What spells do you consider useless?

[zlefin]

Exactly. In CAW influencing the eventual tactical setup (learning that the archmage likes Counterspell, preparing countermeasures, expecting the archmage to have surprises, preparing what you hope are better and more appropriate surprises) is key to the whole adventure. In CAS it's just something that the DM picks for you.

Note the purple text. If you like CAS it's fine, but I only like CAS for CRPGs. I play TTRPGs for the Combat As War, which is impossible in CRPGs.

Why do you think combat as war is impossible in crpgs? While rare, it doesn't seem like it should be impossible, and there should be some niche games at least which feature it. Though they may not have quite as vast the level of flexibility you'd like, there should be more than enough room to have them be combat as war.

[Yora]

But does anyone have any spells you consider to be useless in most situations?

[Asisreo1]

My experience is that (single) liches don't live that long against a good party. Action economy makes them pretty squishy.

Depends on the context. If the Lich's Phylactery is known to be safe, the lich doesn't need to preserve his life as much since he knows he'll return.

As has been pointed out: won't work. Also the hp of a lich you encounter at least than 120 feet (there's a couple of those in the pre-written campaigns) just isn't up for that long a plan.

It could work. Perfectly viable plan. You can't be rigid with it, though. Sometimes, you'll need to improvise. If the Barbarian makes it to you on the first turn, hit him with Plane Shift. If the Wizard is being extraordinarily meddlesome, cast Disintegrate while remaining tethered to him. If the Cleric seems to be forcing turning you way too much and you're getting nervous, cast invisibility on yourself. The cool thing about being a lich is you can stay invisible while using lair actions to put serious hurt on the party from hiding.

[Skylivedk]

Eh, simulationism I can take or leave as long as I have a basic idea of how to rule on the results of attempted action within the abstracted rules framework. For the specific example of 5e it provides ability checks and DCs* and damage ranges and a bunch of other stuff in the DMG.

Open-world sandboxing isn't necessary but it does mean the DM is either predetermining to put a bunch of out of power band threats in the PCs way intentionally ... or making encounter tables that result in it. Because like I said, the only precondition for CaW instead of CaS is no reasonable guarantee you can win any fight in between you and your goal.

*although I think the provided DCs are too high. Even if you assume proficiency.

Your definition of CaW seems to be pretty much mine. I don't presume perfect information in CaW games, I just strive for it way more exactly because not knowing it's a quick way to learn what death is all about.

Depends on the context. If the Lich's Phylactery is known to be safe, the lich doesn't need to preserve his life as much since he knows he'll return.

It could work. Perfectly viable plan. You can't be rigid with it, though. Sometimes, you'll need to improvise. If the Barbarian makes it to you on the first turn, hit him with Plane Shift. If the Wizard is being extraordinarily meddlesome, cast Disintegrate while remaining tethered to him. If the Cleric seems to be forcing turning you way too much and you're getting nervous, cast invisibility on yourself. The cool thing about being a lich is you can stay invisible while using lair actions to put serious hurt on the party from hiding.

I was thinking for the encounter. Not so much the phylactery. And I can see I wrote least instead of less. Anyway, Invisibility won't save a lich. It can still be targeted, grappled and pounded to bone dust. Unfortunately, my main DM is not super strong at playing high level casters (he loves psychic scream though), but I'd also say the printed adventures are not doing him any favours. Most high level casters in the pre-written seem to NBA players with the idiot ball ;)

[MaxWilson]

I might be off-base on this, but wouldn't most DMs that are capable of effectively simulating enemy forces of varying competency be able and willing to change up monster stat blocks without much hassle? Like, a crucial part of any CAW encounter setup is going to be "your enemies are not stat blocks, they are living creatures that would prefer for you to no longer be a living creature". Changing up spell lists, giving monsters nonstandard equipment and skills, designing custom monsters to fill certain logical niches, etc.

I may be misinterpreting your point, but I get the feeling that people who are disappointed by the Archmage not getting X spell aren't going to let the stat block stop them.

My original gripe in this thread is that WotC writes dumb archmages and uses them disrespectfully as combat speedbumps instead of intelligent, veteran NPCs. Discussion of CAW arose as an alternative to how WotC is currently doing it.

You're correct that an experienced DM of any flavor has no real need for WotC adventure modules or WotC stat blocks, but (1) the issues go much deeper than swapping out one spell, they go to fundamental questions like how much of the adventure is structured around acquiring clues and what the consequences are allowed to be for players who are underprepared and fail, (2) the kids would say "Oberoni Fallacy" here but I'll just say "I never said I use WotC's crummy adventures, I'm explaining why I typically don't."

Why do you think combat as war is impossible in crpgs? While rare, it doesn't seem like it should be impossible, and there should be some niche games at least which feature it. Though they may not have quite as vast the level of flexibility you'd like, there should be more than enough room to have them be combat as war.

Mmmmmm. You make me suspect I just haven't thought about it enough.

What I had in mind when I wrote that originally is that I know exactly how to CRPGize the way I'd CAS a WotC adventure like Out of the Abyss, Rise of Tiamat, or Dungeons of a Mad Mage, but I don't know how to CRPGize the way I'd TTRPG one of my sandboxy CAS adventures or pre-program options for all the solutions that players wound up attempting--but that might have more to do with sandboxing than CAW. You're probably right that there are at least some aspects of CAW that can be CRPGed just by having really tough fights that can be made easier if you think strategically (divide and conquer, recon, recruiting allies).

Unfortunately, my main DM is not super strong at playing high level casters (he loves psychic scream though), but I'd also say the printed adventures are not doing him any favours. Most high level casters in the pre-written seem to NBA players with the idiot ball ;)

That description reminds me of the way Ed Greenwood writes Phaerimm archmages, or used to back in the 90's at least. Five-thousand-year-old archmages as bumbling short-lived mooks, really?

In contrast I looove the way Edward Keyes writes Korel the Necromancer and Rary the Traitor. http://www.edkeyes.org/fiction/

[AdAstra]

But does anyone have any spells you consider to be useless in most situations?

Not necessarily useless, but Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm is worse than Shatter in pretty much every way except for the save it uses. Less damage, much smaller area, more commonly resisted damage type. By the time you’re in a situation where you can and really need to consider monster saves, you’ve got Fireball, Vitriolic Sphere, etc.

[Telok]

But does anyone have any spells you consider to be useless in most situations?

With certain DMs (usually the newer ones): all forms of concealment/diatraction illusions other than invisibility and mirror image, all information gathering divinations other than detect magic and true seeing.

But thats more there being no good advice in the books on how to handle vaguely worded spells than the spells themselves.

[J-H]

Not necessarily useless, but Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm is worse than Shatter in pretty much every way except for the save it uses. Less damage, much smaller area, more commonly resisted damage type. By the time you’re in a situation where you can and really need to consider monster saves, you’ve got Fireball, Vitriolic Sphere, etc.

Wow, yes. Using average damage, even for a cold-themed draconic sorcerer, a +3 CHA mod to damage only makes it even with Shatter.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Wow, yes. Using average damage, even for a cold-themed draconic sorcerer, a +3 CHA mod to damage only makes it even with Shatter.

I was going to defend Snowball Swarm as not-totally-useless precisely for a cold-themed blaster Draconic Sorcerer, but then I thought: would I really take it, even then? Even if I also had Elemental Adept (Cold)? Probably not. If it had a 10 ft. radius like Shatter, then it'd be worth having until 7th or 8th level, but as-is it's just too bad a spell. On the other hand, Ice Storm would be okay for such a character, being more on-theme than Fireball and doing comparable damage w/ a little BFC thrown in.

[Tanarii]

Snowball swarm has an extra 30ft of range, and is a Dex save instead of Con. That's potentially a 20% extra chance to do full damage against e.g. 2 Ogres pounding on your Fighter.

There's also times where the reduced AoE size might make avoiding friendly fire easier. Not as many as it would help you catch an extra target of course,

[Luccan]

Snowball swarm has an extra 30ft of range, and is a Dex save instead of Con. That's potentially a 20% extra chance to do full damage against e.g. 2 Ogres pounding on your Fighter.

There's also times where the reduced AoE size might make avoiding friendly fire easier. Not as many as it would help you catch an extra target of course,

Problem is, there are Metamagics that basically cover all of that (making saves harder, distance, partially protecting allies). I mean, you probably don't want to take all three of them, but still. Meanwhile, an evoker can just declare the fighter safe.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Snowball swarm has an extra 30ft of range, and is a Dex save instead of Con. That's potentially a 20% extra chance to do full damage against e.g. 2 Ogres pounding on your Fighter.

There's also times where the reduced AoE size might make avoiding friendly fire easier. Not as many as it would help you catch an extra target of course,

The extra range is nice, but the better targeted save only partially makes up for lost damage, even against high-Con, low-Dex targets like Ogres. Even with a save DC of 12, you're looking at an average of 8.4 damage per Ogre with Snowball Swarm, versus 9.45 with Shatter. The higher the save DC, the better Shatter is by comparison. Even against Ogre Zombies, which have an extra 30% chance of failing a Dex save relative to an equal DC Con save, you're better off with Shatter (by about half a point of damage per target) even with a save DC of 12. In either case you're using the wrong tool for the job anyways, but you might as well use the slightly less ineffective tool.

[Chronos]

Also note that avoiding friendly fire is really easy with big enemies like ogres. Just put the area of effect above the friendlies' heads. And in fact, if you're doing this, it's actually easier to avoid friendly fire with a large area of effect than with a small one, because the surface is flatter.

[Tanarii]

My mistake. Clearly I shouldn't have looked at where it's better and chimed in, and I deserve to be a snowball in hell.