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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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. 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?

High level play really is a different breed of cat.

Druids, rule the world.

Great post. I cackled.

[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.