Beginning at 2nd level, you can create pockets of relative safety within the effects of your evocation spells. When you cast an evocation spell that affects other creatures that you can see, you can choose a number of them equal to 1 + the spell’s level. The chosen creatures automatically succeed on their saving throws against the spell, and they take no damage if they would normally take half damage on a successful save.
So a level 5 evocation wizard can launch a fireball straight at the party and reduce the damage taken to 4 friendly creatures to zero?
Overchannel
Starting at 14th level, you can increase the power of your simpler spells. When you cast a wizard spell of 1st through 5th level that deals damage, you can deal maximum damage with that spell.
The first time you do so, you suffer no adverse effect. If you use this feature again before you finish a long rest, you take 2d12 necrotic damage for each level of the spell, immediately after you cast it. Each time you use this feature again before finishing a long rest, the necrotic damage per spell level increases by 1d12. This damage ignores resistance and immunity.
Then at the 14th level, they can launch a 5th level fireball at the party and deal 60 points of fire damage to all creatures except 6 friendlies (assuming the hostiles fail the save)
If playing a blaster mage, its the perfect arcane tradition. You don’t have to worry about friendly fire, your cantrips become way better, and the final ability boosts your ability to nuke the battlefield, but you do take damage. Though paired with a healing specialized character, like a life domain cleric, that necrotic damage is nothing.
But if you want to be a controller, I suggest divination wizard. Portent is just too good when the enemies need to make saving throws against your control spells, especially when paired with the Lucky feat.
It's pretty over powered. But what I really don't like about it is that it take away strategy from combat, you don't have to take position into account, there is no decision to make to hit your ally but also hit enemies. So on top of being over powered its also boring.
That being said, I'm in a game that has 4 melee characters and me as a wizard. We are level 1 but I'm really considering it just because the wizard will be our only aoe, and with that many people in melee I'm thinking that not going evocation and just burning my party regularly would be the selfish option.
You could try to be a controller, and having the other 4 dealing most of the damage. It would be beneficial to the party, so you could buff/debuff and control with spells like grease and tasha’s hideous laughter. You could also take some AOE spells like fireball and ice knife.
Here are some videos that can help you balance what spells you should take.
Beginning at 2nd level, you can create pockets of relative safety within the effects of your evocation spells. When you cast an evocation spell that affects other creatures that you can see, you can choose a number of them equal to 1 + the spell’s level. The chosen creatures automatically succeed on their saving throws against the spell, and they take no damage if they would normally take half damage on a successful save.
So a level 5 evocation wizard can launch a fireball straight at the party and reduce the damage taken to 4 friendly creatures to zero?
Overchannel
Starting at 14th level, you can increase the power of your simpler spells. When you cast a wizard spell of 1st through 5th level that deals damage, you can deal maximum damage with that spell.
The first time you do so, you suffer no adverse effect. If you use this feature again before you finish a long rest, you take 2d12 necrotic damage for each level of the spell, immediately after you cast it. Each time you use this feature again before finishing a long rest, the necrotic damage per spell level increases by 1d12. This damage ignores resistance and immunity.
Then at the 14th level, they can launch a 5th level fireball at the party and deal 60 points of fire damage to all creatures except 6 friendlies (assuming the hostiles fail the save)
Well, a 5th level fireball does 10d6 damage, which is an average of 35. Some of your enemies will save vs Dex and it’ll only do around 17. Maybe some will be resistant and it’ll do 8. Others might be immune.
Your average Adult Black Dragon will save 40% of the time, reducing damage to an average of 27.8 damage. At 195hp, it’ll take 7 level 5 fireballs to finish it off. Even with overchannel that’s 48 damage one time (on average).
I don’t think that’s overpowered at all - Evocation makes you a minion-killing Specialist, but it doesn’t create any crazy OP imbalances in my opinion.
You are correct. But this is not OP. There are much more powerful abilities and spells not just for your wizards but also for the enemies. There are low-CR creatures that can instant-kill PCs. You need things that can balance that, and features like this are that balance. Also, the true deciding factor of balance is the DM, who can send any monster they need, in any quantity they want, with any powers and abilities they want and equipped with any amount of magic items of any rarity. There is absolutely nothing your wizard can do that a DM cannot handle with immense ease. There are various creatures capable of shutting down any fireball happy wizard. All the fireballs in the world won't help solve that puzzle, or remove that curse affecting the land, or stop that ancient red dragon, and your spells are useless against antimagic fields from mage slayers, beholders or astral dreadnoughts. You could have infinite free use of overchannelling with unlimited 5th level slots: still amounts to nothing against a Rakshasa who will be completely immune to the spell.
They're good for blasting a few minions, sure, so definitely useful in combat but beyond that the Evoker's subclass features are limited and not even remotely close to being "OP".
If playing a blaster mage, its the perfect arcane tradition. You don’t have to worry about friendly fire, your cantrips become way better, and the final ability boosts your ability to nuke the battlefield, but you do take damage. Though paired with a healing specialized character, like a life domain cleric, that necrotic damage is nothing.
What nonsense is this?
Overchannel can be used once without damage, if you use it again before long-resting you take 2d12 per level of spell so a 5th level spell is 10d12, which could be enough to instant-KO the wizard. Even with a life cleric you'll be hard pressed to want to use it multiple times, and when you do it'll be for low level spells only to avoid risking instantly downing your character who may also still get damage from enemies as well...
It's good, but the idea they can keep using their Overchannel multiple times is just asinine, even with a life cleric. They get it once, free, and need to be careful after that. To say it's "nothing" is laughable.
Well, a 5th level fireball does 10d6 damage, which is an average of 35. Some of your enemies will save vs Dex and it’ll only do around 17. Maybe some will be resistant and it’ll do 8. Others might be immune.
Your average Adult Black Dragon will save 40% of the time, reducing damage to an average of 27.8 damage. At 195hp, it’ll take 7 level 5 fireballs to finish it off. Even with overchannel that’s 48 damage one time (on average).
I don’t think that’s overpowered at all - Evocation makes you a minion-killing Specialist, but it doesn’t create any crazy OP imbalances in my opinion.
I don't understand why you're bringing in averages? They're talking about overchannel. It maxes the dice. So 5th level fireball, 10d6+5 (from empowered evocation), will do 65 damage to those that fail the save, and 32 to those that succeed.
A 14th level Wizard, assuming 20 in Int, will have a Save DC of 18. The Adult Black Dragon has a +7 Dex save. This means it needs to get 11 or higher to succeed, which on a d20 is a 50% chance.
Since you are only going to overchannel at 5th level once, there's a 50% chance of doing either 65 or 32 damage. After that you start thinking of averages but a 14th level wizard does have a 7th level, 6th level, etc slots. But then we're talking any normal wizard with fireball, not specifically an evoker.
I agree with your point, your math is just weird. But yes, it's a nice solid 65 or 32 damage to a cluster of minions.
====
Evoker is a nice blaster for taking out minions without hurting allies. But there's nothing OP about that. And outside of battle the subclass is utterly useless. And while it is nifty in combat mechanics, it's otherwise utterly flavourless. You do a bit extra damage and don't have to be quite as careful in targeting. That's it. That's the whole subclass. Useful, but boring in my opinion.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
You are correct. But this is not OP. There are much more powerful abilities and spells not just for your wizards but also for the enemies. There are low-CR creatures that can instant-kill PCs. You need things that can balance that, and features like this are that balance. Also, the true deciding factor of balance is the DM, who can send any monster they need, in any quantity they want, with any powers and abilities they want and equipped with any amount of magic items of any rarity. There is absolutely nothing your wizard can do that a DM cannot handle with immense ease. There are various creatures capable of shutting down any fireball happy wizard. All the fireballs in the world won't help solve that puzzle, or remove that curse affecting the land, or stop that ancient red dragon, and your spells are useless against antimagic fields from mage slayers, beholders or astral dreadnoughts. You could have infinite free use of overchannelling with unlimited 5th level slots: still amounts to nothing against a Rakshasa who will be completely immune to the spell.
They're good for blasting a few minions, sure, so definitely useful in combat but beyond that the Evoker's subclass features are limited and not even remotely close to being "OP".
If playing a blaster mage, its the perfect arcane tradition. You don’t have to worry about friendly fire, your cantrips become way better, and the final ability boosts your ability to nuke the battlefield, but you do take damage. Though paired with a healing specialized character, like a life domain cleric, that necrotic damage is nothing.
What nonsense is this?
Overchannel can be used once without damage, if you use it again before long-resting you take 2d12 per level of spell so a 5th level spell is 10d12, which could be enough to instant-KO the wizard. Even with a life cleric you'll be hard pressed to want to use it multiple times, and when you do it'll be for low level spells only to avoid risking instantly downing your character who may also still get damage from enemies as well...
It's good, but the idea they can keep using their Overchannel multiple times is just asinine, even with a life cleric. They get it once, free, and need to be careful after that. To say it's "nothing" is laughable.
Well, a 5th level fireball does 10d6 damage, which is an average of 35. Some of your enemies will save vs Dex and it’ll only do around 17. Maybe some will be resistant and it’ll do 8. Others might be immune.
Your average Adult Black Dragon will save 40% of the time, reducing damage to an average of 27.8 damage. At 195hp, it’ll take 7 level 5 fireballs to finish it off. Even with overchannel that’s 48 damage one time (on average).
I don’t think that’s overpowered at all - Evocation makes you a minion-killing Specialist, but it doesn’t create any crazy OP imbalances in my opinion.
I don't understand why you're bringing in averages? They're talking about overchannel. It maxes the dice. So 5th level fireball, 10d6+5 (from empowered evocation), will do 65 damage to those that fail the save, and 32 to those that succeed.
A 14th level Wizard, assuming 20 in Int, will have a Save DC of 18. The Adult Black Dragon has a +7 Dex save. This means it needs to get 11 or higher to succeed, which on a d20 is a 50% chance.
Since you are only going to overchannel at 5th level once, there's a 50% chance of doing either 65 or 32 damage. After that you start thinking of averages but a 14th level wizard does have a 7th level, 6th level, etc slots. But then we're talking any normal wizard with fireball, not specifically an evoker.
I agree with your point, your math is just weird. But yes, it's a nice solid 65 or 32 damage to a cluster of minions.
====
Evoker is a nice blaster for taking out minions without hurting allies. But there's nothing OP about that. And outside of battle the subclass is utterly useless. And while it is nifty in combat mechanics, it's otherwise utterly flavourless. You do a bit extra damage and don't have to be quite as careful in targeting. That's it. That's the whole subclass. Useful, but boring in my opinion.
The math isn’t weird, I just didn’t show my work. I assumed 20 Spell DC (I assumed someone had +2 DC in magic items), and calculated the saves based on the chance of a save vs not a save.
I also didn’t include the Int mod, but yes 65 if the Dragon rolls 12 or less (60% of the time) vs 32 damage 40% of the time. So 0.6x65 + 0.4x32 = 39 + 12.8 = 51.8 average damage with Overchannel. That’s why I used averages (though I missed the Int mod).
And you are not going to use Overchannel many times with a level 14 Evoker vs a Dragon, no matter how much Con you have. Even at 16 Con, a Level 14 Wizard will have an average of 58 + (3x14) = 100 HP.
The second time you Overchannel a 5th level spel you’re taking at least 10d12 (Ave 65 dmg). The second time you’re taking 15d12 (Ave 97.5 dmg)
The math isn’t weird, I just didn’t show my work. I assumed 20 Spell DC (I assumed someone had +2 DC in magic items), and calculated the saves based on the chance of a save vs not a save.
I also didn’t include the Int mod, but yes 65 if the Dragon rolls 12 or less (60% of the time) vs 32 damage 40% of the time. So 0.6x65 + 0.4x32 = 39 + 12.8 = 51.8 average damage with Overchannel. That’s why I used averages (though I missed the Int mod).
And you are not going to use Overchannel many times with a level 10 Evoker vs a Dragon, no matter how much Con you have. Even at 16 Con, a Level 10 Wizard will have an average of 42 + (3x10) = 72 HP.
The second time you Overchannel a 5th level spel you’re taking at least 10d12 (Ave 65 dmg). The second time you’re taking 15d12 (Ave 97.5 dmg)
The math isn’t weird, I just didn’t show my work. I assumed 20 Spell DC (I assumed someone had +2 DC in magic items), and calculated the saves based on the chance of a save vs not a save.
I also didn’t include the Int mod, but yes 65 if the Dragon rolls 12 or less (60% of the time) vs 32 damage 40% of the time. So 0.6x65 + 0.4x32 = 39 + 12.8 = 51.8 average damage with Overchannel. That’s why I used averages (though I missed the Int mod).
And you are not going to use Overchannel many times with a level 10 Evoker vs a Dragon, no matter how much Con you have. Even at 16 Con, a Level 10 Wizard will have an average of 42 + (3x10) = 72 HP.
The second time you Overchannel a 5th level spel you’re taking at least 10d12 (Ave 65 dmg). The second time you’re taking 15d12 (Ave 97.5 dmg)
It's powerful, but in a one-note kind of way. Dealing damage is (counterintuitively) not the best contribution most Wizards can make to combat. Because creatures are exactly as powerful no matter their HP - so long as said HP is above 0 - it is usually better to do crowd control than to whittle down HP. Obviously there are many problems best fixed by a Fireball, and dealing damage is not nothing. But the power of the subclass is balanced by its lesser versatility compared to some of the others.
Also, Potent Cantrip is pretty lame.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So a level 5 evocation wizard can launch a fireball straight at the party and reduce the damage taken to 4 friendly creatures to zero?
Then at the 14th level, they can launch a 5th level fireball at the party and deal 60 points of fire damage to all creatures except 6 friendlies (assuming the hostiles fail the save)
If playing a blaster mage, its the perfect arcane tradition. You don’t have to worry about friendly fire, your cantrips become way better, and the final ability boosts your ability to nuke the battlefield, but you do take damage. Though paired with a healing specialized character, like a life domain cleric, that necrotic damage is nothing.
But if you want to be a controller, I suggest divination wizard. Portent is just too good when the enemies need to make saving throws against your control spells, especially when paired with the Lucky feat.
It's pretty over powered. But what I really don't like about it is that it take away strategy from combat, you don't have to take position into account, there is no decision to make to hit your ally but also hit enemies. So on top of being over powered its also boring.
That being said, I'm in a game that has 4 melee characters and me as a wizard. We are level 1 but I'm really considering it just because the wizard will be our only aoe, and with that many people in melee I'm thinking that not going evocation and just burning my party regularly would be the selfish option.
You could try to be a controller, and having the other 4 dealing most of the damage. It would be beneficial to the party, so you could buff/debuff and control with spells like grease and tasha’s hideous laughter. You could also take some AOE spells like fireball and ice knife.
Here are some videos that can help you balance what spells you should take.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U5T6TBuXCoM
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OCAXGSm4KzE
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AYz-JR486us
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nWYxDmtBnuc
Well, a 5th level fireball does 10d6 damage, which is an average of 35. Some of your enemies will save vs Dex and it’ll only do around 17. Maybe some will be resistant and it’ll do 8. Others might be immune.
Your average Adult Black Dragon will save 40% of the time, reducing damage to an average of 27.8 damage. At 195hp, it’ll take 7 level 5 fireballs to finish it off. Even with overchannel that’s 48 damage one time (on average).
I don’t think that’s overpowered at all - Evocation makes you a minion-killing Specialist, but it doesn’t create any crazy OP imbalances in my opinion.
Cporter5
You are correct. But this is not OP. There are much more powerful abilities and spells not just for your wizards but also for the enemies. There are low-CR creatures that can instant-kill PCs. You need things that can balance that, and features like this are that balance. Also, the true deciding factor of balance is the DM, who can send any monster they need, in any quantity they want, with any powers and abilities they want and equipped with any amount of magic items of any rarity. There is absolutely nothing your wizard can do that a DM cannot handle with immense ease. There are various creatures capable of shutting down any fireball happy wizard. All the fireballs in the world won't help solve that puzzle, or remove that curse affecting the land, or stop that ancient red dragon, and your spells are useless against antimagic fields from mage slayers, beholders or astral dreadnoughts. You could have infinite free use of overchannelling with unlimited 5th level slots: still amounts to nothing against a Rakshasa who will be completely immune to the spell.
They're good for blasting a few minions, sure, so definitely useful in combat but beyond that the Evoker's subclass features are limited and not even remotely close to being "OP".
What nonsense is this?
Overchannel can be used once without damage, if you use it again before long-resting you take 2d12 per level of spell so a 5th level spell is 10d12, which could be enough to instant-KO the wizard. Even with a life cleric you'll be hard pressed to want to use it multiple times, and when you do it'll be for low level spells only to avoid risking instantly downing your character who may also still get damage from enemies as well...
It's good, but the idea they can keep using their Overchannel multiple times is just asinine, even with a life cleric. They get it once, free, and need to be careful after that. To say it's "nothing" is laughable.
I don't understand why you're bringing in averages? They're talking about overchannel. It maxes the dice. So 5th level fireball, 10d6+5 (from empowered evocation), will do 65 damage to those that fail the save, and 32 to those that succeed.
A 14th level Wizard, assuming 20 in Int, will have a Save DC of 18. The Adult Black Dragon has a +7 Dex save. This means it needs to get 11 or higher to succeed, which on a d20 is a 50% chance.
Since you are only going to overchannel at 5th level once, there's a 50% chance of doing either 65 or 32 damage. After that you start thinking of averages but a 14th level wizard does have a 7th level, 6th level, etc slots. But then we're talking any normal wizard with fireball, not specifically an evoker.
I agree with your point, your math is just weird. But yes, it's a nice solid 65 or 32 damage to a cluster of minions.
====
Evoker is a nice blaster for taking out minions without hurting allies. But there's nothing OP about that. And outside of battle the subclass is utterly useless. And while it is nifty in combat mechanics, it's otherwise utterly flavourless. You do a bit extra damage and don't have to be quite as careful in targeting. That's it. That's the whole subclass. Useful, but boring in my opinion.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
The math isn’t weird, I just didn’t show my work. I assumed 20 Spell DC (I assumed someone had +2 DC in magic items), and calculated the saves based on the chance of a save vs not a save.
I also didn’t include the Int mod, but yes 65 if the Dragon rolls 12 or less (60% of the time) vs 32 damage 40% of the time. So 0.6x65 + 0.4x32 = 39 + 12.8 = 51.8 average damage with Overchannel. That’s why I used averages (though I missed the Int mod).
And you are not going to use Overchannel many times with a level 14 Evoker vs a Dragon, no matter how much Con you have. Even at 16 Con, a Level 14 Wizard will have an average of 58 + (3x14) = 100 HP.
The second time you Overchannel a 5th level spel you’re taking at least 10d12 (Ave 65 dmg). The second time you’re taking 15d12 (Ave 97.5 dmg)
Level 10 Evokers can't Overchannel.
Good point - edited 🙂
It's powerful, but in a one-note kind of way. Dealing damage is (counterintuitively) not the best contribution most Wizards can make to combat. Because creatures are exactly as powerful no matter their HP - so long as said HP is above 0 - it is usually better to do crowd control than to whittle down HP. Obviously there are many problems best fixed by a Fireball, and dealing damage is not nothing. But the power of the subclass is balanced by its lesser versatility compared to some of the others.
Also, Potent Cantrip is pretty lame.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.