9 on the way to 18, and can supplement them at any level: i.e. Wizard ritual spells which don't fall into the paradigm of limited resources since they don't eat spell slots OR preparations, unlike the other ritual casters.

[Corran]

Character sheet abilities make small, day-to-day detail differences. But large ones that bubble out to change the world? No. Because anything that could be done by simply pressing a character sheet button is something the world has already taken into account; pushing it again doesn't move the needle at all.
Mostly agreed. I mean, technically you can allow some room for innovation (even the world changing kind), though I am in the camp that such situations are better handled by presenting a mcguffin and setting the pc's on its trail so that you can get some thrill from seeking and trying to claim it (unless of course the world changing innovation is creating an effect that is mostly in the background and it is not too heavily related to the adventuring stuff your pc's will be doing). One thing though I think is worth pointing out, is that most game worlds (at least the ones that are sufficiently large) wont be uniform. So there will be places where pushing character sheet buttons will have a high impact, as well as places where pressing the same buttons will have low or no impact. Changing the part of the world that is visible to you at the moment is not lacking too much in term of player satisfaction when compared to pressing a button that would somehow change the whole world. Press enough such high impact buttons and you may even trigger a wider effect even if you dont impact directly at all its highly resistant areas.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Mostly agreed. I mean, technically you can allow some room for innovation (even the world changing kind), though I am in the camp that such situations are better handled by presenting a mcguffin and setting the pc's on its trail so that you can get some thrill from seeking and trying to claim it (unless of course the world changing innovation is creating an effect that is mostly in the background and it is not too heavily related to the adventuring stuff your pc's will be doing). One thing though I think is worth pointing out, is that most game worlds (at least the ones that are sufficiently large) wont be uniform. So there will be places where pushing character sheet buttons will have a high impact, as well as places where pressing the same buttons will have low or no impact. Changing the part of the world that is visible to you at the moment is not lacking too much in term of player satisfaction when compared to pressing a button that would somehow change the whole world. Press enough such high impact buttons and you may even trigger a wider effect even if you dont impact directly at all its highly resistant areas.

Let me just put it this way--

Out of 16+ campaigns in my current world, with most of them making significant, lasting changes (even though many were mostly in T1), exactly...maybe 1...would have any significant difference if you swapped character classes around but kept the people/personalities/macro choices the same. Sure, the fine details of how they cause the change would flex slightly, but the overall changes? No. Because those weren't about buttons or fine-level action at all. They were made up of dozens, if not hundreds of actions by the whole party throughout that part of the adventure. And the most significant changes have had nothing to do with McGuffins or predetermined quests. They've been more like the party deciding that their next goal is to unify the surviving nations into a "fantasy UN". And working towards that in many ways. Diplomacy, feats of strength and solving problems for possible partners, gaining wealth and reputation, etc. The least efficacious person in that one was the only traditional full-caster (a druid) who mostly played supporting parts. Useful ones, but swapping him for something else would have barely changed the results.

Character sheet buttons only matter at the micro level. Which matters a lot, to be sure. Because that's where the game mostly lives. But the rest? The actual lasting changes to the setting and worlds? Those come from decisions and the accumulated weight of consequences.

In fulcrum points any action can have significant effect. Not just the big spells. Most of which are just flashy ways of dealing more damage. Or are things that the setting is already familiar with--it'd be like trying to revolutionize modern America by introducing the...mobile telephone. It's already a thing. This goes extra for low-level spells--no, a cantrip doesn't give you any special power. Something like 30+% of the population can cast cantrips if nothing else. Join the herd. Up to 5th level spells are, if not common, at least well-known and priced into the market.

[Dork_Forge]

Ah, my complaint isn't strictly quantity, it is sense of progression, lack of features is part of it, like fighter and its lack of new past level 9. Features that don't have impact is another, things like the phb hide in plain sight (use case never) or brutal critical (neat but has a negligible effect on the game).

So how relevant something is is part of your argument, yet you don't acknowledge that a Wizard must choose a chunk of their available spells, or that not all spells are equally relevant/good.

And it's about progression, but grabbing feats when no one else can isn't good enough or interesting enough. Which is weird, given that a lot of feats give access to spells, which would qualify if the Wizard was taking them as new spells?


For monk, the number of features is about right, they do have this usual thing of the first 5 levels feel like alot of stuff and the next 10 feel like a slog, I think that is because the draw abilities, martial arts, flurry of blows, stunning strike, etc. are all in the first 5 levels. That and the TWF style of scaling on martial arts (1-4, strong, then everyone gets extra attack, and everyone starts hitting harder)

What? Here are some of the features that you just disregarded as a slog:

- Evasion

- Immunity to poison

- Diamond Soul

And that's just cherry picking the big ones and ignoring the fact that the Martial arts Die will scale and Ki will increase massively in that time frame. Heck, even your speed shifts significantly, which changes how you interact with the world passively.*

*Despite some claims on this forum, I've never seen any character not regard more speed as both enjoyable, and impactful.


Extra attack isn't a bad feature, I just don't think it helps this direction, all the martials get it at level 5, so "martials feel like they stop getting things in T3" isn't really helped by it. And as for why I didn't list it with Barbarian, all martials get it.

All spellcasters get spellcasting. There is a fairly significant overlap between different lists. A Sorcerer list is basically just a cut down Wizard list, and they'll most likely want Mage Armor and Shield... just like the Wizard. But Extra Attack, which gives you the option to also Shove and Grapple, doesn't really count because most martials get it (Rogues don't)?


Subclasses, like say battlemaster, can help with this problem, providing this sense of progression, but they can also contribute to this problem, like say champion. One could argue, that one can simply not pick bad subclasses, and I am open to that being part of the problem. I am not convinced that is the whole problem though.

Subclasses in general help with this 'problem' because class progression is designed to include subclasses. So, I guess let's look at some.

Champion - You are poo-pooing this for some reason, but your issue is no new stuff after level 9. At 10 they get another Fighting Style, which is incredibly diverse, the an 15% crit range, and a self regen that makes them pretty tough to kill.

Battle Master - Lack lustre 7th level aside, this should be checking that interest box like spells, especially since Tasha's added a bunch.

Eldritch Knight- Spellcasting, which is great in your reckoning, plus actual features... so should be a home run... right?

Arcane Archer - Basically spell effects shoved onto arrows, so great then, right?

Psi Warrior - Scaling resources attached to gaining new abilities, one of which is a better version of a spell Wizards can get. So amazing, no?

Rune Knight - Not only do you get more runes, some are level gated... like spells!

I'm not going through them all, but the 'lack of progression' is not only incredibly subjective, it's a hollow argument when you omit subclasses and compare them to the Wizard, who's subclasses are incredibly swingy and rarely give drastic changes or new systems.


All full-casters get an awesome new thing every two levels: A higher spell level. On top of that they may get some class features too. Fighters tend to just get more uses of what they were doing, or to pick another thing from the list they already picked from. At times they get an upgrade to what they were already doing, like a third or a fourth attack. But new things are sparse after the first five levels.

Seeing a pattern here of 'spells are inherently more interesting than nonspells' but... not taking their limitations into consideration. You never get more than a single 8th and 9th level slot, and 6th and 7th level don't move to two slots for a longgg time. Yet, those new awesome things carry the same interest as spells that can be cast many times throughout the day?

It's this inherent lack of looking deeper than 'new spells are awesome!' that bothers me in this framing of 'Wizardz r better,' at least I can understand where the power argument is coming from. This just seems like a lot of fauning over new spells that largely won't be used.


Wizards get access to new class features at levels 3, 5, 7, and 9 on the way to 18, and can supplement them at any level: i.e. Wizard ritual spells which don't fall into the paradigm of limited resources since they don't eat spell slots OR preparations, unlike the other ritual casters.

Spoiler alert, spell levels aren't class features, Spellcasting is.

And since you're throwing rituals out, I'm very interested what your 20th level Wizard list looks like where most of your non-prepared spells are rituals? Or even, what rituals you're learning that are regularly useful throughout the game? Other casters have the option of ditching spells they outgrow, the Wizard just has to let them languish in their book.

[Unoriginal]

Notice all of the examples that were thrown at me by Unoriginal about 'why you shouldn't want to play the cantrip commoner' were basically 'but what if I force you into combat as the DM?'.

1) None of the examples I have thrown were forcing anyone into combat.

2) All of the examples I have thrown were typical events in a D&D world, that people living in the D&D world have to deal with.



They also didn't really like the answers that were 'well, I don't engage with the obvious trap, I keep my head down and ignore or compromise with things that aren't relevant to my own goals'.

What I didn't like is that you wrote that the Cantrip Commoner would have to abandon their project to start again elsewhere, accept that they're getting exploited until the exploiter no longer want them to live, or have achieved a level of power high enough that they can ask for the assistance of people who possess the personal might to deal with those problems... yet you refuse to acknowledge the fact that it means people who possess the personal might to deal with those problem have a very real impact on the shaping of the setting.



Strong reactive mindset.

NichG, being proactive does not mean you can avoid being reactive. Furthermore, being an actor in a D&D setting means that you will have to react to all of the other proactive elements of said settings.

A group of adventuring PCs can be proactive, with the things they can do. Cantrip Commoner can be proactive, with the things they can do. Neither can avoid having to react if a Gnoll raid threaten the main bridge on the country's main river, if any of their plans has anything to do with the bridge, the river or the country.



In fulcrum points any action can have significant effect. Not just the big spells. Most of which are just flashy ways of dealing more damage. Or are things that the setting is already familiar with--it'd be like trying to revolutionize modern America by introducing the...mobile telephone. It's already a thing. This goes extra for low-level spells--no, a cantrip doesn't give you any special power. Something like 30+% of the population can cast cantrips if nothing else. Join the herd. Up to 5th level spells are, if not common, at least well-known and priced into the market.

Yeah, being able to cast 5th level spells is kind of like being an heart surgeon in the modern world. There's not a lot of people who can do what you do if compared to the whole population of the country, and that is reflected in how much you're paid for your services as well as how prestigious people think your job is, but you still have a lot of colleagues all over the country and you're not going to be paid literal fortunes or have strong influence even on the hospital you work at just for that.

[Sneak Dog]

Seeing a pattern here of 'spells are inherently more interesting than nonspells' but... not taking their limitations into consideration. You never get more than a single 8th and 9th level slot, and 6th and 7th level don't move to two slots for a longgg time. Yet, those new awesome things carry the same interest as spells that can be cast many times throughout the day?

It's this inherent lack of looking deeper than 'new spells are awesome!' that bothers me in this framing of 'Wizardz r better,' at least I can understand where the power argument is coming from. This just seems like a lot of fauning over new spells that largely won't be used.

Even if you don't get to use it all too often, it is a brand new ability you gain. A new level of power achieved. And not simply a +1 of a previous ability (though you also get that), not the ability to do what you did, but twice as much. (Though I suppose sometimes it may be, depending on the spell.) But you could also get something like dimension door, which opens up new avenues of actions, of strategies. It can change the way you play not just combat, but also exploration or even social encounters. And that every odd level but 19, though indeed only one or two encounters per day the level you get them. Mostly. Warlocks, sorcerers and wizards are weird.

ASIs meanwhile? Every time you gain one you pick the next best thing. They lower in value the more you get, and feats are optional to boot. Extra attack? Getting one extra is pretty neat letting you combine a shove and an attack. But the third and fourth don't really add much, besides damage that is.

[Corran]

Let me just put it this way--

Out of 16+ campaigns in my current world, with most of them making significant, lasting changes (even though many were mostly in T1), exactly...maybe 1...would have any significant difference if you swapped character classes around but kept the people/personalities/macro choices the same. Sure, the fine details of how they cause the change would flex slightly, but the overall changes? No. Because those weren't about buttons or fine-level action at all. They were made up of dozens, if not hundreds of actions by the whole party throughout that part of the adventure. And the most significant changes have had nothing to do with McGuffins or predetermined quests. They've been more like the party deciding that their next goal is to unify the surviving nations into a "fantasy UN". And working towards that in many ways. Diplomacy, feats of strength and solving problems for possible partners, gaining wealth and reputation, etc. The least efficacious person in that one was the only traditional full-caster (a druid) who mostly played supporting parts. Useful ones, but swapping him for something else would have barely changed the results.
Similar experiences here as well. But you are reaching a conclusion that in order for it to be solid you have to examine alternatives by just hypothesizing about them (since they did not take place). Yes, what spells tend to do mostly is to be incorporated into a course of action that involves lots of other things other than the pressing of one button, in which case you probably use them to improve your odds somewhere along the way (or just for additional style points along with a stronger sense of participation and teamwork). And in some other cases they are used to create some sort of shortcut. In some cases they may seem (or actually be, depending on various factors) irreplaceable, but that doesn't have to be the death of the martial or of the all martial party IMO, but I digress from this last one point. My point is about the aforementioned hypothesizing. In success you rarely second guess how else you would have succeeded or how you could have succeeded bigger (as it is more interesting to think of whatever is up ahead) and in failure you will find enough faults in in-character decision making that it will be difficult to start thinking if you could have succeeded with more or more appropriate buttons even if you were to repeat the same mistakes in in-character decision making (which is a very actual possibility and it happens often enough, ie pc's copying through by smashing their heads hard enough against a wall they were simply meant to climb).


Character sheet buttons only matter at the micro level. Which matters a lot, to be sure. Because that's where the game mostly lives. But the rest? The actual lasting changes to the setting and worlds? Those come from decisions and the accumulated weight of consequences.
In theory yes. In practice it's not a yes for everyone. Among all features, spells are often the biggest culprits here. They will allow you to do something that the DM may not have accounted for. This is not inherently a bad thing. But. If a spell creates for situations that a DM kind of has to plan around for the game world to keep making sense instead of becoming a joke or a plaything at the hands of the pc's, and at the same time the DM cannot figure a proper "response", then you may very well be holding too much world altering power behind just one button. Why not just ban the spell in that case, would be an excellent question. And yes, in many cases that's what DMs simply have to do. Hypothetically, say I am not interested in figuring out the workings of a world where chain simulacrum is a thing. Or of a world where you can store coffeelocks for charging up their nuking potential so that you can unleash them at the right time. Or of a world where bringing back the dead is a casual status removal effect. So, speaking hypothetically, maybe I will ban chain simulacrum, maybe I will allow coffeelocking under the clear understanding that this is a special pc boon because of a pact with the sleepless one or whatever, and maybe I'll make raising the dead a taboo thing that can trigger consequences. Another DM can do it in a completely different way because that's how it would play better for the game world and campaign experience they have in mind.

Even the worst offenders (and I pressume that chain simulacra is fitting in here) are not all bad, cause I bet that there are a few tables where this sort of thing is appreciated, because it allows the DM to get more creative with the obstacles to present and/or because it allows the player to experience some power play. Pressumably it's bad because I once again bet this is not the majority of tables. One might think this is not a big deal because a DM can always ban or restrict things that dont make sense for their campaign, but DMs learn by experience and sometimes they do so slowly. It's what slips through these cracks that holds potentially game world altering power under the press of a button.

This is not restricted to spells of course.

In my first campaign (back in 3e), one player read a rule that you can take a penalty if you aim a specific body part of your opponent. So he had his ranger aim for the enemies' heads. Lots of heads went flying before we eventually move on from that silliness (which was wholeheartidly embraced by other players who could copy perfect it; my paladin started going for the heart). DM accepted it because apparently it made sense, with the caveat that certain non humanoids monsters would require more such hits to be brought down because of their anatomy. It was a very fun experience and it led to some epic kills, but eventually as we became more and more aware of the actual rules and as our DM (who suddenly had to back down on humanoid villains in favor of monstrosities just to keep the game challenging enough) started learning that it's not always bad to say no, we moved on from it.

Spells just have more rules about them, more interactions between them and more applications that it is harder for a DM to figure out potential trouble ahead of time (and by trouble I mean something as simple as reimagining the villains of your campaign, similarly to how the DM in the spoiler had to move considerably away from humanoids for a time.


In fulcrum points any action can have significant effect. Not just the big spells. Most of which are just flashy ways of dealing more damage. Or are things that the setting is already familiar with--it'd be like trying to revolutionize modern America by introducing the...mobile telephone. It's already a thing. This goes extra for low-level spells--no, a cantrip doesn't give you any special power. Something like 30+% of the population can cast cantrips if nothing else. Join the herd. Up to 5th level spells are, if not common, at least well-known and priced into the market.
I'll play along with the percentages but I think it's obvious that if we were to change them, then the whole conversation about how game altering spells are also changes.

Fully agreed that action is what has a significant effect. Especially if it is action regarding a certain situation that the DM has set up in such a way, that if resolved the "right" way, it will have a world altering effect. But action is informed by what you can and cannot do. And spells can have a big say in that. Without overanalyzing, remove curse is a very common spell under the assumed percentages. It's hardly a great spell, but it will have a huge impact when I cast it successfully on Theoden. Why did not one else already cast it already? We can think of reasons for it without even counting on the suspension of disbelief (or if that's a point of contention, I am sure we could think of a different example of a similar in nature scenario). Remove curse allowed you to have a horse army at the battle for Gondor. Does that make the spell great? Of course not. Would that even have happened if the DM had not set up this situation even accidentally or for entirely different reasons? No. Did the remove curse spell did all the work? Most likely not, it was just your last move after a series of obstacles being successfully overcome by various means. But it is entirely possible that your action was decided because of having that spell. Maybe it was not even in the DM's cards to set up a quest for the party of rescuing Theoden and provide reinforcements. Maybe the session was set up by the DM with the idea that the players would just help prepare the defenses of Gondor and Theoden's possession was something kept in store for some later time (but somehow the pc's did enough to figure it out or at least strongly suspect it, and decided to act on it).

But why would this still count as a world altering event since it sounds somewhat unlikely for the average party to pull off such a move? Maybe it was a campaign that was heading to a TPK already, probably after several consecutive smaller losses for the pc's or bad decisions from the players. Maybe it was a one shot where the premise is that you are going to lose if you play conventionally and stick with the premise (ie defend Gondor) instead of figuring out a better move (allying Theoden could be one of them). Or maybe it's a more traditional campaign where the pc's could have pulled through and could have won the siege of Gondor, and the DM just multiplied the threat level in between sessions after the party managed to ensure Theoden's military support (which the DM granted because it is what made sense) for no other reason than to keep the fight challenging. Even in the last scenario, it still has to be thought as a world altering effect because from an in-game world perspective you have to assume that the threat was always as great as it ended up being.

[Witty Username]

All spellcasters get spellcasting. There is a fairly significant overlap between different lists. A Sorcerer list is basically just a cut down Wizard list, and they'll most likely want Mage Armor and Shield... just like the Wizard. But Extra Attack, which gives you the option to also Shove and Grapple, doesn't really count because most martials get it (Rogues don't)?


Yes, it is true that all spellcasters get spellcasting at 5th level and it never improves with level after that (with the exception of the fighter).
-
Wait, it has incremental improvements every level, with spikes every odd level in progressively more powerful and more diverse abilities until level 17.

Eh, that's about the same, I guess.
--
As for the rituals comment.

As a Monk, do you never want to use stunning strike after you gain the ability to turn invisible? Why would you want stunning strike to languish on your list of abilities?

Take for example comprehend languages, you can understand all written and spoken language. A 'useless' level 1 ritual that you would obviously want to trade out, right. Maybe after 5th level when you pick up Tongues (not a ritual, doesn't function with written language)? Consider that these two abilities are a feature we didn't talk about that monk gets, at level 13.

So either, rituals represent significant abilities that have relevance to later levels, or martials get features so worthless the casters wanted to trade them off tiers ago.

Most rituals do only have situational value, and there are a couple outright replacements, but not actually that many of those (even ones like alarm and tiny hut or water walk and water breathing that have significant overlap have uses that don’t invalidate the other). But situational value is still value, especially when that value is "can do this kind of advendure" for some of them. And it is alot easier to justify them when the cost is short term (cleric) or in supplement to other options (wizard).

[Dork_Forge]

Even if you don't get to use it all too often, it is a brand new ability you gain. A new level of power achieved. And not simply a +1 of a previous ability (though you also get that), not the ability to do what you did, but twice as much. (Though I suppose sometimes it may be, depending on the spell.) But you could also get something like dimension door, which opens up new avenues of actions, of strategies. It can change the way you play not just combat, but also exploration or even social encounters. And that every odd level but 19, though indeed only one or two encounters per day the level you get them. Mostly. Warlocks, sorcerers and wizards are weird.

ASIs meanwhile? Every time you gain one you pick the next best thing. They lower in value the more you get, and feats are optional to boot. Extra attack? Getting one extra is pretty neat letting you combine a shove and an attack. But the third and fourth don't really add much, besides damage that is.

"Every time you gain one you pick the next best thing."

Not only is this not universally true, with many builds gobbling up plenty of ASIs, but how does that not apply to spells?

The feats are optional nonsense doesn't stand here either, whilst they are technically optional, so is a significant chunk of the Wizard's spell list and several subclasses.

Whilst there are certainly no feat games, it's hardly novel for a game to allow feats, just the same as they allow XGtE.



Yes, it is true that all spellcasters get spellcasting at 5th level and it never improves with level after that (with the exception of the fighter).
-
Wait, it has incremental improvements every level, with spikes every odd level in progressively more powerful and more diverse abilities until level 17.

Eh, that's about the same, I guess.

I'm... not really sure what strawman you're bashing over there. This just again seems like favouritism for casters? The issue at hand was that you seemed to treat it as:

Extra Attack doesn't count, most martials get it at 5th level.

But...

Spellcasting totally counts, regardless of any similarities, because casters?

You're just discounting features on a whim.


As for the rituals comment.

As a Monk, do you never want to use stunning strike after you gain the ability to turn invisible? Why would you want stunning strike to languish on your list of abilities?

Take for example comprehend languages, you can understand all written and spoken language. A 'useless' level 1 ritual that you would obviously want to trade out, right. Maybe after 5th level when you pick up Tongues (not a ritual, doesn't function with written language)? Consider that these two abilities are a feature we didn't talk about that monk gets, at level 13.

So either, rituals represent significant abilities that have relevance to later levels, or martials get features so worthless the casters wanted to trade them off tiers ago.

Most rituals do only have situational value, and there are a couple outright replacements, but not actually that many of those (even ones like alarm and tiny hut or water walk and water breathing that have significant overlap have uses that don’t invalidate the other). But situational value is still value, especially when that value is "can do this kind of advendure" for some of them. And it is alot easier to justify them when the cost is short term (cleric) or in supplement to other options (wizard).

So you chose to address what I said to someone else, without actually addressing it?

What kind of 20th Wizard list primarily has ritual spells as their unprepared spells? This stemmed from Wizards not being able to swap out low level stuff, like Burning Hands, and the counter was Rituals! So, what's that list look like?

A 20th level Wizard has 27 prepared spells, which leaves 17 spells unprepared. So what pile of rituals fills that up, and why has this Wizard been guzzling rituals at levels where they probably wanted a mix of spells?

From a quick look at DnD Beyond, it looks like there are only 18 ritual spells on the Wizard list. 20 if the optional spells from Tasha's are added.

So what does that list look like? And why doesn't that Wizard ever want to cast those spells faster? 10 minute wait times and the drawbacks of ritual casting can be a real hassle in many situations.

The notion that a Wizard's organically made spellbook is mostly full up on rituals that aren't being prepared just seems like a knee-jerk defense, rather than thought through actual play. Dare I say even Shrodinger's Wizard is rearing its head.

[tiornys]

What kind of 20th Wizard list primarily has ritual spells as their unprepared spells? This stemmed from Wizards not being able to swap out low level stuff, like Burning Hands, and the counter was Rituals! So, what's that list look like?

A 20th level Wizard has 27 prepared spells, which leaves 17 spells unprepared. So what pile of rituals fills that up, and why has this Wizard been guzzling rituals at levels where they probably wanted a mix of spells?

From a quick look at DnD Beyond, it looks like there are only 18 ritual spells on the Wizard list. 20 if the optional spells from Tasha's are added.

So what does that list look like? And why doesn't that Wizard ever want to cast those spells faster? 10 minute wait times and the drawbacks of ritual casting can be a real hassle in many situations.

The notion that a Wizard's organically made spellbook is mostly full up on rituals that aren't being prepared just seems like a knee-jerk defense, rather than thought through actual play. Dare I say even Shrodinger's Wizard is rearing its head.
When did I ever imply that most of their unprepared spells were ritual spells? I merely noted that they could use any ritual spells they had even if those spells weren't prepared.

What rituals would I expect to see on a L20 Wizard? Well, Wizard spells never go away, so I'd expect to see everything that they considered useful enough to pick up on the way to level 20. I'd expect to see most of (as noted above) Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Unseen Servant, Find Familiar, Locate Object, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Phantom Steed. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of Tenser's Floating Disk, Identify, Alarm, Augury, Magic Mouth, Water Breathing, Divination, Contact Other Plane or Rary's Telepathic Bond. I wouldn't expect to see all of these, maybe not even most--unless spellbooks and scrolls were standard parts of treasure and/or scrolls were commonly available for purchase--but I'd definitely expect to see many of them, and each one picked/purchased/found is effectively a custom class feature in addition to being available as a standard spell.

[Sneak Dog]

"Every time you gain one you pick the next best thing."

Not only is this not universally true, with many builds gobbling up plenty of ASIs, but how does that not apply to spells?

The feats are optional nonsense doesn't stand here either, whilst they are technically optional, so is a significant chunk of the Wizard's spell list and several subclasses.

Whilst there are certainly no feat games, it's hardly novel for a game to allow feats, just the same as they allow XGtE.

So whenever a fighter gains an ASI, they can pick from all their six ability scores and the list of feats. Then when they get another, they can pick from the same options, minus any that were picked and can't be picked again. A battlemaster fighter gets to pick maneouvers. They pick the ones that seem best for them, their character at level 3. When next they learn more, they get to pick the next best ones from the same list at level 5, 7 and 10, and once more at level 15 where they pick the eigth best and ninth best maneouvers.
A wizard meanwhile, at level 1 picks their best spells from their spell list. At level 3, the list expands to include more options that are more powerful to boot. Same at levels 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 and 17.

This is fundamentally different. The equivalent would be the existence of a good number of more powerful feats/maneouvers with a level requirement. Feats being like this wouldn't really help the barbarian either. Casters get equal access to them, only fighters get an extra one at levels 6 and 14.

[Witty Username]

Extra Attack helps with sense of progression at 5th level, and only 5th level.
--
Martials feel like they don't progress after a point because of how little they get past 9th level.

This is the disconnect here. I didn't bring it up because of my focus was barbarian, where it doesn't improve.

And I did bring it up with fighter. Because is does. Remarking that it isn't new, but it is interesting.

When talking about barbarian, noting they get most of their abilities before 7th (should have said 9th to include brutal critical? maybe it is new and I have too assume all features are good and interesting features regardless of what they do, apparently), and not much past that. Sure I wasn't thinking of extra attack, so it is not a complete picture of what they get before 7th level.

Put simply:
-Barbarian feels like it doesn't get much past 9th level.
-Why did you forget about extra attack.
-Oh, I didn't think of that.
Barbarian feels like it doesn't get much past 9th level.
-But every spellcaster gets spellcasting
-?

[Segev]

9th level is when fighter gets their last new base class feature, indomitable. Everything past that is upgrades to existing features. New and interesting are different things in this context, the last interesting thing is at 11th, where the third attack comes in.

One could say that new spells are not new features, but rather upgrades to the existing feature of spellcasting. But that is mostly semantics, adding spells dramatically increases when a caster casts in useful ways. And every level on every caster matters.

Fighter, gets more uses of the things they did from level 2.

Barbarian, gets more uses of things they could do from level 1.

Ranger, gets features that are a waste of text to say "does nothing" (and it actually does better than the others, half-caster puts in work even if it is all you get)

This is a base class observation, as subclasses can vary wildly, but still, shouldn't a class be functional without having to choose the "good" subclass?

I certainly have no problem with giving these all more features that do more interesting and powerful things at higher levels. Even as low as level 6, I think some of them could use more fun things to play with.

[Pex]

I certainly have no problem with giving these all more features that do more interesting and powerful things at higher levels. Even as low as level 6, I think some of them could use more fun things to play with.

If they do give warriors Nice Things at the higher levels in D&Done expect people to complain about power creep.

[animorte]

If they do give warriors Nice Things at the higher levels in D&Done expect people to complain about power creep.
Sure, complain about power creep that has been happening anyway, and is absolutely guaranteed to happen to any game that lasts 10+ years.

Then dial the martials back to where they want it while also dialing the casters back. Then watch those same people freak out about losing caster power.

I’ll have my popcorn at the ready to observe said foolishness, meanwhile actually attempting to enjoy the game.

[Tanarii]

If they do give warriors Nice Things at the higher levels in D&Done expect people to complain about power creep.If the give them MOAR DAMAGE as usual it'd be justified complaining. Unless the goal posts shift to Martials being better in combat (which they already are until mid to late Tier 2), in which case they need to simultaneously update combat encounter difficult guidelines. As well as call out that the typical party should include N martials. Of course, if they're shifting to floating racial ASIs and feats being standard, they really need to update the guidelines anyway.

Now if they gave them interesting combat options, they could probably sneak it in under my knee jerk backlash, because it'd be exciting and fun even and I wouldn't notice the power gain 😉 And of course MOAR NON-COMBAT would be awesome for 5 of the 6 martial classes.

Fighter is the exception to my knee jerk reaction. Personally I don't care if they don't get any non-combat options and are flat out head and shoulders the best in combat. The *should* be their schtick.

[Goobahfish]

In the interminable caster/martial debates, a common benchmark for "how strong martials need to be" involves pointing out certain capabilities that "casters" have and saying that martials need a way of doing those things.

blahdiblahdiblah

In essence, the crux of the supposed disparity is that wizards are out of step with the rest of the game. Not anyone else, just pretty much wizards. Bending the rest of the game to bring everyone up to that level means that no one can have any interesting features. And wizards will still dominate, because these (and similarly powerful capabilities) are just part of their enormous list of things they can pick and choose from.

I think the original title is mostly valid. That is to say, it is easier to point at some problems when considering the wizard.

There are... though two main problems.

#1: Casters have tools which explicitly enable abilities outside combat (non-casters basically don't or at least are very limited). Which is another can of worms for other threads but basically boils down to "it depends on the DMing style" as to how it plays out in practice.
#2: Casters have 'all the tools'.

I think for the latter argument, the wizard is the 'poster child' for this. It is frankly baffling to me that 'wizards' were the archetype of D&D (as opposed to sorcerers). Even in earlier editions, specialisations weren't really 'specialisations' so much as NORMAL WIZARD++ (also I can't cast... necromancy or something).

Each time a splat book is printed, wizards become more powerful. This is just a fact. Each time a splat book is printed, non-casters become more 'varied'. Moreover some of the known spells casters either become more varied (or if it is a bad splat book, more powerful).

I think the posted problem spells are a pretty good list of the 'negates an aspect of play' spells. I think this applies more to #1 than #2, but #2 makes #1 feel 'all the worse' as 'the wizard made us all obsolete' is a pretty negative play experience.

If it were me, I would have a much shrunk spell list (something I think you advocate too) and more codified Martial Exploration/Social abilities which have a prof/day gain something style of behaviour. Also... do something to fix extra attack synergy.

[Ignimortis]

I think for the latter argument, the wizard is the 'poster child' for this. It is frankly baffling to me that 'wizards' were the archetype of D&D (as opposed to sorcerers). Even in earlier editions, specialisations weren't really 'specialisations' so much as NORMAL WIZARD++ (also I can't cast... necromancy or something).

That's because initially, at the very start, Fighters (Fighting Men) were basically every action hero rolled into one, Wizards were most non-divine spellcasters rolled into one and limited through Vancian spellcasting with severe restrictions, and Clerics were basically the rest of spellcasters, who got their powers from gods.

Then Thief got introduced (later renamed to Rogue), and Fighter lost to it a lot of their prowess at everything related to non-combat stuff. Then class variants/kits became a thing, and while Wizards generally got to block one school and gain improvements to another, Fighters had to lose more to gain, say, Barbarian or Cavalier features. Along the way, spellcasting also got less restrictive.

By the time 3e rolled around, the general trend had been long established - if you want "Fighter, but", you get what is basically a different class. If you want "Wizard, but", you take different spells on the same Wizard. Restrictions on spellcasting continued to diminish. Fighter got progressively worse at everything they did (3e PHB high-level Fighter is worse at fighting than 2e high-level Fighter, even), as its' potential capabilities got handed off to other classes (Ranger gets to be better at skills, but can also fight well, Barbarian can't wear heavy armor, but is better at skills and has Rage, etc), and eventually everything Fighter could have got taken away besides "just hit things, you dumb-dumb". 4e attempted to remedy that, but the inertia was too strong by that point.

5e Fighter is pretty much your grandfather's Fighter - except worse, not because it itself is much worse, but because everything else got SO MUCH better. What used to have 100 HP and could be brought down in two rounds by an expert Fighter now has 500 HP, and the Fighter can't even hope to defeat it alone. Spells that took a round to cast and could be knocked out with any hit, now go off instantly and cannot be countered without other magic. Etc, etc.

[Tanarii]

There are... though two main problems.

#1: Casters have tools which explicitly enable abilities outside combat (non-casters basically don't or at least are very limited). Which is another can of worms for other threads but basically boils down to "it depends on the DMing style" as to how it plays out in practice.
#2: Casters have 'all the tools'.
This is only true in terms of character sheet buttons. Any character can do anything the DM allows with a check. Also Martials tend to be very good at two of the three most important Checks for adventuring sites: Dexterity (Stealth) and Wisdom (Perception). And ATs/EKs, the two most common rogue and fighter sibclasses, aren't no slouch at the third most important skill: Int (investigation).

Otoh, I'd bet it's rare that a DM allows a DC 30 check to do what some high level spells can do, so from a Tier 3 & Tier 4 perspective (or even some Tier 2 spells) you're absolutely right.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's because initially, at the very start, Fighters (Fighting Men) were basically every action hero rolled into one, Wizards were most non-divine spellcasters rolled into one and limited through Vancian spellcasting with severe restrictions, and Clerics were basically the rest of spellcasters, who got their powers from gods.


When class features were basically non-existent and there was only one catch-all "arcane spellcaster", wizards as "cast anything arcane" and "all spells, all the time" made sense. Now, it's just a hangover, the kind of legacy cruft that accretes throughout editions. And we can't even really entirely blame 5e trying to be the nostalgia edition (although that's part of it)--3e had this same issue and was the one that really let the alternate class thing (with real class features even) bloom.

Fighters are much in the same boat--legacies of radically different eras of design.

Both, IMO, should be given real identities.

[Dr.Samurai]

Re Proactive vs Reactive

I think martials can do the same types of things that NichG was describing, and even without cantrips. If a fighter player wants to break free of the "reactive" part of the game, they could say something like "I'd like to become the Knight Commander of the King's Guard and influence the king's decisions from that position". The DM might then say the best way to do that is to exhibit prowess in combat and to exemplify traits like courage and loyalty and lawfulness, etc. Since you're not part of the nobility, getting notice as part of the city guard might help you on that path.

The player might then try to join the auxiliary forces, and the DM may or may not require checks, but if he does require checks the DM might give the fighter advantage because he has a fighting style and Second Wind, making him tougher than other recruits and a cut above the rest. The achievements while an auxiliary can pave the way to join the permanent force, and at each level the fighter's class features keep them singular in their combat prowess above most common guards (Action Surge, subclass feature, ASI, Extra Attack, and so on). On the roleplaying side, the fighter player makes choices that they think will help them in their goal to climb the ranks and gain the notice/renown/status.

Knowing what the fighter player's aims are, the player can take certain backgrounds, subclasses, feats, skills, etc. The DM can use Alternative Rewards as well.

Point being that when you're playing that kind of game, while some spells can be a real big boon, there is already a sort of agreement/acceptance that it's possible for the PC to impact the world. Otherwise, a player would say "I want to play a fighter that serves as advisor to the king" and the DM would have to say "sorry, but you don't have any features that can help you do that in my estimation, so we can't play that type of game".

The OP can't concern itself with these types of games because they exist almost wholly within the realm of DM adjudication.

[NichG]

Re Proactive vs Reactive

I think martials can do the same types of things that NichG was describing, and even without cantrips. If a fighter player wants to break free of the "reactive" part of the game, they could say something like "I'd like to become the Knight Commander of the King's Guard and influence the king's decisions from that position". The DM might then say the best way to do that is to exhibit prowess in combat and to exemplify traits like courage and loyalty and lawfulness, etc. Since you're not part of the nobility, getting notice as part of the city guard might help you on that path.

The player might then try to join the auxiliary forces, and the DM may or may not require checks, but if he does require checks the DM might give the fighter advantage because he has a fighting style and Second Wind, making him tougher than other recruits and a cut above the rest. The achievements while an auxiliary can pave the way to join the permanent force, and at each level the fighter's class features keep them singular in their combat prowess above most common guards (Action Surge, subclass feature, ASI, Extra Attack, and so on). On the roleplaying side, the fighter player makes choices that they think will help them in their goal to climb the ranks and gain the notice/renown/status.

Knowing what the fighter player's aims are, the player can take certain backgrounds, subclasses, feats, skills, etc. The DM can use Alternative Rewards as well.

Point being that when you're playing that kind of game, while some spells can be a real big boon, there is already a sort of agreement/acceptance that it's possible for the PC to impact the world. Otherwise, a player would say "I want to play a fighter that serves as advisor to the king" and the DM would have to say "sorry, but you don't have any features that can help you do that in my estimation, so we can't play that type of game".

The OP can't concern itself with these types of games because they exist almost wholly within the realm of DM adjudication.

I would agree that any character can play proactively. The question is the degree to which the mechanics of different classes differentially provide things to the character which help with proactive play. Even the first level of every casting class gives the character things that they can do which other classes just can't. Whereas a Lv1 druid can make an attack roll and hit something and is only 5% worse at it than the corresponding Lv1 fighter.

And of course the DM can step in and establish that they're going to give Fighters specific options as to things they will be able to do that others cannot rely on that would help with that proactive play - such as for example establishing that anyone can become a lesser noble in the kingdom of Cabes by winning first place in a tournament of arms or things like that. But in a sense, that's a half-step of the direction I'd advocate for - taking those sort of wooly ideas of 'well the DM should give some benefits to the fighter because people respect strength' and turning them into actual class mechanics or formal rules in the system that say 'if you take this martial class, the DM promises to give you these out-of-combat social advantages or these particular out of combat options'. It makes most sense for that stuff to be written in the actual class mechanics, but it would also work (if lead to a bit of book diving) for them to be explicitly listed in setting or organizational rules or things like that.

But when it's left up to 'does the DM like fighters conceptually?' then its really not something you can say is a property of the class itself.

Like, if the system had an explicit 'Fighters get +5 to opposed checks when competing for a political appointment if they served in the country's military when either their opponent did not or was not a proper Fighter' somewhere, that would be an example of the sort of thing I'm calling for all characters to have in some form or other.

[Segev]

I would agree that any character can play proactively. The question is the degree to which the mechanics of different classes differentially provide things to the character which help with proactive play. Even the first level of every casting class gives the character things that they can do which other classes just can't. Whereas a Lv1 druid can make an attack roll and hit something and is only 5% worse at it than the corresponding Lv1 fighter.

And of course the DM can step in and establish that they're going to give Fighters specific options as to things they will be able to do that others cannot rely on that would help with that proactive play - such as for example establishing that anyone can become a lesser noble in the kingdom of Cabes by winning first place in a tournament of arms or things like that. But in a sense, that's a half-step of the direction I'd advocate for - taking those sort of wooly ideas of 'well the DM should give some benefits to the fighter because people respect strength' and turning them into actual class mechanics or formal rules in the system that say 'if you take this martial class, the DM promises to give you these out-of-combat social advantages or these particular out of combat options'. It makes most sense for that stuff to be written in the actual class mechanics, but it would also work (if lead to a bit of book diving) for them to be explicitly listed in setting or organizational rules or things like that.

But when it's left up to 'does the DM like fighters conceptually?' then its really not something you can say is a property of the class itself.

Like, if the system had an explicit 'Fighters get +5 to opposed checks when competing for a political appointment if they served in the country's military when either their opponent did not or was not a proper Fighter' somewhere, that would be an example of the sort of thing I'm calling for all characters to have in some form or other.

What might be good things to give level 1 fighters to enable them to have the same amount of options?

[NichG]

What might be good things to give level 1 fighters to enable them to have the same amount of options?

There's always going to be issues about aesthetics, but I'd work via an interpretation of the Fighter as being representative of the archetype of medieval knights, including a built in higher level of status and a different role within the law. Starting from 1st level, Fighters could gain the right to a level of due process in the face of accusations or interference from guards in their home nation or allied nation within the setting. Basically something similar to the Clameur de haro where there's a limit to the degree they can be held or interfered with before a higher-up noble gets involved. From maybe 3rd level, Fighters would gain the ability to conscript small groups of people for spot emergencies in non-combat situations - a sort of mini-Leadership allowing them to do things like get ditches or fortifications built more quickly than the party alone could do, assuming a surrounding workforce. That could upgrade to features like an actual Leadership ability, abilities representing a Feudal Contract allowing the character to requisition supplies or arms from whoever is up the chain for them, an automatic grant of territory in their name, the unique-to-them ability to legally settle disputes on the field of honor - essentially granting a pass for murder as long as it was an official duel, allow duels to resolve questions of truth, etc. And at high level, they could automatically get the full rights of a noble including outright immunity to accusations from those of a lower class to them, etc.

Going a different route that's a bit more abstract, Fighters could get a class feature 'heroic X' associated with their choice of Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution; at later levels they could upgrade that to Legendary X or Mythic X, or broaden it out at their choice. Basically Heroic X would be a guarantee that 'if any real-world human has ever done a given thing relating to the X attribute, the character may call for an ability check to do that thing in similar context, and the DC cannot be higher than 20 for them'. Legendary X would be a guarantee 'if any natural creature has ever done or could ever do a given thing relating to the X attribute, ...'. And Mythic X would be a guarantee 'if any mythological figure or fictional character has ever done a given thing relating to the X attribute, ...' and would have a minimum level of 15+ to get (maybe even just as a Lv20 capstone).

Another good one would be something like an ability to detect killing intent or general risk of a situation erupting into combat - Lv1 Fighters gain a perception of the degree and strength of those in the area who intend them harm, which grants Disadvantage to Stealth checks of those intending to ambush the Fighter and in general lets the Fighter know things like 'that guy is ten times stronger than me and wants me dead' without a check, just as passive DM narration.

Another good one would be a bodyguard direction of things, where the Lv1 Fighter gains a radius within which they can always take a melee attack on behalf of someone else, which upgrades in distance and also upgrades to ranged attacks and eventually even targeted spells that don't require attack rolls. Not incredibly proactive per se, but would definitely be a unique feature. The Lv15 Fighter can jump on a Scry for someone, as weird as that would be.

[Goobahfish]

That's because initially, at the very start, Fighters (Fighting Men) were basically every action hero rolled into one, Wizards were most non-divine spellcasters rolled into one and limited through Vancian spellcasting with severe restrictions, and Clerics were basically the rest of spellcasters, who got their powers from gods.

Then Thief got introduced (later renamed to Rogue), and Fighter lost to it a lot of their prowess at everything related to non-combat stuff. Then class variants/kits became a thing, and while Wizards generally got to block one school and gain improvements to another, Fighters had to lose more to gain, say, Barbarian or Cavalier features. Along the way, spellcasting also got less restrictive.

By the time 3e rolled around, the general trend had been long established - if you want "Fighter, but", you get what is basically a different class. If you want "Wizard, but", you take different spells on the same Wizard. Restrictions on spellcasting continued to diminish. Fighter got progressively worse at everything they did (3e PHB high-level Fighter is worse at fighting than 2e high-level Fighter, even), as its' potential capabilities got handed off to other classes (Ranger gets to be better at skills, but can also fight well, Barbarian can't wear heavy armor, but is better at skills and has Rage, etc), and eventually everything Fighter could have got taken away besides "just hit things, you dumb-dumb". 4e attempted to remedy that, but the inertia was too strong by that point.

5e Fighter is pretty much your grandfather's Fighter - except worse, not because it itself is much worse, but because everything else got SO MUCH better. What used to have 100 HP and could be brought down in two rounds by an expert Fighter now has 500 HP, and the Fighter can't even hope to defeat it alone. Spells that took a round to cast and could be knocked out with any hit, now go off instantly and cannot be countered without other magic. Etc, etc.

Also by 3e a stiff breeze wouldn't kill a wizard. I think this is really where 5e is really broken (for this particular issue). Illusionist isn't a class. Illusionists can still cast fireball. Necromancers can cast fireball. Enchanters can cast fireball. Transmuters... well that is just a stupid concept for a spell school to be honest.

Wizards, Clerics & Druids have this weird thing where they effectively 'respec' overnight, creating a change in their playstyle which probably exceeds the difference between a ranger and a fighter (i.e., my problem #2).

I think this comes down to the 'babying' that has happened over the generations of D&D. Like, obviously a lot of the old rules were really dumb (THACO etc). But 5e doesn't have a 'swingy death' quality like 3e. Nor does it have a encyclopedic knowledge >> balance vibe the previous editions had (i.e., terrible builds). What this means, is the game is 'flatter' (i.e., things are more similar to each other, where 4e is the poster child for this), but also having characters die (especially wizards) has been removed from the ethos. Then spellcasting can't be too much of a hassle (i.e., pseudo-prepared casting). Specialisations don't actually give restrictions. But... we have to keep the 'icons of the game' (i.e., wizards, clerics and fighters... also rangers, barbarians, paladins and monks).

I guess the point I am making is that making the game 'simpler' kind of pushes the game towards more flexibility (i.e., undoing bad choices) and less restrictions (i.e., casting is hard, spell components are rare). However, keeping some of the legacy stuff pushes the game into this weird niche position where wizards obviously can cast everything under the sun (because that is tradition) but fighters can't 'do' anything (because we want flexible DCs for DMs).


This is only true in terms of character sheet buttons. Any character can do anything the DM allows with a check. Also Martials tend to be very good at two of the three most important Checks for adventuring sites: Dexterity (Stealth) and Wisdom (Perception). And ATs/EKs, the two most common rogue and fighter sibclasses, aren't no slouch at the third most important skill: Int (investigation).

Otoh, I'd bet it's rare that a DM allows a DC 30 check to do what some high level spells can do, so from a Tier 3 & Tier 4 perspective (or even some Tier 2 spells) you're absolutely right.

Yeah, hence my caveat over 'YMMV cos DM'. That said, I think you are right that Nearly Impossible will never let you do Obviously Impossible, where as magic will? So casters are just inherently better than martials because the physics they work by are far more flexible.

[Witty Username]

When class features were basically non-existent and there was only one catch-all "arcane spellcaster", wizards as "cast anything arcane" and "all spells, all the time" made sense. Now, it's just a hangover, the kind of legacy cruft that accretes throughout editions. And we can't even really entirely blame 5e trying to be the nostalgia edition (although that's part of it)--3e had this same issue and was the one that really let the alternate class thing (with real class features even) bloom.

Fighters are much in the same boat--legacies of radically different eras of design.

Both, IMO, should be given real identities.

If this is the goal, I think the first thing to do is move metamagic from sorcerer to wizard. Wizard's has the theme of spellcasting though intense understating of magic and the creativity to see it through. Also, spells that manipulate how spells function (Nystal's Magic Aura, Glyph of warding, Contingency, etc) tend to be primarily on the wizard list. Metamagic is more in line with the theme and character of wizard. Font of magic should stay with the sorcerer though, maybe as a cost for wizard be mandatory up casting like 3.5 metamagic or maybe uses based on proficiency, or int bonus (I like int bonus more).

Sorcerer, on the other hand should get more class-mixing subclasses (the bladesinger and arcane trickster types), Sorcerer theme is supposed to be using magic innately without training or understanding, It makes more sense for sorcerers to be more role-braking, as magic is not a motivating factor for the character. Features that eschew components (especially material components) should be a basic ability that all sorcerers get as well, as implements and incantations don't really fit the vibe of a magical creature, which is what a sorcerer effectively is. I think Sorcerer should also get cast from HP style effects, maybe as a way of getting additional spell slots.

Things that should stay the same, Wizard getting subclass features that modify how their spells work (Sculpt spells & Grim Harvest) to carry a theme and Sorcerer getting additional spells from their subclass, with wizard having a broad base list and sorcerer a narrow base list. Sorcerer does not learn or understand magic, it is bloodline specific, so it is much more likely a particular spell contradicts what would be available to the bloodline. Wizard having wider access to spells makes sense as in theory a wizard isn't learning anything that requires a natural aptitude for magic, but the theme of a specialization carried by features that modify spells sells a wizard is speciallized beyond spell selection (I cast fireball, but it steals life force from its targets sells this character is unusually into necromancy).

[PhoenixPhyre]

If this is the goal, I think the first thing to do is move metamagic from sorcerer to wizard. Wizard's has the theme of spellcasting though intense understating of magic and the creativity to see it through. Also, spells that manipulate how spells function (Nystal's Magic Aura, Glyph of warding, Contingency, etc) tend to be primarily on the wizard list. Metamagic is more in line with the theme and character of wizard. Font of magic should stay with the sorcerer though, maybe as a cost for wizard be mandatory up casting like 3.5 metamagic or maybe uses based on proficiency, or int bonus (I like int bonus more).

Sorcerer, on the other hand should get more class-mixing subclasses (the bladesinger and arcane trickster types), Sorcerer theme is supposed to be using magic innately without training or understanding, It makes more sense for sorcerers to be more role-braking, as magic is not a motivating factor for the character. Features that eschew components (especially material components) should be a basic ability that all sorcerers get as well, as implements and incantations don't really fit the vibe of a magical creature, which is what a sorcerer effectively is. I think Sorcerer should also get cast from HP style effects, maybe as a way of getting additional spell slots.

Things that should stay the same, Wizard getting subclass features that modify how their spells work (Sculpt spells & Grim Harvest) to carry a theme and Sorcerer getting additional spells from their subclass, with wizard having a broad base list and sorcerer a narrow base list. Sorcerer does not learn or understand magic, it is bloodline specific, so it is much more likely a particular spell contradicts what would be available to the bloodline. Wizard having wider access to spells makes sense as in theory a wizard isn't learning anything that requires a natural aptitude for magic, but the theme of a specialization carried by features that modify spells sells a wizard is speciallized beyond spell selection (I cast fireball, but it steals life force from its targets sells this character is unusually into necromancy).

I'd actually say that the lists, in that case, should be reversed. Sorcerers should pick a few spells from a huge list, wizards should pick a lot of spells from a small list. Because the set of "spells that can be encoded in the blood" is way bigger (it seems to me) than the set of "things we can write down and build from first principles." It's that way in real-world science--the number of problems we can solve from first-principles is tiny (a small subset of physics, and mostly not the interesting ones). The ones we can get experimentally, that we can do because we see nature do it and we can hack together a sorta-kinda replica is huge.

Wizards should be specialized heavily as a class, with their variation coming from deep understanding of the spells so they can flex the boundaries. It's kinda backward to say "you deeply understand these spells...so now you can deeply understand tons and tons and tons of spells." Deep understanding and narrow field of view go together.

So imagine if the case was that the sorcerers got to pick 15 spells from the current wizard list (~350 spells), while wizards got to pick 40 spells from the current sorcerer list (~150).

[Tanarii]

So imagine if the case was that the sorcerers got to pick 15 spells from the current wizard list (~350 spells), while wizards got to pick 40 spells from the current sorcerer list (~150).
Or even pick 15 spells and have way better "metamagic" spell manipulation to modify them. Or upcasting gave far more options to modify them. Whichever.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Or even pick 15 spells and have way better "metamagic" spell manipulation to modify them. Or upcasting gave far more options to modify them. Whichever.

Agreed. I was going for "fewest changes over stock" for that example, but 40 spells is kinda painful.

[Bobthewizard]

Wizards should be specialized heavily as a class, with their variation coming from deep understanding of the spells so they can flex the boundaries. It's kinda backward to say "you deeply understand these spells...so now you can deeply understand tons and tons and tons of spells." Deep understanding and narrow field of view go together.

It makes more sense to me to be the other way. Give wizards broad access to a lot of spells, but let sorcerers cast the spells they have better. Wizards can study and learn a lot of different things, but they'd never be as good at what the sorcerer does as the sorcerer. Metamagic is supposed to do this, but it falls just a bit short. Then some of the wizard subclass abilities step on the sorcerer's toes too.

Not to rehash the whole wizard-sorcerer debate, but I like the more-preparation-and-larger-spell list wizard and the fewer-preparation-smaller-spell-list-but-metamagic sorcerer. I play both classes and enjoy them both. I don't play much in Tier 4, though, so it might be different there.


Or even pick 15 spells and have way better "metamagic" spell manipulation to modify them. Or upcasting gave far more options to modify them. Whichever.

I agree with this.

[sithlordnergal]

I'd actually say that the lists, in that case, should be reversed. Sorcerers should pick a few spells from a huge list, wizards should pick a lot of spells from a small list. Because the set of "spells that can be encoded in the blood" is way bigger (it seems to me) than the set of "things we can write down and build from first principles." It's that way in real-world science--the number of problems we can solve from first-principles is tiny (a small subset of physics, and mostly not the interesting ones). The ones we can get experimentally, that we can do because we see nature do it and we can hack together a sorta-kinda replica is huge.

Wizards should be specialized heavily as a class, with their variation coming from deep understanding of the spells so they can flex the boundaries. It's kinda backward to say "you deeply understand these spells...so now you can deeply understand tons and tons and tons of spells." Deep understanding and narrow field of view go together.

So imagine if the case was that the sorcerers got to pick 15 spells from the current wizard list (~350 spells), while wizards got to pick 40 spells from the current sorcerer list (~150).

I'm...a bit curious about your analogy here. Because those first-principals are actually the foundation on which all that other experimentation is set upon. There's a reason we still teach students Euclidean Geometry before we teach them how the world actually works. Not only that, but a lot of that experimentation isn't started by just viewing nature, especially now days. Before you can do any experimentation, you have to do the "write stuff down and build from basic principals" first. Usually the stuff we observe in nature is the more restrictive part, because we then work backwards from what we see to find those basic underlying principals on why it works.

Which means if Sorcerer blood-lines are spells that are encoded, and Wizards use a more scientific method, it makes far, far, FAR more sense that Wizards have a larger spell list with higher versatility.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm...a bit curious about your analogy here. Because those first-principals are actually the foundation on which all that other experimentation is set upon. There's a reason we still teach students Euclidean Geometry before we teach them how the world actually works. Not only that, but a lot of that experimentation isn't started by just viewing nature, especially now days. Before you can do any experimentation, you have to do the "write stuff down and build from basic principals" first. Usually the stuff we observe in nature is the more restrictive part, because we then work backwards from what we see to find those basic underlying principals on why it works.

Which means if Sorcerer blood-lines are spells that are encoded, and Wizards use a more scientific method, it makes far, far, FAR more sense that Wizards have a larger spell list with higher versatility.

No. Not at all. Only a tiny fraction of the scientific world starts ab initio. Even only a tiny fraction of physics (the most first-principles branch by far) starts that way. I have a PhD in theoretical physics as well as have taught introductory science (physics and chemistry) for a decade, so I'm talking out of experience.

The vast majority starts at a phenomenon and builds "general principles" out of that. And may rarely, if ever, really touch first principles. Ask a chemist about quantum mechanics and he's gonna look at you funny (and probably hate you for bringing up memories of Physical Chemistry). And even Physical Chemistry is only barely first-principles--it's mostly handwaved. Because the first principles are just too darn messy for extended systems and bulk properties. There's tons of gap here.

By first principles, I don't mean "introductory material." I mean actually calculating the Schrodinger[1] equation directly for a material. Or directly applying General Relativity or even the real principles of Newtonian Mechanics to things like airplane flight. Those are the first principles. And that's the difference--a wizard is supposed to understand the root of the matter. They're not seat-of-the-pants <physicist sneer>engineers</sneer> for goodness sake! But speaking as a (reformed) physicist...doing it all from scratch/first-principles is horrifically limiting. In my own particular field, there were exactly 2 problems we could really apply that method to directly. A single H atom all alone in the universe, or an H2+ molecule (2 protons in two different atoms sharing 1 electron between them) all alone in the universe. Everything else? We had to approximate to one degree or another. And usually we had to simulate the approximation.

Depth of understanding is inversely proportional to breadth. It's why they say

A Bachelor of Science knows very little about a whole lot.
A Masters of Science knows a bit more about a bit less.
A PhD knows a lot about a very little.
A tenured professor knows almost everything about almost nothing.

It's why I, as a Computational Quantum Chemist specializing in atomic/ionic-scale collisions in the molecular regime (not the atom smashing one and not thermal energies), could sit in on a talk by someone in my same sub-department specializing in, say, molecular energy calculations (an allied field) and get about 70% of the talk. But if I sat in even on someone doing protein folding, I'd only get 50% or less. And someone from over in the High Energy (atom smashing/string theory) side? Yeah, I'm no better than an educated layman.

[animorte]

No. Not at all. Only a tiny fraction of the scientific world starts ab initio. Even only a tiny fraction of physics (the most first-principles branch by far) starts that way…

Depth of understanding is inversely proportional to breadth.
Thanks for sharing.

In many forms of study, we use experience and evidence to progress. That’s why technology continues to improve, because each generation doesn’t need to start over with inventing the light bulb.

Thus, we can take the rules as written and develop them from previous design and experience to provide more clarity for the future.

[NichG]

Honestly this sort of breakdown feels a lot easier to construct with something like 4e's separation between rituals that anyone could in principle do, versus innate character abilities that were tied to class levels. You could easily do 'wizards are the skill monkeys of ritual casting' with stuff that helps them reduce component costs, time, gain proficiency on checks to do the ritual correctly, contribute more to rituals, more easily research rituals, etc. Which would be ironically much like the position of the fighter where anyone can make an attack with a weapon but the fighter's class is just helping them be better - anyone can do ritual magic, but wizards and perhaps druids specialize in doing it well in their own ways, with clerics and sorcerers and warlocks being more focused on in-the-moment wielding of magical effects than long drawn-out sculpting of magical effects.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Honestly this sort of breakdown feels a lot easier to construct with something like 4e's separation between rituals that anyone could in principle do, versus innate character abilities that were tied to class levels. You could easily do 'wizards are the skill monkeys of ritual casting' with stuff that helps them reduce component costs, time, gain proficiency on checks to do the ritual correctly, contribute more to rituals, more easily research rituals, etc. Which would be ironically much like the position of the fighter where anyone can make an attack with a weapon but the fighter's class is just helping them be better - anyone can do ritual magic, but wizards and perhaps druids specialize in doing it well in their own ways, with clerics and sorcerers and warlocks being more focused on in-the-moment wielding of magical effects than long drawn-out sculpting of magical effects.

I agree. "Wizard as ritual master" is an identity. Lean into the "learning magic" angle--
* They can learn rituals more easily and have ways to do rituals better than anyone else, including converting some non-rituals into rituals.
* They can learn modifications to other spells through experiment, including seeing those other spells cast. Including some off-list access (Magical Secrets doesn't belong to bards in this model, really, but would depend on seeing those effects in play).
* however, their "core list" other than rituals is more narrowly focused and limited.

You could also make sorcerers the "easy bake" caster--
* Each subclass gives a set of SLA-like "cast something like spell X Y number of times/day" abilities for the "core thematic spells". So a dragon sorcerer might get things like elemental blasting spells, fly, fear, and some armor/defensive stuff so he can "play dragon", etc. While an aberrant mind sorcerer might get "mess with their minds" spells this way.
* The base class would give much more limited spells and spell slots, but make them full-list casters (like druids/clerics) off of a narrow list.

And then move metamagic and all the "complex" spellcasting into the wizard class.

---------

@sithlordnergal, remember that I'm not saying that any given sorcerer should have more spells known/prepared than any given wizard. The reverse, in fact. However, the entire "space of spells that a sorcerer could theoretically have been born with" is much bigger than the entire "space of spells we have reverse-engineered and can reproduce ab initio" (aka wizard spells). So any given sorcerer might know 15 out of 300, but any given wizard might know 30 out of 150. Or other numbers similar.

In general, size-of-list (versatility at build time) and the ability to "cast spells better" needs to be in tension, with "number of spells known" thrown in the mix. Because if you have a class that is better on all three dimensions (as wizards would be if they simply absorbed metamagic from sorcerers), that's just not balanceable. "I can do everything you can do, better, more frequently, as well as a bunch of things you can't do." No, that just doesn't work.

My idea would be
a) wizards > sorcerers in number of spells ready at any one time.
b) wizards < sorcerers in size of list
c) wizards ~ sorcerers in "casting spells better" (wizards get rituals, sorcerers get metamagic or both gets different features to interact with things).

[Witty Username]

I'd actually say that the lists, in that case, should be reversed. Sorcerers should pick a few spells from a huge list, wizards should pick a lot of spells from a small list. Because the set of "spells that can be encoded in the blood" is way bigger (it seems to me) than the set of "things we can write down and build from first principles."

The set of spells that can be encoded in the blood, is large. The set of spells that can be encoded in dragon blood, is going to be much more specific.

Kinda like clerics, the set of abilities that can be granted by gods, and the spells that can be granted by Auril, the frost maiden, goddess of winter are going to be different things. Cleric domains represent this.

This should lead to to Sorcerers of the same bloodline to be rather similar, and two different bloodlines to be radically different. A large pool list would make for Sorcerers that are more alike regardless of bloodline.

Take for example Rime's Binding Ice, I have heard the argument that it should be a Sorcerer exclusive, because it fits the sorcerer thematically. But it doesn't actually fit the sorcerer thematically if the sorcerer didn't pick the dragonic bloodline. Generally, the sorcerer forming a short list, but having wider lists based on bloodline, helps keep themes consistent.

As for wizard, because it is based on documentation of phenomenon and modeling it based on how it behaves, is much more likely to have bleeding between disciplines, as fundamental shared principles become apparent. Take for example modern science fields, like chemistry, biology, and physics. While they are differing fields of study many principles within them find a home in other fields
Which has given rise to further fields of:
Physical chemistry
Biochemistry
And Biophysics

For Wizards, as understanding magic as a natural force and learning from it as such, is more likely to have their magic affected by this understanding. Multi-school learning, thinking based on applications rather than philosophies. and not being beholden to a patron or deity. All of this leads to a broad base list, but little ability to move outside the space of wizard.

Overall wizards should feel more like each other than Sorcerers or clerics should.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The set of spells that can be encoded in the blood, is large. The set of spells that can be encoded in dragon blood, is going to be much more specific.

Kinda like clerics, the set of abilities that can be granted by gods, and the spells that can be granted by Auril, the frost maiden, goddess of winter are going to be different things. Cleric domains represent this.

This should lead to to Sorcerers of the same bloodline to be rather similar, and two different bloodlines to be radically different. A large pool list would make for Sorcerers that are more alike regardless of bloodline.

Take for example Rime's Binding Ice, I have heard the argument that it should be a Sorcerer exclusive, because it fits the sorcerer thematically. But it doesn't actually fit the sorcerer thematically if the sorcerer didn't pick the dragonic bloodline. Generally, the sorcerer forming a short list, but having wider lists based on bloodline, helps keep themes consistent.

As for wizard, because it is based on documentation of phenomenon and modeling it based on how it behaves, is much more likely to have bleeding between disciplines, as fundamental shared principles become apparent. Take for example modern science fields, like chemistry, biology, and physics. While they are differing fields of study many principles within them find a home in other fields
Which has given rise to further fields of:
Physical chemistry
Biochemistry
And Biophysics

For Wizards, as understanding magic as a natural force and learning from it as such, is more likely to have their magic affected by this understanding. Multi-school learning, thinking based on applications rather than philosophies. and not being beholden to a patron or deity. All of this leads to a broad base list, but little ability to move outside the space of wizard.

Overall wizards should feel more like each other than Sorcerers or clerics should.

Wait, I'm seriously confused. How does having a large pool list make them more similar? Currently, they have a tiny pool list and so all end up being basically identical (sorcerers). And wizards have a large pool list and end up varied (both at build time and day to day).

If you want wizards to feel more grouped than sorcerers and you want sorcerers to be differentiated by subclass more...then the solution is to actually divide a (large in aggregate) sorcerer list down by bloodline. Something like N "generic sorcerer spells" and M >> N "extended spell list" spells for each subclass. And then give wizards an overall small list (to force them all to be similar). You don't want the current pattern of per-class lists (without specialization in subclasses) that are tiny for sorcerers (making them all the same) and huge for wizards (making them all different).

[Witty Username]

Ah, I was thinking base lists:
So Sorcerer with relatively small base list.
But with ways to add to it via subclasses. So It would be a large list if you included all sorcerer subclasses, but that isn't really how I was thinking about it.
(The aberrant mind and clockwork soul model, or possibly the warlock model as I am more interested in spells available as opposed to spells known)

Wizards having a relatively large base list, but no way to add to or modify it. Enough to support multiple archetypes and the ability to blend them, but no way to access spells from outside the base list.
(More or less the current Wizard model, as they are the only class that has no means to get spells that are not on the wizard list)

This does have the question why to we need a large base list for wizards at all. This comes down to the issues of class fantasy, part of the wizard's class theme is preparation, planning and research to stack situations in their favor. So we need a list large enough to allow multiple methods of solving problems and affecting outcomes to be accessible.

So a large base list
A smaller known list
A smaller prepared list
With short term planning covered by preparing spells, and long term planning covered by spell research.

Sorcerer doesn't have this issue as planning, and even basic intelligence, aren't part of the class fantasy. Its the powerful magics found in the bloodline of a particular monster, so the sorcerer having a thematic list in association with the bloodline is more important than the range of spellcasting roles the class can support.

[sithlordnergal]

-snip-

Ohh, I see what you're getting at by the whole introductory material then. I feel like we might be saying the same thing then, but arriving at different results. You feel that a Wizard's specialization should mean they don't know very much outside of their specific field of study, where as I feel it would expand their general knowledge. I also suspect we have a differing opinion on what counts as "general knowledge" when it comes to magic.

For example, I would say any printed spell is general knowledge, from 1st to 9th level. Would an Illusionist Wizard know exactly how and why Create Undead works? No, but that's why the Necromancer will have slightly stronger undead, because Necromancers do understand it better.

Then again, that difference might be our differing fields of study. You got a phd in theoretical physics, I went for a Master's in robotics engineering with a minor in math. As a robotics engineer I needed a solid base of physics, electrical engineering, computer science, and a bit extra before I could even think of my specialization. And even today I still make use of all of that. An engineer generally isn't going to be as knowledgeable about physics as someone with a PHD in it, but they're going to know enough to use it. And specialists are going to know enough to improve upon what might be generally known.

Near as I can tell, Wizards are the engineers and college professors, with a wide amount of general and/or practical knowledge. They're pretty versatile because of it, and as a result have a large and varied list they can pull from. Meanwhile Sorcerers are the ones holding the PHD. That's why Sorcerers can use Metamagic but Wizards can't.

And if you look at most Wizard subclasses, they follow that trend. A Necromancer Wizard isn't able to make a Zombie Beholder. But they can improve upon the standard Zombie to make it a bit tougher and hit harder. Meanwhile an Illusionist can certainly make a Zombie, but they don't have the expertise to improve upon it.

Also, I should note there is a difference between engineers here. Wizards are spell engineers, Artificers are item engineers. Its kind of like the difference between myself, a robotics engineer, and a civil engineer.


Then again, this all boils down to two opposing viewpoints on how DnD should be. You prefer DnD to have more specialized roles, with very clear divides between the roles and very little overlap. I want DnD to be more open ended and versatile, where there can be plenty of overlap.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Ohh, I see what you're getting at by the whole introductory material then. I feel like we might be saying the same thing then, but arriving at different results. You feel that a Wizard's specialization should mean they don't know very much outside of their specific field of study, where as I feel it would expand their general knowledge. I also suspect we have a differing opinion on what counts as "general knowledge" when it comes to magic.

For example, I would say any printed spell is general knowledge, from 1st to 9th level. Would an Illusionist Wizard know exactly how and why Create Undead works? No, but that's why the Necromancer will have slightly stronger undead, because Necromancers do understand it better.

Then again, that difference might be our differing fields of study. You got a phd in theoretical physics, I went for a Master's in robotics engineering with a minor in math. As a robotics engineer I needed a solid base of physics, electrical engineering, computer science, and a bit extra before I could even think of my specialization. And even today I still make use of all of that. An engineer generally isn't going to be as knowledgeable about physics as someone with a PHD in it, but they're going to know enough to use it. And specialists are going to know enough to improve upon what might be generally known.

Near as I can tell, Wizards are the engineers and college professors, with a wide amount of general and/or practical knowledge. They're pretty versatile because of it, and as a result have a large and varied list they can pull from. Meanwhile Sorcerers are the ones holding the PHD. That's why Sorcerers can use Metamagic but Wizards can't.

And if you look at most Wizard subclasses, they follow that trend. A Necromancer Wizard isn't able to make a Zombie Beholder. But they can improve upon the standard Zombie to make it a bit tougher and hit harder. Meanwhile an Illusionist can certainly make a Zombie, but they don't have the expertise to improve upon it.

Also, I should note there is a difference between engineers here. Wizards are spell engineers, Artificers are item engineers. Its kind of like the difference between myself, a robotics engineer, and a civil engineer.


Then again, this all boils down to two opposing viewpoints on how DnD should be. You prefer DnD to have more specialized roles, with very clear divides between the roles and very little overlap. I want DnD to be more open ended and versatile, where there can be plenty of overlap.

As a physicist, I think that characterization is exactly backward. Wizards are the PhDs. They're scholars, theoreticians. It's all over their class entry. The ones that know the most about the underpinnings of magic. Which should (if my experience is any guide) make them utterly useless at anything practical. Not blue because true. Their knowledge, like PhDs everywhere, should be a mile deep but an inch wide. They can tell you lots of stuff about their field of study, but aren't very useful (but do have tons of pride!) outside of it. Operationally, I'd say that this should mean that a wizard should have tiers of specialty. Their top-tier (at any particular level) spells should only be from their specialty. The next tier down can be from allied ones (like I can handle related quantum chemistry fields ok). Only the lowest tier stuff should be generic, like undergrad material. AKA baby physics[1].

Artificers are the engineers--they only know baby science[1]/magic (half-casters), but can do lots of various practical things with it. Useful for the real smart folks to have around to fix stuff.

Sorcerers are backyard mechanics. They know absolutely nothing about how spells work. At all. But they can sure make that engine purr. But only if it's the few types of engines they're "in tune with", so to speak. Ask them why it works...and they'll just shrug and say "dunno, but it does!"

[1] seriously--the actual first-principles stuff that an engineer learns in a Masters is the equivalent of the upper-division physics undergrad. And a whole lot more narrow--your average MechE won't learn a bit about physical chemistry or quantum mechanics except the "rule of thumb" version. But their stuff is a heck of a ton more practical for actually building stuff. Less theory, more "here's how it works in the real world." It's why, as a general rule, a physics BS can get into an engineering grad program (depending on the specialty) but the reverse is difficult. And yes, physicists in particular pride themselves on being better than those jumped up bolt-spinners (aka engineers). And theoretical physicists extend that superiority complex to experimental physicists. And, well, just about everyone else.

[Telok]

5e Fighter is pretty much your grandfather's Fighter - except worse, not because it itself is much worse, but because everything else got SO MUCH better. What used to have 100 HP and could be brought down in two rounds by an expert Fighter now has 500 HP, and the Fighter can't even hope to defeat it alone. Spells that took a round to cast and could be knocked out with any hit, now go off instantly and cannot be countered without other magic. Etc, etc.

Actually the fighter did get measurably worse. Bend bars/lift gates/open doors rolls are actually more powerful than pure str checks vs average dcs. Best saves against everything at high levels. Best effects off several types of magic items like potions of heroism & magic swords.

Just last session we saw our barbarian & fighter locked down for 3+ rounds each by basic dc 18 hold person spells (and not being able to tell who cast it, and the npcs having con vhecks of +5 or higher, npcs saving vs dc 20 con more than half the time, and etc., etc.) Not something a 14th level AD&D fighter would have been as vulnerable to.

[Goobahfish]

So outside of 'class identity', I think there are some balance concerns which I will use as a basis (generalized from PhoenixPhyre).

1) Spell power is valuable
2) Immediate availability is valuable (how many spells are prepared now)
3) Non-immediate availability is valuable (how many spells are prepared 'soon')
4) Build availability is valuable (how many spells can the above be chosen from)

So, Sorcerers, Warlocks have a pretty weak [2] (or good for Tasha's subclasses), non-existent [3] and middling [4].
Wizards have a pretty high [2], pretty high [3] and almost ceilinged [4].

I suppose metamagic is meant to compensate Sorcerers in the [1] category.

I'd say there is definitely room in the D&D paradigm to play around with [1], [2], [3] & [4].

I'm in general much happier with tightly themed characters over generalists. I like my generalist, but that should be your specialisation, not your base.

I think I agree with Witty, that 'bloodlines' probably should be pretty tightly coupled (i.e., two draconic sorcerers should be quite similar). I think that the variety of blood should definitely be widely variable (as per PhoenixPhyre) and contain 'Wizardry' as a subset.

Whether this means the 'general' sorcerer list should be large or small is an interesting question. Because sorcerers have a limited spell list, either choice is reasonably valid from a balance perspective because inevitably, the list will get larger over time (splat books). (i.e., if we argue that a small list is necessary for balance, splat books inevitably violate that claim).

I think the real question (which also applies to Clerics/Druids etc) is how big is the 'general Wizard' list. Mostly because that is what influences [4] and thus indirectly [3]. If wizards [4] is 'all spells', then wizards [3] is also 'all spells' which makes limiting [4] the only real way of limiting wizard power.

The only other way to buff non-wizards is class abilities and direct spell buffs (i.e., metamagic). This is why I think metamagic was given to sorcerers in 5e (rather than 3e being the edition of metamagic feats for wizards) because of the desire to 'standardize the spell slots chart' and 'ditch prepared spells'. It is why sorcerer is in such a weird place. Ideally it would have 'more spells' (as per 3e) but you can't change the progression chart, nor give them some short-rest recover (i.e., warlocks). Obviously the easy solution would be Sorcerers can use hit dice to recover spell slots :smallsmile:

I think from a game design perspective (ignoring words and focussing on maths), PhoenixPhyre's solution (big sorcerer list) makes a lot of sense. If the wizard list is smaller (i.e. low [4]), it also reduces [3]. The sorcerer basically is king of [4] and easily could be the king of [2] without resorting to fiddling with [1]. Having a disparate [1] is just going to annoy players (especially optimisers) because while flexibility is implicitly powerful, explicit buffs just annoy players ("it isn't fair").

---

PhD's... hmmm... the Wizard really doesn't seem like a PhD to me. Even the illusionist etc. In terms of skill sets, the Sorcerer matches far better (assuming fairly tightly chosen spells) in that they are good at X but inflexible (PhDs tend to atrophy in non-specialist fields). Perhaps being an illusionist is like a major?

Really a PhD would be more like... I am a fireball expert. Specifically fireballs of a greenish-blue hue which cause ionisation of the air and are more resistant to humid environments than standard fireballs. I can also make smaller firebolt-like fireballs, although they aren't as useful. I have a few collaborative fire-smoke related spells but it was a bit of a dead end. I'm currently looting a dungeon to fund a different research program for how 'controlled fireballs could be used to power locomotives'. It is all theoretical at the moment, but could you imagine a world where wagons push themselves using a directionally controlled fireball? One of my apprentices is looking at fireballs for heating gas balloons, but they are having a bit of a problem with subject recruitment. We're thinking of paying some peasants to sit in a basket while we cast fireballs into a giant leather bag but they seem more concerned with a troll that's been raiding their fields. Obviously fireballs could solve that problem too, but peasants aren't a very good source of funding so we're saving the gold for our last raid in case we need to buy more fireball extinguishers. Accidents do happen. The local lord has been very supportive of our research, though apparently fireballs aren't on the top of his list of priorities. Hopefully next year.

[NichG]

As a physicist, I think that characterization is exactly backward. Wizards are the PhDs. They're scholars, theoreticians. It's all over their class entry. The ones that know the most about the underpinnings of magic. Which should (if my experience is any guide) make them utterly useless at anything practical. Not blue because true. Their knowledge, like PhDs everywhere, should be a mile deep but an inch wide. They can tell you lots of stuff about their field of study, but aren't very useful (but do have tons of pride!) outside of it. Operationally, I'd say that this should mean that a wizard should have tiers of specialty. Their top-tier (at any particular level) spells should only be from their specialty. The next tier down can be from allied ones (like I can handle related quantum chemistry fields ok). Only the lowest tier stuff should be generic, like undergrad material. AKA baby physics[1].

Artificers are the engineers--they only know baby science[1]/magic (half-casters), but can do lots of various practical things with it. Useful for the real smart folks to have around to fix stuff.

Sorcerers are backyard mechanics. They know absolutely nothing about how spells work. At all. But they can sure make that engine purr. But only if it's the few types of engines they're "in tune with", so to speak. Ask them why it works...and they'll just shrug and say "dunno, but it does!"

[1] seriously--the actual first-principles stuff that an engineer learns in a Masters is the equivalent of the upper-division physics undergrad. And a whole lot more narrow--your average MechE won't learn a bit about physical chemistry or quantum mechanics except the "rule of thumb" version. But their stuff is a heck of a ton more practical for actually building stuff. Less theory, more "here's how it works in the real world." It's why, as a general rule, a physics BS can get into an engineering grad program (depending on the specialty) but the reverse is difficult. And yes, physicists in particular pride themselves on being better than those jumped up bolt-spinners (aka engineers). And theoretical physicists extend that superiority complex to experimental physicists. And, well, just about everyone else.

Wizards are a lot more practitioner-y than any academic scientists I know though... The basic curriculum for a wizard includes several things whose purpose is killing people in combat. So as long as we're keeping that, I'd see a wizard more as a military engineer.

It'd be as if part of defending your thesis as a physicist involved making a tesla gun and literally defending your thesis against the committee's homunculi.

[Psyren]

Actually the fighter did get measurably worse. Bend bars/lift gates/open doors rolls are actually more powerful than pure str checks vs average dcs. Best saves against everything at high levels. Best effects off several types of magic items like potions of heroism & magic swords.

If you think it's silly for a fighter to fail at bending bars or lifting gates, either don't call for a roll, or make failure = "progress with a setback". You have the power to do that in 5e; choosing not to use that power and then blaming the system is counterproductive.



Just last session we saw our barbarian & fighter locked down for 3+ rounds each by basic dc 18 hold person spells (and not being able to tell who cast it, and the npcs having con vhecks of +5 or higher, npcs saving vs dc 20 con more than half the time, and etc., etc.) Not something a 14th level AD&D fighter would have been as vulnerable to.

By 14th level a Fighter has plenty of time to shore up their Wisdom save, whether via feats or items (or both.) They also have two uses of Indomitable at that point. Getting locked down for 3 consecutive rounds signifies abysmal luck or a supremely bad build.

[Witty Username]

@Goobahfish
I don't like wizardry as a sorcerer subset, as that effectively removes int casting from the game.

Then again I personally don't understand why we have 3 cha casters, and 1 int caster in the first place. And personally thing warlock delivers better on the themes of the sorcerer. So bias.

[Telok]

If you think it's silly for a fighter to fail at bending bars or lifting gates, either don't call for a roll, or make failure = "progress with a setback". You have the power to do that in 5e; choosing not to use that power and then blaming the system is counterproductive.

By 14th level a Fighter has plenty of time to shore up their Wisdom save, whether via feats or items (or both.) They also have two uses of Indomitable at that point. Getting locked down for 3 consecutive rounds signifies abysmal luck or a supremely bad build.

You can drop the crusade against all editions not 5e and your other personal issues. Its pure numbers. 14th fighter AD&D vs hold spell is 5+ or 8+, not including stat bonuses or items, or 5e with +1 or +2 & reroll vs dc 18. You're assuming magic mart purchasing of your preferred items, and attuning your specific preferred items, and hadn't already used rerolls, and taking "suck less" feats over "can do something you couldn't do before" feats. A +6 & reroll 1s vs 18 is around 47% success (thats the calculator I had on hand). Math it. Fighter saves & ability checks are worse percentage-wise than they were in AD&D.

Having checked I will give that the feats of strength might be a wash. Str 16 bend bars being 10% and even str 19 hill giants having only 50%, but those are mapping to dc 21 checks anyways because we're talking ripping your way out of jail cells in one oomph or lifting a castle porticullis.

[Anymage]

@Goobahfish
I don't like wizardry as a sorcerer subset, as that effectively removes int casting from the game.

Then again I personally don't understand why we have 3 cha casters, and 1 int caster in the first place. And personally thing warlock delivers better on the themes of the sorcerer. So bias.

Ironically Int-based tomelock matches the fiction of the ritualist better than the wizard class does. Can actually know all the rituals for when time and opportunity allow, and has a smaller but personalizable and reliable bag of magical tricks for when you don't have time for a ritual.

The big catch is that to the degree that rituals are useful on a combat scale you just encourage buffs/summons/other spells that you can precast, while to the degree that they're narrative scale abilities they're more something that's worth a feat instead of defining your whole class. So wizard = ritualist only works if you remove "wizard" as a class and call it an in-game honorific for anyone who knows a lot of rituals and has good scores in their relevant casting skills.

[Tanarii]

You can drop the crusade against all editions not 5e and your other personal issues. Its pure numbers. 14th fighter AD&D vs hold spell is 5+ or 8+, not including stat bonuses or items, or 5e with +1 or +2 & reroll vs dc 18. You're assuming magic mart purchasing of your preferred items, and attuning your specific preferred items, and hadn't already used rerolls, and taking "suck less" feats over "can do something you couldn't do before" feats. A +6 & reroll 1s vs 18 is around 47% success (thats the calculator I had on hand). Math it. Fighter saves & ability checks are worse percentage-wise than they were in AD&D.

Having checked I will give that the feats of strength might be a wash. Str 16 bend bars being 10% and even str 19 hill giants having only 50%, but those are mapping to dc 21 checks anyways because we're talking ripping your way out of jail cells in one oomph or lifting a castle porticullis.I don't agree on BB/LG unless you had 18/percentile it was incredibly low.

But you're spot on regarding saves. WotC Fighters got nerfed into the ground in 3e, and 5e Fighters have only just begun to recover from that. And they still have a long way to go largely due to saves. Using an optional rule and/or assuming your DM lets you pick magic items found (or buy them) aren't solutions to that still terrible area of the class in comparison to AD&D. Continuing Fighter saves issues are a well known issue in 5e even to fairly new players, and blindingly obvious to anyone that played TsR D&D..

[Dork_Forge]

You can drop the crusade against all editions not 5e and your other personal issues. Its pure numbers. 14th fighter AD&D vs hold spell is 5+ or 8+, not including stat bonuses or items, or 5e with +1 or +2 & reroll vs dc 18. You're assuming magic mart purchasing of your preferred items, and attuning your specific preferred items, and hadn't already used rerolls, and taking "suck less" feats over "can do something you couldn't do before" feats. A +6 & reroll 1s vs 18 is around 47% success (thats the calculator I had on hand). Math it. Fighter saves & ability checks are worse percentage-wise than they were in AD&D.

Having checked I will give that the feats of strength might be a wash. Str 16 bend bars being 10% and even str 19 hill giants having only 50%, but those are mapping to dc 21 checks anyways because we're talking ripping your way out of jail cells in one oomph or lifting a castle porticullis.

Whilst I get where you're coming from, this is the pit trap these discussions always fall into: Nebulous Fighters lacking components the game doesn't assume you're missing out.

I will preface this with it's okay for characters to have weaknesses, this notion that it isn't is nonsense. If everyone had scaling saves like you want it would be a DC treadmill. It's okay that some characters suck at Wis saves, just the same as others suck at Str and Dex.

Now, I have no idea what Fighter was in your group, but Fighters in general don't need to suck at Wis saves. This isn't just take Res: Wis, it's much more than that:

- Fighters can afford to have higher tertiaries, whether they're Str or Dex focused they can afford to have a Wis (or whatever they want) that isn't a dump stat.

- Races are a thing, enrolling 1s? Sounds like a Halfling to me... V. Human offers the chance to grab said Res: Wis, Gnomes would have advantage on the save, as would several other races.

- Subclasses, also a thing! Samurai get's prof in Wis saves, Eldritch Knights have spell options, Rune Knight has runes that applies to saves

- I don't like assuming magic items, but sorry there is a stark difference between magicmart play and the possibility that some form of item that benefits saves is on the table by 14th level, there are even multiple items that do that at uncommon.

- It's a team game... Paladin aura, Bardic Inspiration, Dispel Magic etc. etc. this also highlights....

Two characters being locked down for three rounds isn't failure that rests solely on the Held PCs. That was 3 rounds that the party didn't free them of the spell or break the concentration of/kill the casters. To hang that around just the Fighter/Barbarian makes no sense in a cooperative game.

The issue would be if a Fighter wanted to be good at a certain save, or even multiple and couldn't do that but, hey! They can, it's not even difficult to do so.

[sithlordnergal]

As a physicist, I think that characterization is exactly backward. Wizards are the PhDs. They're scholars, theoreticians. It's all over their class entry. The ones that know the most about the underpinnings of magic. Which should (if my experience is any guide) make them utterly useless at anything practical. Not blue because true. Their knowledge, like PhDs everywhere, should be a mile deep but an inch wide. They can tell you lots of stuff about their field of study, but aren't very useful (but do have tons of pride!) outside of it. Operationally, I'd say that this should mean that a wizard should have tiers of specialty. Their top-tier (at any particular level) spells should only be from their specialty. The next tier down can be from allied ones (like I can handle related quantum chemistry fields ok). Only the lowest tier stuff should be generic, like undergrad material. AKA baby physics[1].

Artificers are the engineers--they only know baby science[1]/magic (half-casters), but can do lots of various practical things with it. Useful for the real smart folks to have around to fix stuff.

Sorcerers are backyard mechanics. They know absolutely nothing about how spells work. At all. But they can sure make that engine purr. But only if it's the few types of engines they're "in tune with", so to speak. Ask them why it works...and they'll just shrug and say "dunno, but it does!"

[1] seriously--the actual first-principles stuff that an engineer learns in a Masters is the equivalent of the upper-division physics undergrad. And a whole lot more narrow--your average MechE won't learn a bit about physical chemistry or quantum mechanics except the "rule of thumb" version. But their stuff is a heck of a ton more practical for actually building stuff. Less theory, more "here's how it works in the real world." It's why, as a general rule, a physics BS can get into an engineering grad program (depending on the specialty) but the reverse is difficult. And yes, physicists in particular pride themselves on being better than those jumped up bolt-spinners (aka engineers). And theoretical physicists extend that superiority complex to experimental physicists. And, well, just about everyone else.

See, I view it very differently. Sorcerers are the PhD's, in that they're super specialized, and their Metamagic allows them to go further with that specialization due to that deep understanding. They're completely useless outside of their PhD, but if they're working within the confines of it, they're the experts. Need a Fireball that deals cold damage? Sure thing says the Sorcerer.


Wizards are the engineers. They have a basic understanding of how it all works, and have the skills to put it to practical use in ways Sorcerers can't because they're too hyper focused on their field to expand beyond it. They're the ones improving on previously existing spells in small ways that make them more effectivd. Sure they'll never have that deep understanding that a sorcerer has, but they're so versatile, and can do so much it doesn't matter. And they regularly put those practical skills to use.


Meanwhile Artificers strike me as the backyard mechanics. As a half-caster, they don't really get how all that magic works. But they do know if they put a little magic here, and a little magic there, they now have boots that fly.

[Waazraath]

Whilst I get where you're coming from, this is the pit trap these discussions always fall into: Nebulous Fighters lacking components the game doesn't assume you're missing out.

I will preface this with it's okay for characters to have weaknesses, this notion that it isn't is nonsense. If everyone had scaling saves like you want it would be a DC treadmill. It's okay that some characters suck at Wis saves, just the same as others suck at Str and Dex.

Now, I have no idea what Fighter was in your group, but Fighters in general don't need to suck at Wis saves. This isn't just take Res: Wis, it's much more than that:

- Fighters can afford to have higher tertiaries, whether they're Str or Dex focused they can afford to have a Wis (or whatever they want) that isn't a dump stat.

- Races are a thing, enrolling 1s? Sounds like a Halfling to me... V. Human offers the chance to grab said Res: Wis, Gnomes would have advantage on the save, as would several other races.

- Subclasses, also a thing! Samurai get's prof in Wis saves, Eldritch Knights have spell options, Rune Knight has runes that applies to saves

- I don't like assuming magic items, but sorry there is a stark difference between magicmart play and the possibility that some form of item that benefits saves is on the table by 14th level, there are even multiple items that do that at uncommon.

- It's a team game... Paladin aura, Bardic Inspiration, Dispel Magic etc. etc. this also highlights....

Two characters being locked down for three rounds isn't failure that rests solely on the Held PCs. That was 3 rounds that the party didn't free them of the spell or break the concentration of/kill the casters. To hang that around just the Fighter/Barbarian makes no sense in a cooperative game.

The issue would be if a Fighter wanted to be good at a certain save, or even multiple and couldn't do that but, hey! They can, it's not even difficult to do so.

Very much this. While I'm not per se against fighters getting their saves buffed or indomitable becoming stronger, I haven't seen 'fighters being bad at saves' at the table in 5e, exactly because of the reasons Dork_Forge mentiones here. Last party with a fighter had a melee buddy paladin (saves aura) and an artificer (flash of genius), together with the occasional reroll from indomitable and overall decent stats the fighter didn't miss a single save over 15 or something sessions.

[Tanarii]

One of the best fixes I've seen to Fighters having bad saves, or at least ones that don't improve well, was in 05R:Into the Unknown. Proficiency bonus to all saves.

Of course, it was specifically trying to be a retro mod of 5e.

[Waazraath]

One of the best fixes I've seen to Fighters having bad saves, or at least ones that don't improve well, was in 05R:Into the Unknown. Proficiency bonus to all saves.

Of course, it was specifically trying to be a retro mod of 5e.

Wasn't that too much, and/or a bit stepping on the monk's toes?

Thinking about it: it is maybe a bit too game dependent. The difference between a samurai fighter with the lucky feat in a game with a pally and an arteficer on the one hand and an eldritch archer in a featless game without any party members that boost saves might be a bit too big. I've never seen something as the latter in play but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist of course.

[Ignimortis]

Wasn't that too much, and/or a bit stepping on the monk's toes?

Thinking about it: it is maybe a bit too game dependent. The difference between a samurai fighter with the lucky feat in a game with a pally and an arteficer on the one hand and an eldritch archer in a featless game without any party members that boost saves might be a bit too big. I've never seen something as the latter in play but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist of course.

I've had several games without that kind of utility/party support being present. Even having Resilient (WIS) does not actually help the Fighter with starting 10 WIS much - they generally still need more than a 10 on a d20 to beat most WIS-dependent effects that haven't been outlevelled. I can easily believe that a Fighter got stunlocked by Hold Person for three rounds even if they had Resilient (WIS) - a 14th level Fighter would have +5 to beat the DC18 save, so they need a 13 or more to break out of it. Napkin math says that's a 60% chance of failure, three times repeated - a 21.6% chance of that occurring. And even then you make the save at the end of the turn, so if it works, it denies at least one turn to you.

I have already expounded on that, but every single time I've had a melee Fighter in the party or played one, they ended up being the martial that needed help most often and were by far the least self-sufficient. Every other martial but Ranger (who really, really doesn't want to be in melee despite everything Drizzt lied to you about) has some features that strengthen their defenses in a particular way (Rage+potential Bear Totem/Uncanny Dodge+Evasion/Diamond Soul+Evasion+Unarmored Defense/Lay on Hands+Aura of Protection+Shield of Faith).

Fighter...doesn't get anything, and unlike Ranger, most of their class fantasy is about being melee - but the 2H or TWF Fighter is probably one of the worst melee combatants, not because of damage (though it is a factor at least below 11), but because a dead/KO'd character does 0 DPR, and actually nailing a non-shield melee Fighter is extremely easy with either spell or sword. Feats do not help nearly as much as they are said to - especially for 2H Fighters, which quite literally do not get anything beyond "more damage". Second Wind is just...bad. At best, it's maybe +15 HP once per Short Rest, which stops mattering around the time when a normal on-CR enemy's attack does that much damage (so around level 4 or 5).

[Bobthewizard]

Wizard * however, their "core list" other than rituals is more narrowly focused and limited.

And then move metamagic and all the "complex" spellcasting into the wizard class.

My idea would be
a) wizards > sorcerers in number of spells ready at any one time.
b) wizards < sorcerers in size of list
c) wizards ~ sorcerers in "casting spells better" (wizards get rituals, sorcerers get metamagic or both gets different features to interact with things).

So who gets metamagic in your system?

I think wizards should be broad but light - rituals, larger spell list, more preparations, but just normal casting. Then sorcerers should be focused and deep - smaller spell list tailored to their subclass, fewer preparations, but better at casting those spells with metamagic. So wizards are the undergrads and sorcerers the PHDs.

I think rituals should go to the class with the larger spell list and more preparations, and metamagic should go to the class with the smaller spell list and fewer preparations. If you were to leave wizards with ritual casting but then give them a smaller spell list otherwise, it seems to muddy your wide and shallow versus narrow and deep idea. The rituals would make up for their smaller spell list and make sorcerers and wizards have about the same depth and breadth. If wizards were to get a smaller spell list but then added rituals, that seems to about equal the flexibility of the sorcerers now larger spell list.

For me, if you think there is a power divide between sorcerers and wizards, the answer would be to improve metamagic for the sorcerer. I think it's already pretty great. I love twin, subtle, careful and transmute. They're fun, so I don't see a problem between wizards and sorcerers until high levels, and even that is due to just a few spells.

When I play a sorcerer, I miss the wizard's rituals and larger spell list and preparations, and when I play a wizard, I miss the sorcerer's metamagic and better subclass features. I slightly prefer wizards due their easier customization. But if you gave sorcerers an extra metamagic, 2-3 extra sorcery points, a couple more spell slots in tier 3 and 4, I think they'd be more powerful than wizards, with the exception of your Shenanigans spells you listed, which I agree are problematic.

[Psyren]

You can drop the crusade against all editions not 5e and your other personal issues. Its pure numbers. 14th fighter AD&D vs hold spell is 5+ or 8+, not including stat bonuses or items, or 5e with +1 or +2 & reroll vs dc 18. You're assuming magic mart purchasing of your preferred items, and attuning your specific preferred items, and hadn't already used rerolls, and taking "suck less" feats over "can do something you couldn't do before" feats. A +6 & reroll 1s vs 18 is around 47% success (thats the calculator I had on hand). Math it. Fighter saves & ability checks are worse percentage-wise than they were in AD&D.

Having checked I will give that the feats of strength might be a wash. Str 16 bend bars being 10% and even str 19 hill giants having only 50%, but those are mapping to dc 21 checks anyways because we're talking ripping your way out of jail cells in one oomph or lifting a castle porticullis.

My "crusade," if you can even call it that, is against people shooting themselves in the foot and then demanding that the store where they bought the gun be demolished.

[Yakk]

So I had a Archer-Bard I leveled up to 20.


In the interminable caster/martial debates, a common benchmark for "how strong martials need to be" involves pointing out certain capabilities that "casters" have and saying that martials need a way of doing those things.

But let's consider a few of them in particular.

Flight: in 5e, that means either a flying mount (something anyone can in principle get, but paladins have it the easiest), a magic item granting flight (which is available to anyone), or the fly spell. Which is only on the following lists: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Artificer. Clerics? out of luck. Druids? Can transform into something that can fly (3 levels later). Can maybe (Dm willing) summon something that can fly. But don't have native flight. And note that a large chunk of sorcerers and warlocks won't necessarily pick up fly, as their preps/slots are really really constrained. Artificers don't get it until much later if they even have room to pick it up. It's only wizards who can have a pretty good chance of having it right about level 5 (maybe level 7 or so).

Had a Find Greater Steed Griffon.


Teleportation: One of three-ish spells (ignoring magic items, because again, those are available to everyone): teleport, teleport circle, and maybe transport via plants (because that has substantial limits). Teleport is only on the bard, sorcerer, and wizard list. Again, clerics are out of luck, as are druids. Teleport circle is on the bard, wizard, sorcerer, and arcana cleric[1] list. Transport via plants can kinda work, and is the only druid access to such effects. A pattern seems to be forming here...

Planar Travel: Really only one good option here. Plane Shift. Which is a bit more convenient (post Tasha's[2])--clerics, druids, sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards. And you can sorta-kinda mimic teleport circle for the low low price of 2 7th level slots. Yay.

Could teleport, planeshift, and walk on the ethereal plane.


Long-duration minionmancy: You can create undead or you can planar bind. Planar ally isn't under your control, so it doesn't really count unless your DM is bending over backward for you. Clerics can create undead, but they're not great at it. And many DMs will look askance at a cleric of a good god engaging in creating armies of the undead. Wizards (the only other class with native access, although oathbreakers and circle of spores druids also have access) can specialize in it. And eventually get free castings of it. Planar binding is actually fairly freely available: bard, cleric, druid, wizard. But only the bard and wizard have the access to also be able to summon the really good targets for it. If you go instead to the more puppeting of existing creatures (domination, et al),
- suggestion is bard/sorcerer/warlock/wizard
- geas is bard/cleric/druid/paladin/wizard
- mass suggestion is bard/sorcerer/warlock/wizard
- charm person (which is a long way from mind control, but) is bard/druid/sorcerer/warlock/wizard + trickery domain
- dominate person is bard/sorcerer/wizard + trickery domain, archfey/GOO, and 3 paladin oaths
Didn't bother with this. PC was already really strong. I actually stopped using animate objects because it overshadowed everyone.


Knock (included not because it's a great spell but because it always comes up): You guessed it, bard/sorcerer/wizard
Had +infinity lockpicking, didn't need it.


Short-range teleportation (misty step, dimension door, arcane gate): Misty step is available to sorcerer/warlock/wizard, 1 land druid terrain, and 3 paladin oaths. Dimension door is bard, sorcerer, warlock, wizard, trickery domain, oath of vengeance (who gets it real real late). Arcane gate is sorcerer/warlock/wizard (but mostly wizard and maybe sorcerer, because it's a 6th level spell so mystic arcanum for warlocks).
Had as much of this as I needed.


Find Familiar Either a feat or...wizard-list exclusive (so the 1/3 casters can get it).
I didn't want a 2nd pet.


Shenanigans: Wish, simulacrum, clone, magic jar. Of the 4, only wish is available to non-wizards (also sorcerers and genie warlocks). The other 3 are wizard exclusive.
Used Wish to produce Simulacrums. Could also Clone. Magic Jar was tempting, but was too much bother to pick up.

Took some different magical secrets instead.


And the list goes on. The only class that has native access to all these capabilities that supposedly define the supremacy of casters is the wizard. And even the others who share a lot of them (sorcerers and warlocks) are so limited in their choices that they either won't have some of them OR will have used up most of their picks on those, hampering their other capabilities.
I mean, I spent most of my magical secrets on being an archer bard. Overkill really; I liked having different ways to make my combat abilities ridiculous. So sometimes I'd haste, other times I'd use tensers, etc.

It meant I was able to match other pure-archers for damage output *while* having most of the above capabilities. Oh, and 30+ AC on some turns.

This was a concrete build in an actual game. And not a wizard. And doesn't include some spells I used to completely break encounters.

[KorvinStarmast]

Wizards, Clerics & Druids have this weird thing where they effectively 'respec' overnight, creating a change in their playstyle which probably exceeds the difference between a ranger and a fighter (i.e., my problem #2). That option is open, I rarely see it exercised in play. (And Rangers need to be prepared casters, arrggggghhhh! :smallfurious:)

I think this comes down to the 'babying' ... having characters die (especially wizards) has been removed from the ethos. Yes, though part of that was done in response to their gaming audience having been weaned on computer, console and video games where dying early and often was a great way to lose sales and get crap reviews. (Even though The Butcher in original Diablo was a great WTF moment for many of us the first time through).


Then spellcasting can't be too much of a hassle (i.e., pseudo-prepared casting). Specialisations don't actually give restrictions. But... we have to keep the 'icons of the game' (i.e., wizards, clerics and fighters... also rangers, barbarians, paladins and monks). Yeah, spell casting came without a cost.

However, keeping some of the legacy stuff pushes the game into this weird niche position where wizards obviously can cast everything under the sun (because that is tradition) but fighters can't 'do' anything (because we want flexible DCs for DMs).
But Fighters used to have the best saves in the game (TSR, all editions).


I'd actually say that the lists, in that case, should be reversed. Sorcerers should pick a few spells from a huge list, wizards should pick a lot of spells from a small list. Because the set of "spells that can be encoded in the blood" is way bigger (it seems to me) than the set of "things we can write down and build from first principles." The whole point of the wizard isn't that they are in the ivory tower: those are the NPC mages, etc. The wizard adventurer has to go out and find magic, magical things, and treasures to fund his own unique inquiry into magic. They are a lot more like a field engineer (well educated but going out there and putting theory into practice) or an archeologist finding old stuff and digging it up and maybe becoming famous, or maybe dying in the process.
Which is kind of their original premise in the post imperial dark ages/dying earth/post apocalypse world that D&D was built to emulate. (Which makes FR and Krynn poor imitations of D&D as a concept).

Your other points take me to "wizards get a limited spell list + meta magic, and are best at ritual casting" while sorcerer has a larger list, and domain list, and not meta magic. Am I following you there?


It makes more sense to me to be the other way. Give wizards broad access to a lot of spells, but let sorcerers cast the spells they have better. Wizards can study and learn a lot of different things, but they'd never be as good at what the sorcerer does as the sorcerer. Indeed. the generalist who is out in the field putting theory into practice and discovering new stuff, or rediscovering very old stuff that has been forgotten. (Like how the Romans made the best mortar in the world to build their bridges from ...)


Metamagic is supposed to do this, but it falls just a bit short. Then some of the wizard subclass abilities step on the sorcerer's toes too. I'll buy a share of this stock.


I agree. "Wizard as ritual master" is an identity. Lean into the "learning magic" angle--
* They can learn rituals more easily and have ways to do rituals better than anyone else, including converting some non-rituals into rituals.
* They can learn modifications to other spells through experiment, including seeing those other spells cast. Including some off-list access (Magical Secrets doesn't belong to bards in this model, really, but would depend on seeing those effects in play).
* however, their "core list" other than rituals is more narrowly focused and limited. That's a neat idea at a restructuring, but convince WoTC of that.
Please. :smallsmile:


You could also make sorcerers the "easy bake" caster--
* Each subclass gives a set of SLA-like "cast something like spell X Y number of times/day" abilities for the "core thematic spells". So a dragon sorcerer might get things like elemental blasting spells, fly, fear, and some armor/defensive stuff so he can "play dragon", etc. While an aberrant mind sorcerer might get "mess with their minds" spells this way.
* The base class would give much more limited spells and spell slots, but make them full-list casters (like druids/clerics) off of a narrow list.

And then move metamagic and all the "complex" spellcasting into the wizard class. I'll buy shares in this stock.

---------

So Sorcerer with relatively small base list. But with ways to add to it via subclasses. So It would be a large list if you included all sorcerer subclasses. I'll buy shares in that stock.

As a physicist, I think that characterization is exactly backward. Wizards are the PhDs. They're scholars, theoreticians. It's all over their class entry. NPC wizards? Yes. High level ones retired from adventuring a crafting stuff? Yes. Adventuring wizards? No. See my point above. Your comments on Mech Eng (I've got a BSME, my two masters were in other disciplines) are kind of right, in that Engineering is very much applied physics in terms of "How do I make this work practically and affordably?"

Actually the fighter did get measurably worse...Best saves against everything at high levels. Best effects off several types of magic items like potions of heroism & magic swords. Indomitable is a terrible implementation of that, unfortunately. Maybe initial indomitable is "proficiency in all spell saves" and the next iteration is "advantage on a given saving throw X times per day ..."

@Goobahfish
I don't like wizardry as a sorcerer subset, as that effectively removes int casting from the game.
Warlocks were supposed to be INT casters. Arrrrrrggggggggh! :smallfurious: (OK, I'll calm down)

Then again I personally don't understand why we have 3 cha casters, and 1 int caster in the first place. We could even get rid of sorcerers altogether. :smallbiggrin:

But you're spot on regarding saves. WotC Fighters got nerfed into the ground in 3e, and 5e Fighters have only just begun to recover from that. And they still have a long way to go largely due to saves. See my suggestion on indomitable above.

[Segev]

My "crusade," if you can even call it that, is against people shooting themselves in the foot and then demanding that the store where they bought the gun be demolished.

On this, I agree with you, I think, though my defense of 5e here is more in line with another poster's: It's okay for a fighter to have a bad Wisdom save. That's part of bounded accuracy, and how lower-level threats are kept relevant. And it is also meant that other PCs will do things to try to free him up if this is a problem.

[Dr.Samurai]

Whilst I get where you're coming from, this is the pit trap these discussions always fall into: Nebulous Fighters lacking components the game doesn't assume you're missing out.

I will preface this with it's okay for characters to have weaknesses, this notion that it isn't is nonsense. If everyone had scaling saves like you want it would be a DC treadmill. It's okay that some characters suck at Wis saves, just the same as others suck at Str and Dex.
Hard disagree. Some saves are different than others, and some classes/roles are different than others and impacted differently by their "weak" saves.

My personal preference is that the warrior classes have the steel will, as that's a trope, and it makes sense since they're actually fighting stuff up close and personal. Looking at a monster's slimy tentacles tipped with poisonous barbs while you cast spells from a distance is quite different to actually resisting it's slimy grasp while it tries to paralyze you with it's venom and pull you into its gaping maw. No reason the guy doing the former should have an iron will over the guy doing the latter.

Now, I have no idea what Fighter was in your group, but Fighters in general don't need to suck at Wis saves. This isn't just take Res: Wis, it's much more than that:

- Fighters can afford to have higher tertiaries, whether they're Str or Dex focused they can afford to have a Wis (or whatever they want) that isn't a dump stat.

- Races are a thing, enrolling 1s? Sounds like a Halfling to me... V. Human offers the chance to grab said Res: Wis, Gnomes would have advantage on the save, as would several other races.

- Subclasses, also a thing! Samurai get's prof in Wis saves, Eldritch Knights have spell options, Rune Knight has runes that applies to saves

- I don't like assuming magic items, but sorry there is a stark difference between magicmart play and the possibility that some form of item that benefits saves is on the table by 14th level, there are even multiple items that do that at uncommon.

- It's a team game... Paladin aura, Bardic Inspiration, Dispel Magic etc. etc. this also highlights....

My current fighter is a variant human Rune Knight using Standard Array. I did not take Resilient Wisdom with my bonus feat, but you said it's much more than doing that anyways. Let's see... I'm not a halfling or a gnome, and either of those would go against my two-handed weapon build so those are non-options. My v-human feat was used on Great Weapon Master. We used Standard Array and I dumped Dexterity. I think I have a +1 Wisdom modifier. Yay. We started at level 11 with no magic items. Team is my Rune Knight, a ranger, a monk, and a druid. Ooops, no paladin or artificer or bard, what were we thinking?!?!?!

Needless to say, I don't think the game assumes any of the things you've mentioned, and they certainly don't hold true for my current game.

Two characters being locked down for three rounds isn't failure that rests solely on the Held PCs. That was 3 rounds that the party didn't free them of the spell or break the concentration of/kill the casters. To hang that around just the Fighter/Barbarian makes no sense in a cooperative game.
In my current game, only the druid would be able to cast Dispel Magic, but he's a moon druid so tough to do from Wildshape.

The issue would be if a Fighter wanted to be good at a certain save, or even multiple and couldn't do that but, hey! They can, it's not even difficult to do so.
The issue is that Dex saves deal damage and Str saves move you or grab you or knock you prone, but Will saves are much more impactful, to classes that are pretty one-dimensional in their approach to combat. It's lop-sided.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Either wizards are undergraduates, with a broad base but no particular skill in anything OR they're PhDs, with deep specialization and claim to high power, but restrictions on their range.

Currently, people claim that they deserve or even require "all the spells" because they're masters of all magic and not being the absolute best spellcaster breaks their fiction. That doesn't sound much like someone who's just started their training. And in fact, if you're casting "the mightiest spell a mortal can cast" (wish, which says as much), you must be a master of magic. That doesn't smell like a dabbler to me. In fact, that sounds like an unobtainable--an omniglot who is simultaneously a deep specialist in every form of magic. Which just doesn't work (because it leaves little room for anyone else).

So choose. Either wizards get a wide range of spells...of 5th level or lower (undergraduate) OR they can specialize and learn those powerful spells...at the cost of a much narrower range.

Or (in the alternative), you could have a model where wizards start as generalists and then progressively specialize. Something like
T1: Wizards have a big broad list. While they may pick a focus[1], it's mostly just hey, you're slightly better at X.
T2: Wizards start focusing on one thing. Their 0-2 level spells stay wide open, but they pick one "theme" for their new 3-5 level spells. They can learn rituals from any theme in those levels, however.
T3: Wizards progress their main theme but branch out slightly--0-2 are still open choice, 3-5 can be from any two themes (plus rituals), and 7-8 are from their main theme.
T4: Ultimate specialization. Same as T3, but add 9th level spells from their main theme.

So a (making up themes, see note 1) diviner with a secondary in conjuration wouldn't get fireball at all. But someone who didn't specialize in transmutation would never get true polymorph. Effectively your (character, not class) spell list is a pyramid. Broad base of "undergraduate" spells, narrower layer of "masters level" spells, small layer of "PhD" spells, and a couple "postdoc" spells. But you wouldn't have the current model of being able to do simultaneous postdocs in every field.

And sorcerers don't understand anything at all. They have no concept of the deeper meaning behind the magic. For them, doing magic is about will (controlling the writhing power and shaping it into something useful by force of self) not understanding why it works. They're fundamentally jocks with superpowers. They didn't even go to college, or if they did, they majored in business, psychology, or something else equally useless. And were legacy admits. Bards went to college, but they majored in drama or music, with a second major in girls. Or boys. Or both, your pick.

----------

I'll note that I've been arguing "in the alternative", presenting a bunch of different (and mutually incompatible) possibilities for moving things forward.

[1] Personally, I think using schools of magic directly for this purpose is a horrible idea because they're not balanced against themselves at all, nor are they of equal thematic weight. Some are super broad (transmutation, evocation, conjuration) while others are super narrow (enchantment, necromancy). Which says that what D&Done is doing is a bad idea. Instead, there should be themes. Primary theme would be subclass, secondary theme would be something akin to a pact boon (a class feature you pick up at a higher level that grants access to another theme). Themes would have to blend the schools somewhat.

[Waazraath]

I've had several games without that kind of utility/party support being present. Even having Resilient (WIS) does not actually help the Fighter with starting 10 WIS much - they generally still need more than a 10 on a d20 to beat most WIS-dependent effects that haven't been outlevelled. I can easily believe that a Fighter got stunlocked by Hold Person for three rounds even if they had Resilient (WIS) - a 14th level Fighter would have +5 to beat the DC18 save, so they need a 13 or more to break out of it. Napkin math says that's a 60% chance of failure, three times repeated - a 21.6% chance of that occurring. And even then you make the save at the end of the turn, so if it works, it denies at least one turn to you.

I have already expounded on that, but every single time I've had a melee Fighter in the party or played one, they ended up being the martial that needed help most often and were by far the least self-sufficient. Every other martial but Ranger (who really, really doesn't want to be in melee despite everything Drizzt lied to you about) has some features that strengthen their defenses in a particular way (Rage+potential Bear Totem/Uncanny Dodge+Evasion/Diamond Soul+Evasion+Unarmored Defense/Lay on Hands+Aura of Protection+Shield of Faith).

Fighter...doesn't get anything, and unlike Ranger, most of their class fantasy is about being melee - but the 2H or TWF Fighter is probably one of the worst melee combatants, not because of damage (though it is a factor at least below 11), but because a dead/KO'd character does 0 DPR, and actually nailing a non-shield melee Fighter is extremely easy with either spell or sword. Feats do not help nearly as much as they are said to - especially for 2H Fighters, which quite literally do not get anything beyond "more damage". Second Wind is just...bad. At best, it's maybe +15 HP once per Short Rest, which stops mattering around the time when a normal on-CR enemy's attack does that much damage (so around level 4 or 5).

I understand what you're saying... and I can place your assessment of second wind, based on earlier comments where you said you usually play with few or non short rests (though I still disagree, and find that in a game with +/- 2 short rests a bonus action self heal is a wonderful tool).

But at the same time, I have the impression there are a bit double standards on the amount of optimization assumed for casters on the one hand and martials on the others. I mean, if I see something along the line of "fighters are not strong defensively" and I see a fighter not using a shield, not having protection fighting style, in a party without save boosts", I'm thinking about a wizard with a 12 con and dex, without a race that allows armor proficiency, who doesn't pick 'res con' but has lots of concentration spells, and who doesn't pick 'shield'. Or a lore bard that doesn't put any effort (either race or feats or spell picks) in defense and expects to manage with light armor only.

All of these are a bit squishy, though by margins still playable in 5e. But fighters have darn many options for increasing their duribility, be it race, fighting style, feats, weapon choice or subclass, and team optimization is a thing (if none of my party members buff saves, it's imo a no-brainer to invest more resources in it myself). You point at fighters that choose to ignore defenses and then consider them as an example of fighters being squishy.

[Pex]

Very much this. While I'm not per se against fighters getting their saves buffed or indomitable becoming stronger, I haven't seen 'fighters being bad at saves' at the table in 5e, exactly because of the reasons Dork_Forge mentiones here. Last party with a fighter had a melee buddy paladin (saves aura) and an artificer (flash of genius), together with the occasional reroll from indomitable and overall decent stats the fighter didn't miss a single save over 15 or something sessions.

People would object the fighter needed the paladin and artificer to make the saving throw. Buffs from party members are nice, but to some people they should be perks not necessities. They would resent the fighter needing the paladin and artificer to make the saving throw instead of making it by virtue of being a fighter.

[Ignimortis]

I understand what you're saying... and I can place your assessment of second wind, based on earlier comments where you said you usually play with few or non short rests (though I still disagree, and find that in a game with +/- 2 short rests a bonus action self heal is a wonderful tool).

But at the same time, I have the impression there are a bit double standards on the amount of optimization assumed for casters on the one hand and martials on the others. I mean, if I see something along the line of "fighters are not strong defensively" and I see a fighter not using a shield, not having protection fighting style, in a party without save boosts", I'm thinking about a wizard with a 12 con and dex, without a race that allows armor proficiency, who doesn't pick 'res con' but has lots of concentration spells, and who doesn't pick 'shield'. Or a lore bard that doesn't put any effort (either race or feats or spell picks) in defense and expects to manage with light armor only.

All of these are a bit squishy, though by margins still playable in 5e. But fighters have darn many options for increasing their duribility, be it race, fighting style, feats, weapon choice or subclass, and team optimization is a thing (if none of my party members buff saves, it's imo a no-brainer to invest more resources in it myself). You point at fighters that choose to ignore defenses and then consider them as an example of fighters being squishy.

The issue here is that being a shield fighter that invests into Defense FS is basically a playstyle choice - "I don't want to get hit, and I'm willing to sacrifice a major part of my damage potential and stylistic choice", while being, say, a defensively-geared wizard is a couple of prepared spells and a stat array that is already beneficial for a Wizard - something that might be very impactful for the first couple of levels (having most of your spell list be reactive/defensive spells is kinda bad), but doesn't translate to later all that much. In addition to that, Wizard generally doesn't need to hang in melee if they feel defensively challenged, while melee Fighter...doesn't do much out of it.

The major offenders here are Shield and Mage Armor. Mage Armor is essentially a +1 Studded Leather Armor with no proficiency required, while Shield is +5 for the rest of the turn (essentially a +3 shield as a spell). If they did not exist, or were noticeably worse (perhaps 12+DEX for MA, +2 AC against one attack for Shield), it would be much harder to reach even non-shield Fighter levels of durability.

In short: Fighter has to think about their defenses much more and has to commit far more things to defenses than most characters (yes, of most classes, not just martials). Especially due to how they're structured, compared, say, to a Paladin, who can easily work with Longsword and shield and still output good damage due to smites and later Improved Divine Smite, as well as ignore most stats that aren't STR/CHA/some CON, or a Monk, who can cover all their bases with high DEX, WIS and also some CON. Maybe Mobile or Bracers of Defense on top of that, if you can swing it, but even without either - at higher levels they only improve rather than fall off, while Fighter is mostly dependent on magic items and major playstyle/visual style choices not inherent to the class.


People would object the fighter needed the paladin and artificer to make the saving throw. Buffs from party members are nice, but to some people they should be perks not necessities. They would resent the fighter needing the paladin and artificer to make the saving throw instead of making it by virtue of being a fighter.
Indeed, I personally would. If a class does not function well outside of a specific setup, there is a problem. Theoretically, you should be able to play the game well enough with any setup of non-repeating classes (and perhaps even repeating ones). Otherwise you reach PF2's levels of party synergy importance, where, say, an Alchemist, Oracle, ranged Rogue and Sorcerer are noticeably worse than, say, Fighter, melee Rogue, Cleric and Bard in dealing with most encounters.

[Psyren]

In my current game, only the druid would be able to cast Dispel Magic, but he's a moon druid so tough to do from Wildshape.

Hold Person requires concentration. Punch the caster in the face! (Also Lesser Restoration, Freedom of Movement, boosting their saves etc.)

[Telok]

Now, I have no idea what Fighter was in your group, but Fighters in general don't need to suck at Wis saves. This isn't just take Res: Wis, it's much more than that:

Dwarf battlemaster. Thing is, he (and the barby) got hit with not just the hold person wis saves that fight. There was a banishment (cha save - failed but the sorc high roll disentegrated the npc for almost half its hp) and one of those not-a-spell spell replacements that was an int save vs some dice of psy damage and a rider effect (lucky he was immune to that rider from a magic item). The AD&D thing where all saves got better as you leveled would have made a massive difference. As it is he was rocking low single digits versus dc 18 on all of those.

I can't complain, the sorc & warlock both have multiple save types available because almost nothing has all good saves. But it's hard on the warriors. Even for us & clerics running +4 to +6 con saves doesn't save anyone when facing dc 20 cold damage with a paralysis rider. Save dcs go up as level increases, save bonuses generally don't, been a real issue since 3e now.

[sithlordnergal]

Either wizards are undergraduates, with a broad base but no particular skill in anything OR they're PhDs, with deep specialization and claim to high power, but restrictions on their range.

Currently, people claim that they deserve or even require "all the spells" because they're masters of all magic and not being the absolute best spellcaster breaks their fiction. That doesn't sound much like someone who's just started their training. And in fact, if you're casting "the mightiest spell a mortal can cast" (wish, which says as much), you must be a master of magic. That doesn't smell like a dabbler to me. In fact, that sounds like an unobtainable--an omniglot who is simultaneously a deep specialist in every form of magic. Which just doesn't work (because it leaves little room for anyone else).

So choose. Either wizards get a wide range of spells...of 5th level or lower (undergraduate) OR they can specialize and learn those powerful spells...at the cost of a much narrower range.

Or (in the alternative), you could have a model where wizards start as generalists and then progressively specialize. Something like
T1: Wizards have a big broad list. While they may pick a focus[1], it's mostly just hey, you're slightly better at X.
T2: Wizards start focusing on one thing. Their 0-2 level spells stay wide open, but they pick one "theme" for their new 3-5 level spells. They can learn rituals from any theme in those levels, however.
T3: Wizards progress their main theme but branch out slightly--0-2 are still open choice, 3-5 can be from any two themes (plus rituals), and 7-8 are from their main theme.
T4: Ultimate specialization. Same as T3, but add 9th level spells from their main theme.

So a (making up themes, see note 1) diviner with a secondary in conjuration wouldn't get fireball at all. But someone who didn't specialize in transmutation would never get true polymorph. Effectively your (character, not class) spell list is a pyramid. Broad base of "undergraduate" spells, narrower layer of "masters level" spells, small layer of "PhD" spells, and a couple "postdoc" spells. But you wouldn't have the current model of being able to do simultaneous postdocs in every field.

And sorcerers don't understand anything at all. They have no concept of the deeper meaning behind the magic. For them, doing magic is about will (controlling the writhing power and shaping it into something useful by force of self) not understanding why it works. They're fundamentally jocks with superpowers. They didn't even go to college, or if they did, they majored in business, psychology, or something else equally useless. And were legacy admits. Bards went to college, but they majored in drama or music, with a second major in girls. Or boys. Or both, your pick.

----------

I'll note that I've been arguing "in the alternative", presenting a bunch of different (and mutually incompatible) possibilities for moving things forward.

[1] Personally, I think using schools of magic directly for this purpose is a horrible idea because they're not balanced against themselves at all, nor are they of equal thematic weight. Some are super broad (transmutation, evocation, conjuration) while others are super narrow (enchantment, necromancy). Which says that what D&Done is doing is a bad idea. Instead, there should be themes. Primary theme would be subclass, secondary theme would be something akin to a pact boon (a class feature you pick up at a higher level that grants access to another theme). Themes would have to blend the schools somewhat.

I suspect that wouldn't really work well, simply because people who play Wizards DO want to be able to cast any wizard spell they want. And while I know you do love themes, not everyone cares about themes as much. Personally, when I see a specific theme for a specific character type, I like to go out of my way to break that theme into a million pieces because screw theming, I'll do what I want. Always have, always will. The little blurb at the start about the class description, do what you want. If you wanna follow it, follow it, if you wanna toss it in the trash, toss it in the trash. Its part of why I have some odd multiclass combos that make zero sense theme, or even statblock, wise. Your suggestion kind of reminds me of the old 3.5 Wizard, where you could choose a school specialization, but you were unable to cast spells from two schools. You ended up with two things happening:

1) There was a very clear cut good and bad choice for school specialization.

2) You had a lot of players just not specializing because they wanted to be able to cast any school.

I can only think of a handful of 3.5 Wizards I ran into that chose a school specialization. Most opted to just have access to everything. Now, I know you don't think it should be based off of a specific school, but I still suspect there would be a lot of pushback if Wizards were suddenly restricted in how many spells they had. If only because people like playing masters of general magic. Like it or not, DnD Wizards have been depicted as that kind of master generalist, where even the wizards that have a pretty clear specialization can still say "Nah, fireball" whenever they like. And heck, once you get into high fantasy, you tend to find Wizards, or the Wizard stand-in, are all master generalists. Capable of slinging just about any spell they want.

[Tanarii]

Wasn't that too much, and/or a bit stepping on the monk's toes?
05R: Into the Unknown is a retro mod. Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard only. All modified.

But let's be clear here, 5e Monks are stepping on Fighter's toes. :smallamused:

Otoh prof to all saves for all classes would be appropriate. Saving is supposed to get easier as you level, even against tougher enemies. Not stay the same or get worse. (Says the grognard.)

[Dr.Samurai]

People would object the fighter needed the paladin and artificer to make the saving throw. Buffs from party members are nice, but to some people they should be perks not necessities. They would resent the fighter needing the paladin and artificer to make the saving throw instead of making it by virtue of being a fighter.
Yeah, I would be one of those people.

Designer: So wizards don't have high armor class, because they don't know how to use armor and they wear robes all the time like the stories.
Wizard Player: Makes sense...
Designer: But don't worry, because we're going to make a spell that everyone will chew off their left foot for. It's called Shield, and when you use it practically no one will be able to hit your AC.
Wizard Player: Awesome!!!
Designer: It's a 1st level spell so you have limited uses. It's for when you really want an attack to miss. Well, a bunch of attacks because it lasts a full round.
Wizard Player: Sweet!

Fighter Player: What about fighters?
Designer: Well, they have good AC (sort of lol) because they have heavy armor and can use shields. But their saves are not great, at least not anything other than Strength or Constitution.
Fighter Player: Weird, because warriors in stories are also quick on their feet and possess steel wills.
Designer: Yeah, it's more just how we handle ability scores and stuff, you just won't really be able to do it well is all.
Fighter Player: Ok so, what limited use feature do we have to make those really important saves when we need to?
Designer: Lol, no no. If you play the right race with the right subclass and grab the right feats and magic items, and play with the right party members, this won't be an issue. But no, you don't get any sort of Shield-like ability that takes your "weakness" and makes it better than other people's strengths for a turn. That's funny though. You should be a comedian.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I suspect that wouldn't really work well, simply because people who play Wizards DO want to be able to cast any wizard spell they want. And while I know you do love themes, not everyone cares about themes as much. Personally, when I see a specific theme for a specific character type, I like to go out of my way to break that theme into a million pieces because screw theming, I'll do what I want. Always have, always will. The little blurb at the start about the class description, do what you want. If you wanna follow it, follow it, if you wanna toss it in the trash, toss it in the trash. Its part of why I have some odd multiclass combos that make zero sense theme, or even statblock, wise. Your suggestion kind of reminds me of the old 3.5 Wizard, where you could choose a school specialization, but you were unable to cast spells from two schools. You ended up with two things happening:

1) There was a very clear cut good and bad choice for school specialization.

2) You had a lot of players just not specializing because they wanted to be able to cast any school.

I can only think of a handful of 3.5 Wizards I ran into that chose a school specialization. Most opted to just have access to everything. Now, I know you don't think it should be based off of a specific school, but I still suspect there would be a lot of pushback if Wizards were suddenly restricted in how many spells they had. If only because people like playing masters of general magic. Like it or not, DnD Wizards have been depicted as that kind of master generalist, where even the wizards that have a pretty clear specialization can still say "Nah, fireball" whenever they like. And heck, once you get into high fantasy, you tend to find Wizards, or the Wizard stand-in, are all master generalists. Capable of slinging just about any spell they want.

"I want all the power and you can't stop me" isn't exactly conducive to discussion. And it just reinforces my mentality that mostly, wizard players just want power. Specifically more power than anyone else. They want to break the game and lord it over everyone else that they're better. And frankly, that is a non-starter as far as I'm concerned. That kind of player isn't welcome at any table I'm interested in playing at.

The current wizard design is broken. It cannot coexist with the rest of the game. Leaving it in because some people want to lord it over everyone else that they're the most powerful is, in my mind, doing the game a disservice.

[Segev]

"I want all the power and you can't stop me" isn't exactly conducive to discussion. And it just reinforces my mentality that mostly, wizard players just want power. Specifically more power than anyone else. They want to break the game and lord it over everyone else that they're better. And frankly, that is a non-starter as far as I'm concerned. That kind of player isn't welcome at any table I'm interested in playing at.

The current wizard design is broken. It cannot coexist with the rest of the game. Leaving it in because some people want to lord it over everyone else that they're the most powerful is, in my mind, doing the game a disservice.

That's kind-of insulting, honestly, speaking as a wizard player. I am a power gamer, and I power game regardless of the class I'm playing, but I do not want "more power than anybody else." I am perfectly happy for everyone else to have world-shaping power. In fact, I'm happier that way.

[sithlordnergal]

"I want all the power and you can't stop me" isn't exactly conducive to discussion. And it just reinforces my mentality that mostly, wizard players just want power. Specifically more power than anyone else. They want to break the game and lord it over everyone else that they're better. And frankly, that is a non-starter as far as I'm concerned. That kind of player isn't welcome at any table I'm interested in playing at.

The current wizard design is broken. It cannot coexist with the rest of the game. Leaving it in because some people want to lord it over everyone else that they're the most powerful is, in my mind, doing the game a disservice.

I mean, ask people who play wizards why they want to play wizards. Usually the answer is "Because I want to cast cool spells", and I wouldn't call it a bad thing. Its less "I want all the power" and more "I want to be able to do a bunch of cool things with magic". Most wizard players also don't lord it over others, they want others to be powerful too. As for the current Wizard design, I agree that Wizards have too many "Wizard only spells". Most of those spells, like Simulacrum and such, should be Bard and Wizard spells. That said, I don't think its broken, and it easily coexists with the rest of the game. In your first post you put down a bunch of things that were supposedly Wizard exclusive...but outside of teleportation, they really aren't. Clerics are the only ones without flight, minionmancy can be done by just about everyone in some way or another, shenanigans are done by every spell caster. Saying "Wizards can't coexist with the rest of the game" is similar to saying "Druids can't coexist" or "Clerics can't coexist" because they get a ton of spells and actual class features on top of it all.

As for breaking the game...I mean, that's a different topic entirely, and is a player type. You're always going to have min/maxers, power gamers, and optimizers. Personally, I have a ton of fun pushing a system to its absolute limits via optimization. Did it in 3.5, did it in Star Wars SAGA, would have done it in other systems once I had gotten enough system mastery, and you can be sure I'll do it again in One DnD. Its how I have fun with the system, by optimizing and power gaming the system to the breaking point and beyond. Not because I want to lord over others, or have more power than anyone else, but because its just a ton of fun to analyze the hell out of abilities to get the most I can for whatever concept I'm optimizing. And then applying it all in an actual game.

And it can be done with or without magic. Wanna max out movement speed on a single turn? Your base setup is going to be Tabaxi Monk/Fighter/Barbarian with Mobile. Wanna make an optimized archer? Goblin Battlemaster/Rogue with Handcrossbow is the route I like to go. Max HP? You sure as heck aren't a spell caster, you're gonna be a Dwarf Barbarian with with Tough.

[Bobthewizard]

Either wizards are undergraduates, with a broad base but no particular skill in anything OR they're PhDs, with deep specialization and claim to high power, but restrictions on their range.

Maybe this isn't the best analogy then. Now instead of just breadth vs. depth, you've added overall power into the equation. Limiting the breadth caster doesn't seem to fit into DND equal leveling. For the PhD/undergrad analogy, an undergrad can know any one specific piece of advanced knowledge (the wish spell) but wouldn't know how to use it as well (lack of metamagic).

But maybe a better analogy than undergrad/PhD, since that involves a stepped progression from one to the other, would be a general contractor versus the subcontractors. A general contractor can do some plumbing, electrical work, or carpentry, but wouldn't be as good at each one as a specialized plumber, electrician, or carpenter. General contractors don't usually go on to specialize, but they can learn a lot about different trades.

So no matter their subclass, maybe picture wizards as the general contractor, and sorcerers as the specialists. A wizard can know some spells from the areas that sorcerers specialize in, but likely wouldn't cast them as well, and would know more from other specialties, which the sorcerer might not. So in D&D, they'd have a larger spell list, more preparations, and rituals, while the sorcerers have smaller lists, less preparations, but can cast their spells better (metamagic). I think a generalist wizard could still learn a powerful spell, they just can only cast it at its basic level, while a sorcerer should be able to do more with that spell.

I picture all wizards as generalists, with their subclass giving a slight focus, while I picture sorcerers as super specialists, with their subclass defining what they do. I like having both options at character creation.

[KorvinStarmast]

@Dr Samurai:
Change shield to +3 instead of +5 and some of these complaints will be muted.

[Dork_Forge]

Hard disagree. Some saves are different than others, and some classes/roles are different than others and impacted differently by their "weak" saves.

My personal preference is that the warrior classes have the steel will, as that's a trope, and it makes sense since they're actually fighting stuff up close and personal. Looking at a monster's slimy tentacles tipped with poisonous barbs while you cast spells from a distance is quite different to actually resisting it's slimy grasp while it tries to paralyze you with it's venom and pull you into its gaping maw. No reason the guy doing the former should have an iron will over the guy doing the latter.

I understand where you're coming from, but not only does that not matter in most encounters (no general sanity rolls for seeing messed up stuff), 5E works on a two save system. So, make those martials good at Wis and they'd balance on being bad at something physical which is even weirder.

When you look at things narratively, then PCs should have profs in a lot of saves, because narratively they'd have those things. But this isn't a narrative, it's a game.


My current fighter is a variant human Rune Knight using Standard Array. I did not take Resilient Wisdom with my bonus feat, but you said it's much more than doing that anyways. Let's see... I'm not a halfling or a gnome, and either of those would go against my two-handed weapon build so those are non-options. My v-human feat was used on Great Weapon Master. We used Standard Array and I dumped Dexterity. I think I have a +1 Wisdom modifier. Yay. We started at level 11 with no magic items. Team is my Rune Knight, a ranger, a monk, and a druid. Ooops, no paladin or artificer or bard, what were we thinking?!?!?!

Needless to say, I don't think the game assumes any of the things you've mentioned, and they certainly don't hold true for my current game.

I have no idea what level you are, but you're pitching in to a scenario of 14th level, so I'll assume that. So...

Feats: out of 6 opportunities you've chosen to not shore up a weak defense with an ASI in any form. That was your build choice.

Subclass: You apparently didn't take the Storm Rune, your choice, but again you can't complain about a poor defense when you chose to not reinforce it.

Party: Ignoring the fact that there are multiple subclasses for those classes that would help, every single one can hit stuff. So.... not seeing your point here really, other apparently 'I play in a group with low support capability.'

Race: I didn't want to trawl through the many, many races to make an exhaustive list, I thought it was clear I wasn't making an exhaustive list, so I'm confused why you treated it as one. Want GWM compatible races that would help your defenses? Yuan-Ti, Satyr, Hobgoblin (either version), Kalashtar, Vedalken. And this list doesn't even take into consideration any features that help protect you from specific conditions that rely on Wis saves, like Charmed, Frightened etc. And doesn't include turning invisible so you aren't targeted to begin with.

Your Wis defense doesn't sound good, but again, it was well within your power to make it a lot better than it is. You didn't do that, you benefitted from what you chose instead, so why shouldn't you have a weak Wis? Feels like a cake and eat it complaint.


In my current game, only the druid would be able to cast Dispel Magic, but he's a moon druid so tough to do from Wildshape.

And everyone is capable of damaging/killing the casters, and the problems at hand are concentration effects. I'm just going to throw this out there, but your party is particularly bad at these scenarios, I mean Dispel Magic is available to 8 out of 13 classes, and there are features that can help or achieve the same thing. That is entirely your party's choice... but not really a game problem.


The issue is that Dex saves deal damage and Str saves move you or grab you or knock you prone, but Will saves are much more impactful, to classes that are pretty one-dimensional in their approach to combat. It's lop-sided.

Both of those things are very important, so I disagree with the premise of that argument.


People would object the fighter needed the paladin and artificer to make the saving throw. Buffs from party members are nice, but to some people they should be perks not necessities. They would resent the fighter needing the paladin and artificer to make the saving throw instead of making it by virtue of being a fighter.

Good thing that you don't need anyone else to make that save. It just makes it easier, especially if you chose to build in a way that gives you a weak save.


Dwarf battlemaster. Thing is, he (and the barby) got hit with not just the hold person wis saves that fight. There was a banishment (cha save - failed but the sorc high roll disentegrated the npc for almost half its hp) and one of those not-a-spell spell replacements that was an int save vs some dice of psy damage and a rider effect (lucky he was immune to that rider from a magic item). The AD&D thing where all saves got better as you leveled would have made a massive difference. As it is he was rocking low single digits versus dc 18 on all of those.

Okay this isn't about the game, this is about your DM. You're facing multiple casters with a DC of 18, targeting weak saves, at level 14? That's encounter design, and it doesn't matter what your defense were, that kind of encounter will always target where you fall short. I throw stuff like this at my 14th level party, because they're fat with boons and items, and have the features to deal with it and help each other.

This just sounds like a table issue.


I can't complain, the sorc & warlock both have multiple save types available because almost nothing has all good saves. But it's hard on the warriors. Even for us & clerics running +4 to +6 con saves doesn't save anyone when facing dc 20 cold damage with a paralysis rider. Save dcs go up as level increases, save bonuses generally don't, been a real issue since 3e now.

Doesn't save... what? a +0 can still leave, a +4-6 is decent chance at what should be the highest DC you face for the majority of the game.

You already said it, no one has all good saves, and as a Fighter you have plenty of levers to pull to fix whatever save defense you want.

It's okay for PCs to have weaknesses, if you had good Wisdom saves then the DM would have just targeted something else. If you have an issue with difficulty, it 100% sounds like the encounters you're in.

[Dr.Samurai]

I understand where you're coming from, but not only does that not matter in most encounters (no general sanity rolls for seeing messed up stuff)
I'm not referring to sanity rolls though. It does matter in a narrative sense. The person willing to engage in full contact fisticuffs with eldritch horrors and demons and devils and other monsters, over and over and over again as they level through the game, should not be weak willed.

5E works on a two save system. So, make those martials good at Wis and they'd balance on being bad at something physical which is even weirder.
It would still "work" if they had a native way to boost their save or shore it up.

When you look at things narratively, then PCs should have profs in a lot of saves, because narratively they'd have those things. But this isn't a narrative, it's a game.
The game design is not arbitrary, so this distinction is pointless. There's a reason that the mechanics are the way they are, they are in fact informed by myth and fantasy and story, etc.

I have no idea what level you are, but you're pitching in to a scenario of 14th level, so I'll assume that. So...
Level 11.

Feats: out of 6 opportunities you've chosen to not shore up a weak defense with an ASI in any form. That was your build choice.
4 feats. So when you said "it's so much more than resilient wisdom" what you really meant was "if you don't take resilient wisdom, that's on you". Got it.

Subclass: You apparently didn't take the Storm Rune, your choice, but again you can't complain about a poor defense when you chose to not reinforce it.
This is grasping. I do in fact have the Storm Rune. It requires a bonus action to activate, and a reaction to use, on a subclass that is bonus action and reaction heavy. But yes, I'll make sure to prioritize activating the Storm Rune before all other things and then saving my Reaction just in case a will save comes my way. Definitely the way to use my abilities.

Party: Ignoring the fact that there are multiple subclasses for those classes that would help, every single one can hit stuff. So.... not seeing your point here really, other apparently 'I play in a group with low support capability.'
And I see your point clearly: Low wisdom saves don't matter on the fighter because your party can play very specific classes to alleviate that. And if they don't, then they can play very specific subclasses on other classes instead.

Yes, still a really bad point.

Race: I didn't want to trawl through the many, many races to make an exhaustive list, I thought it was clear I wasn't making an exhaustive list, so I'm confused why you treated it as one. Want GWM compatible races that would help your defenses? Yuan-Ti, Satyr, Hobgoblin (either version), Kalashtar, Vedalken. And this list doesn't even take into consideration any features that help protect you from specific conditions that rely on Wis saves, like Charmed, Frightened etc. And doesn't include turning invisible so you aren't targeted to begin with.
Don't be confused, my remarks aren't exhaustive either. I thought it was clear that people might want to choose their race based on roleplaying considerations, not to shore up a weakness. Not everyone creates their character focused solely on mechanics. As an example, none of the races you just listed interest me. Sure, you can say "tough on you then, eat your bad will save", but you're the one assuming specific builds and parties to make your point, an assumption that simply can't be born out all the time.

Your Wis defense doesn't sound good, but again, it was well within your power to make it a lot better than it is. You didn't do that, you benefitted from what you chose instead, so why shouldn't you have a weak Wis? Feels like a cake and eat it complaint.
Yes, and your solution sounds a lot like "Play this specific build with these predetermined choices and there's no problem at all".

And everyone is capable of damaging/killing the casters, and the problems at hand are concentration effects. I'm just going to throw this out there, but your party is particularly bad at these scenarios, I mean Dispel Magic is available to 8 out of 13 classes, and there are features that can help or achieve the same thing. That is entirely your party's choice... but not really a game problem.
I think you've veered off topic a bit. It's not a game problem if only one member of my party has Dispel Magic. It IS a game problem that wisdom saves can pretty much shut down a fighter or barbarian with little chance of avoiding it. I don't quite care that the druid can spend their action dispelling the magic.

Both of those things are very important, so I disagree with the premise of that argument.
Oh noes... the wizard is grappled and restrained by a tentacle because they failed their Strength save! Whatever will they do? Oh, just cast a spell like normal? Teleport away as a bonus action? Uh oh, the wizard failed a Dex save against damage, oh no! Too bad they cast Absorb Elements to half the damage anyways as if they passed!

Oh no, the fighter failed their Wisdom save vs Fear. They just tossed their weapon on the ground and Dashed away from the battle! Total action denial and more actions spent to get back in the fight once they recover.

These things are not the same. There should be a feature that lets them at least have a better shot sometimes against these effects, as opposed to always having less than 50/50 odds of making it.

[Dork_Forge]

I'm not referring to sanity rolls though. It does matter in a narrative sense. The person willing to engage in full contact fisticuffs with eldritch horrors and demons and devils and other monsters, over and over and over again as they level through the game, should not be weak willed.

Weak monsters are willing to fight the clearly more powerful demigod PCs to the death, should we give them strong Wis saves too? When you look at things this way, then it's very hard to not give everyone Wis saves.

And this just frames Wis saves as 'iron will' which is a narrative, you could also frame it as a trained defense of the mind, since it is a proficiency, not just gritting your teeth. Narratives can be framed many ways, trying to use it for this kind of argument doesn't really work.


It would still "work" if they had a native way to boost their save or shore it up.

Indomitable, 2 bonus ASIs, a subclass that straight gives you Wis save prof, other subclass abilities that can help... they do have ways to shore it up. Your issue is that those things often involve a choice, rather than being a default. I prefer having the choice to do those things, it's more flexible and fits more narratives.


The game design is not arbitrary, so this distinction is pointless. There's a reason that the mechanics are the way they are, they are in fact informed by myth and fantasy and story, etc.

Yes, the mechanics are meant to divy up classic tropes into different classes for us to play. Then you have to look at those classes and gamify them, your point of view is anyone that does melee should have Wis saves... that's not a way to design a game, and if most certainly an opinion.


Level 11.

Great, so you're even less likely to face what Telok did.


4 feats. So when you said "it's so much more than resilient wisdom" what you really meant was "if you don't take resilient wisdom, that's on you". Got it.

Nope, you could *gasp!* not have a low Wisdom, you could grab Shadow Touched to not be targetable, you could grab Lucky to get more chances to save, you could have done quite a few things with ASIs, but shoring up your Wisdom save clearly wasn't a priority of any kind.


This is grasping. I do in fact have the Storm Rune. It requires a bonus action to activate, and a reaction to use, on a subclass that is bonus action and reaction heavy. But yes, I'll make sure to prioritize activating the Storm Rune before all other things and then saving my Reaction just in case a will save comes my way. Definitely the way to use my abilities.

A bonus action to activate for an entire minute, for a flexible and powerful effect. This feels like complaining you have back problems because you have so much gold to carry around.

BUt come on, you're complaining about your chance to pass Wis saves, so this clearly matters to you, and then you complain about the notion of using one of your runes to help with that? Seriously?


And I see your point clearly: Low wisdom saves don't matter on the fighter because your party can play very specific classes to alleviate that. And if they don't, then they can play very specific subclasses on other classes instead.

Yes, still a really bad point.

...No. I know you've been reading my posts, because you've been replying to them, so please don't break them up into sections and then treat them in isolation.

Yes the party can help the Fighter and the Fighter can have solid Wis saves, that's the point. It's not impossible, it's rather easy and can be achieved through many different ways. This would only be a problem to me if they couldn't, or if they had few, incredibly niche ways of achieving it, but that isn't how the game is.


Don't be confused, my remarks aren't exhaustive either. I thought it was clear that people might want to choose their race based on roleplaying considerations, not to shore up a weakness. Not everyone creates their character focused solely on mechanics. As an example, none of the races you just listed interest me. Sure, you can say "tough on you then, eat your bad will save", but you're the one assuming specific builds and parties to make your point, an assumption that simply can't be born out all the time.

Yes, and your solution sounds a lot like "Play this specific build with these predetermined choices and there's no problem at all".

You're free to choose whatever race for whatever reasons you want. You seem to think, however, that you're entitled to build a character with weak Wis saves and then complain about that, despite all of the tools being available to do otherwise.

I don't. And before this gets tackled in isolation, I've already pointed to the numerous levers that can be pulled to resolve your issue, it isn't just race and/or Res: Wis.

Would you complain about not being able to cast spells if you built a Fighter with no access to them? It just doesn't make sense.


I think you've veered off topic a bit. It's not a game problem if only one member of my party has Dispel Magic. It IS a game problem that wisdom saves can pretty much shut down a fighter or barbarian with little chance of avoiding it. I don't quite care that the druid can spend their action dispelling the magic.

Then you have a problem with the affects of Wisdom saving throws, because that can happen to you regardless what your modifier is. And if that's your criticism, sure... but that's an entirely different problem.

If you don't want a party member to have to spend their turn helping you... then co-op play may not be for you?


Oh noes... the wizard is grappled and restrained by a tentacle because they failed their Strength save! Whatever will they do? Oh, just cast a spell like normal? Teleport away as a bonus action? Uh oh, the wizard failed a Dex save against damage, oh no! Too bad they cast Absorb Elements to half the damage anyways as if they passed!

Oh no, the fighter failed their Wisdom save vs Fear. They just tossed their weapon on the ground and Dashed away from the battle! Total action denial and more actions spent to get back in the fight once they recover.

These things are not the same. There should be a feature that lets them at least have a better shot sometimes against these effects, as opposed to always having less than 50/50 odds of making it.


Oh we're back to Shrodinger's Wizard again, wonderful.

So you just compared a Wizard that made spell choices to solve their problem, and had the resources and action economy available to use them, to a Fighter that neglected their Wis saves, rolled bad enough to fail, and for some reason had them drop their weapon when it's not part of the spell?

And if that Wizard didn't take Misty Step? Or was out of slots? Or had already used their reaction on Shield or something? Or that Absorb Elements-reduced damage didn't make them drop concentration or to 0HP?

You constructed a scenario and made choices for the involved PCs to highlight your point. That doesn't make it a good point, and you can easily just slide a Fighter with any degree of better defense... or just rolling well enough into that same circumstance.

Or heaven forbid this happens: they get grappled/restrained and then eaten! Where they are now blind and so significantly worse off for spellcasting.

Good thing no monsters are designed to restrain and then swallow you.

This is now touching on the fallacy that Strength saves don't matter, they're not as directly impactful, but if you fail a Strength save against a creature, it's likely put you in a position for things to go much worse, unlike other saves that typically directly affect you with the consequences on the save.

If you want Fighters to have Wis saves across the board so bad then ask your DM to swap your Con prof for it, or suck up the fact that you built a character with a weak defense.

[Frogreaver]

I'm not understanding this thread.

Playground: we all agree the wizard is quite a bit stronger than a fighter
Playground: i can't believe you would suggest the fighter gets better saves than the wizard. so unfair!

What am I missing?

[Segev]

I'm not understanding this thread.

Playground: we all agree the wizard is quite a bit stronger than a fighter
Playground: i can't believe you would suggest the fighter gets better saves than the wizard. so unfair!

What am I missing?

I haven't gotten the impression that the second blue line is actually what the consensus here is. Though I question whether that would be sufficient to solve the problem that people outline.

[Telok]

I'm not understanding this thread.

Playground: we all agree the wizard is quite a bit stronger than a fighter
Playground: i can't believe you would suggest the fighter gets better saves than the wizard. so unfair!

What am I missing?

Mostly there's a sentiment of "the game is perfrct except wizards are op and every issue is the dm/players being bad stupid babys". DM uses monsters out of the books that match the situation? Bad killer DM. Player didn't plan their level 1-20 build like the forum whiteroom theorists say would solve all problems? Bad stupid player. Table isn't totally overawed by 5es' perfection and havd issues with some mechanics? Bad people for not playing the one true way that makes everything perfect.

[Dork_Forge]

Mostly there's a sentiment of "the game is perfrct except wizards are op and every issue is the dm/players being bad stupid babys". DM uses monsters out of the books that match the situation? Bad killer DM. Player didn't plan their level 1-20 build like the forum whiteroom theorists say would solve all problems? Bad stupid player. Table isn't totally overawed by 5es' perfection and havd issues with some mechanics? Bad people for not playing the one true way that makes everything perfect.

And where did you get that impression from the thread?

[Psyren]

"My fighter might have to make a Wisdom save or need supportive teammates at some point by level 14" = "perfect play." Brilliant.

[Witty Username]

Ironically Int-based tomelock matches the fiction of the ritualist better than the wizard class does. Can actually know all the rituals for when time and opportunity allow, and has a smaller but personalizable and reliable bag of magical tricks for when you don't have time for a ritual.

The big catch is that to the degree that rituals are useful on a combat scale you just encourage buffs/summons/other spells that you can precast, while to the degree that they're narrative scale abilities they're more something that's worth a feat instead of defining your whole class. So wizard = ritualist only works if you remove "wizard" as a class and call it an in-game honorific for anyone who knows a lot of rituals and has good scores in their relevant casting skills.

Better ritual caster is part of the wizard identity but not all of it. Modifying ones list to the situation at hand is another. The emphasis on planning and decision making is fundamental to the wizard.

Warlock doesn't do that second half very well, because their optimal plays tend to devolve to eldritch blast spamming. and the small number of slots of all the highest level the warlock can cast tend to feel like the sledgehammer of spellcasting rather than the tool box.


"I want all the power and you can't stop me" isn't exactly conducive to discussion. And it just reinforces my mentality that mostly, wizard players just want power. Specifically more power than anyone else. They want to break the game and lord it over everyone else that they're better. And frankly, that is a non-starter as far as I'm concerned. That kind of player isn't welcome at any table I'm interested in playing at.

The current wizard design is broken. It cannot coexist with the rest of the game. Leaving it in because some people want to lord it over everyone else that they're the most powerful is, in my mind, doing the game a disservice.

Wizard players want the ability to feel smart. The theme of the wizard is the spellcaster that is most rewarded by planning and decision making. This means requiring a broad list of options.
Do I prepare fireball, hypnotic pattern or counterspell? doesn't work, when you list is only counterspell because you chose wrong at character creation.

There is a power fantasy of rewarded effort, wizard works under the assumption that dedication translates to greater power, which is partly why wizards get bonkers in T4. The "Master of every Jutsu" type is the level 20 fantasy of the wizard.

So, whatever we end up with we need a list broad enough to allow for the character to perform multiple functions (because of the structure of D&D this equates to party-roles) well enough to be effective and full casting (1-9). Because we are required to have sub-classes, specializations are required to exist but should have bonuses to particular roles and spell groups, but not restrict the wizard to those groups.
After all, what is required for a particular field is not necessarily going to fit into a neat spell grouping and customization options to a specific character is the norm for spell casters in 5e.

[Ignimortis]

Dwarf battlemaster. Thing is, he (and the barby) got hit with not just the hold person wis saves that fight. There was a banishment (cha save - failed but the sorc high roll disentegrated the npc for almost half its hp) and one of those not-a-spell spell replacements that was an int save vs some dice of psy damage and a rider effect (lucky he was immune to that rider from a magic item). The AD&D thing where all saves got better as you leveled would have made a massive difference. As it is he was rocking low single digits versus dc 18 on all of those.

I can't complain, the sorc & warlock both have multiple save types available because almost nothing has all good saves. But it's hard on the warriors. Even for us & clerics running +4 to +6 con saves doesn't save anyone when facing dc 20 cold damage with a paralysis rider. Save dcs go up as level increases, save bonuses generally don't, been a real issue since 3e now.
TBH, I haven't faced as much issues in 3e after lower levels. Your good saves grow quickly enough that with proper gear for your level (Resistance items are among the cheapest to max out, you can reasonably grab a +5 by early 10s) you are at +15-20 around the same time enemies throw maybe DC22-24 at you. Your bad saves are rather worse, true. 3e's issues are generally in the fact that it doesn't allow rerolls - you fail one save and you're stuck like that for the duration.



Wizard players want the ability to feel smart. The theme of the wizard is the spellcaster that is most rewarded by planning and decision making. This means requiring a broad list of options.
Do I prepare fireball, hypnotic pattern or counterspell? doesn't work, when you list is only counterspell because you chose wrong at character creation.

There is a power fantasy of rewarded effort, wizard works under the assumption that dedication translates to greater power, which is partly why wizards get bonkers in T4. The "Master of every Jutsu" type is the level 20 fantasy of the wizard.

Then none of it actually functions in 5e, because pseudoVancian casting of 5e removes any idea of that. You can easily prepare enough spells (level + INT mod) from your plentiful (4+level x2) list to just have most if not all things covered. You do not expend your only Fireball for the day when you cast Fireball, you have more 3rd level slots and can use them for Fireball, Counterspell or Hypnotic Pattern. You can prepare several level 7 spells and choose what to blow your single level 7 slot on during the day.

It is the power of "planning is rewarded" without any real planning involved 99% of the time. The class that actually has to make hard choices and then is barely rewarded for them is the Sorcerer. Wizard's casting is literally Sorcerer+, because they get more spells prepared than Sorcerer gets spells known, and get to change them every day, unlike Sorcerer, who gets to change one (1) per level-up. Meanwhile Sorcerer's only claim to fame is, basically, metamagic and an ECE-compliant sorcery point-spell slot exchange, which, frankly, does not even remotely match Wizard's upsides (ritual casting for free, generally better subclass features, flexibility day-to-day) unless you find some decent synergy (Twin+Haste is a common one) and abuse it to the exclusion of other tactics.

So if you want to keep that fantasy, 5e's way is not the way. Go back to real Vancian casting, which requires you to prepare spells one by one in a time-consuming process. Otherwise it's fake and gives you something for nothing.

[Dork_Forge]

Then none of it actually functions in 5e, because pseudoVancian casting of 5e removes any idea of that. You can easily prepare enough spells (level x2 + INT mod) from your plentiful (4+level x2) list to just have most if not all things covered. You do not expend your only Fireball for the day when you cast Fireball, you have more 3rd level slots and can use them for Fireball, Counterspell or Hypnotic Pattern. You can prepare several level 7 spells and choose what to blow your single level 7 slot on during the day.


A Wizard prepares level+Int spells per day, with a 20th level Wizard getting an additional 2 always prepared from Signature Spells. Otherwise, yeah, the whole pseudo vancian kind of casting doesn't really benefit any tropes, it just makes casters more flexible/powerful/easy to learn.

[Ignimortis]

A Wizard prepares level+Int spells per day, with a 20th level Wizard getting an additional 2 always prepared from Signature Spells. Otherwise, yeah, the whole pseudo vancian kind of casting doesn't really benefit any tropes, it just makes casters more flexible/powerful/easy to learn.

Bleh. Morning typo. Yeah, from 4 spells to 25 (27). Doesn't actually detract from my point.

[Witty Username]

I don't know about you, but I have had a frustrating time preparing my 3rd level spells as a wizard.

My current character has 4, 3rd level spells known (counterspell, hypnotic pattern, major image and sleet storm), as of now I have 10 preparations. So to prepare all of them I would have significant difficiencies with other spell levels. Generally, it has been either hypnotic pattern or sleet storm and major image. With counterspell being not often, as casters haven't come up much and 3rd level spell slots have been to valuable to 1 for 1 with.

[Ignimortis]

I don't know about you, but I have had a frustrating time preparing my 3rd level spells as a wizard.

My current character has 4, 3rd level spells known (counterspell, hypnotic pattern, major image and sleet storm), as of now I have 10 preparations. So to prepare all of them I would have significant difficiencies with other spell levels. Generally, it has been either hypnotic pattern or sleet storm and major image. With counterspell being not often, as casters haven't come up much and 3rd level spell slots have been to valuable to 1 for 1 with.
Major Image seems to be rather situational unless outside of a dungeoncrawl. Sleet Storm is also of limited use, since it generally covers too much space, and makes it hard for your own party (40-ft radius? that's like the whole room). Hypnotic Pattern is excellent, and Counterspell starts to shine when it's not your top slot, but it never hurts to have it prepared. I'd easily go with Major Image, Hypnotic Pattern and Counterspell for general use, perhaps saving Sleet Storm for days when I know there will be long-range encounters in which creating a 80-ft wide circle of slippery diff terrain and heavy obscurement (effectively blinding everyone within) isn't going to destroy my own party's ability to do things.

That being said, are you actually getting much use out of Sleet Storm? If yes, how do you do it, what are the encounters and the party setup? From my perspective, the best use for that spell is probably "drop it behind you when running away, now they can't shoot you in the back and can't chase effectively".

[Goobahfish]

@Goobahfish
I don't like wizardry as a sorcerer subset, as that effectively removes int casting from the game.

Then again I personally don't understand why we have 3 cha casters, and 1 int caster in the first place. And personally thing warlock delivers better on the themes of the sorcerer. So bias.

I think I meant something slightly different. I guess what I'd like to say is that base sorcerer + every subclasses extra spells should exceed the wizard list (at least in theory). Divine Soul is a good example of Sorcerer spells > Wizard spells.

That said, I've been thinking about this quite a bit and the more I think about it the more dissatisfied I am with it.

Some context:

In my game, I accepted that 'insufferable know-it-all' would be an archetype. However, I started from the basis that magic (of the arcane variety) would stem from specialisation primarily. I.e., there are dozens of schools of magic (fire, water, light, bone, blood etc.). As a skill-based system you can mix and match them and the game works out the particulars of warrior-mages quite smoothly.

Book-wizards (i.e., wizards that cast from a ritual book) can play normally, but must be carrying their book (inconvenient) and the mana cost of said spells is increased (enough to be a nerf). There are some 'signature spell' like talents which let you have a dynamic set of 'top of mind' spells (i.e., no book needed, no extra casting cost) but that is the broad dynamic. The book-caster can take from any magic list, but ultimately they are paying a penalty to do so. This all assumes that being a 'everything wizard' is its own form of specialisation. Sort of if it were a subclass of wizard. No extra divination/illusion stuff. Just... all the spells.

Cue 5e.

It just doesn't work. The idea that an Illusionist casts fireballs is pretty mental. That isn't an illusionist. That isn't what anyone (outside of D&D) really thinks when they hear that term. Instead, it is a 'illusion major' for a 'general magic degree'. That is what 5e offers. The problem is that the 'general magic degree' infects the balance of every other corresponding class (artificer, sorcerer, warlock and even druid and cleric a bit). So that is where the baseline balance of the game resides.

Because we have this 'wizards get arcane spells' logic, we can only make other classes 'better' at casting spells (rather than meaningfully penalizing wizards) if we want to overcome the balance issues. But then, because book wizard isn't even a specialisation (we have to have them on top of being a wizard) we're already setting the balance point ridiculously high. All the spells + specialisation = normal.

So let's assume we scaled that back. The base wizard list is small and the 'specialisation' extends that list. Well, what goes on that 'universal wizard list?'. Does Haste? Fireball? Fly? Invisibility? All of these spells are D&D icons and so of course the wizard gets them. Then what is on these specialised lists that makes them better/different? Are the spells just all poorly balanced? Is that baked in? At this point, it is already over because the wizard is probably going to get most of the good utility spells and then we're basically done.

Well, the alternative is that sorcerer needs a buff. But what kind? Extra spells per day is pretty useless given the 'default play of 5e' (more slots isn't actually that useful). Metamagic seems to be that bridge (as in a unified sorcerer buff). Other than that there is subclasses, but unless they markedly increase the number of subclass ribbons, sorcerer is never going to feel on-par with the wizard because it has neither the 'brute force' (more spell slots), nor the 'flexibility' (coz vancian was nixed) nor the versality (by design). Perhaps reducing the number of prepared spells for casters by some amount (i.e. ability + max spell level) might go some way to making the sorcerer have a meaningful spot. Otherwise the only real incentive seems to be narrative rather than mechanical (i.e. the sorcerer doesn't really feel like anything special).

This just leaves sorcerer as the 'metamagic minor buff' class. There are some interesting combos here to be sure. However, metamagic doesn't jump out at me as being the 'sorcerer archetype'. As mentioned by quite a few, the 'archetype' matches the tinkering wizard more than the 'innate' sorcerer. The sorcerer I would have thought got more feat-like abilities which just provide passive buffs making it more suitable for champion casters (which was where it was positioned in 3e).

So... I'm not actually convinced it is 'fixable' in any real sense, at least not following many of the 5e 'expectations'.

[Segev]

Er, "enter 5e?" Illusionists have cast fireball for all of D&D. I believe it was not one they lost in the specialization way back in 1e, though I could be wrong. In 2e, Evocation was not necessarily a school they gave up, neither was it in 3e.


The 5e illusionist has a lot of reason to focus on illusions once he hits level 6+. The fact he can cast fireball doesn't really detract from that.