Hello all, as the title suggests I'm wondering if I'm playing an Onomancy Wizard wrong. My wizard is lvl 8, is a war caster, with a 20 INT so the spell save DC is 16 and a +8 to spell attacks and has a Staff of Charming at the moment (I can't get any other staff/wand/rod as they can only be found in bigger cities which the party has no reason to go to and cost far more money than what we have anyways). I'm in a party of 5 with the others being a lvl 9 barbarian, a lvl 9 paladin, a lvl 9 rogue, and a lvl 8 ranger. Basically my problem is that I've never touched the big bad guys with any spells for the few fights the wizard has participated in (I played a monk before, but I may be leaving the campaign soon and the story presented a nice closing to play the monk out, so the wizard is a temp that I'm less invested in RP wise).
Without going into too much detail of what the fights have broken down into, the only thing my wizard has been effective at is support non-combat spells with the exception of once being able to wipe out a horde of low lvl fighters with fireballs and Blink (so they wouldn't overwhelm me), while the rest of the party was able to wade through all of that to the spellcasters I couldn't see due to terrain and not being able to move through the horde.
Basically this is what we've been seeing... Against every BBG my wizard has crossed the BBGs have had +10 or more to their strong saving throws (highest of +16) and at least a +6 to their low saving throws attributes. Out of more than a dozen spells I've thrown at them with saving DCs, only three have worked to which the DM told me each time that the BBG suffered no ill effect from either being immune to charm effects (a dragon in human disguise), immune to mind effects (a brain intellect thing), or immune to all types of damage except bludgeoning/slashing/piercing (a fighter type that had enchanted armour). Of course after learning those lessons in each fight I tried to use different tactics, I even thought of trying to curse them so I was more likely to be able to Extract Name and be able to actually use Resonants, but the BBGs always then saved against my DC or I couldn't get above their AC (almost all have had an AC of like 20 or more). Each time we've been able to take down the BBGs has been by melee classes eventually getting through the AC and hacking/slashing them to death (minus the dragon in disguise, which we had to run from and must find an artifact to allow us to actually fight the thing). True some of this has come down to bad luck of me rolling low or them rolling high, but it seems that after attempting to Extract Name 9 times now (I've tried to do it on more than just the BBGs) and it only working once, and that out of more than a dozen spells I've tried to use combat wise almost all have been saved against or missed, with the 3 that worked also being rendered useless, has all led me to wonder if I'm missing something or doing something wrong in combat. I find myself taking my character down the RP path of, "well, I can't touch these BBGs or when I do they are immune to spell effects, maybe I'm of better use at only supporting my team." I'm fine with taking that RP path and doing more support/buff type stuff and attempting to counterspell anything sent our way, it just seems a bummer to give up the whole Onomancy combat features with this subclass though. So out of curiosity, does it seem like I've just had some horrible luck, are wizards just not great at breaking through BBG defenses until higher levels, am I not using combat spells right, or is it something else? Appreciate any help.
To be honest, this just sounds like your DM doesn't care much about the whole "This system is designed with certain thresholds in mind for each level" +16 to a save is bonkers, and if you've been struggling this much without him throwing you a bone at all it might be worth going all offense. This is moreso of a dm with poor design understanding than you actually doing anything wrong. Three options to solving this would be,
1. Just talk to them and say "Hey my character has been straight up useless in all the combats thus far, like that time you basically had the armored dude literally immune to almost every spell I had. Can you maybe not design your adventures around stuff like that since it really isn't that fun to play?" This might work, but also depends on how good of a dm they actually are. Its possible they just haven't noticed the problem yet, and even decent gms struggle at times to look at things from a player perspective and how some design ideas aren't seen not because people didn't think of them, but realized that they are shitty to play with.
2. Alter your playstyle, become some kind of demon or devil summoner for power, overwelm them with zombies, buff the ever loving hells out of the paladin. Also remember that there are plenty of spells that shift the battlefield in your favour with the right synergies. Tossing up a Wall of Force to split enemies into going into certain directions or breaking up the wave so when the rest arrive the first are already wiped out. Fog cloud to obscure an area so enemies don't know what is happening. Hallucinatory Terrain to do all sorts of funky things (assuming the gm doesn't start giving everything absurd investigation bonuses). Setting up Glyph of Warding beforehand for a possible ambush strategy. Counterspell for all your worth to make those enemy spellcasters puddy. In the end, the class isn't meant to focus on damage to begin with, but everything else in the game (not to say fireballs and disintegrates aren't effective murder tools.
3. Assuming the first doesn't elicit desirable results (may need to try multiple times), and the second ends up being untenable or undesirable for contextual reasons, you can always just leave. If the dm is being either adversarial to the point of making your character useless, or too incompetent to understand and fix the problem, leaving is often a decent idea. No tabletop is better than bad tabletop as the saying goes, for good reason.
..... at level 10. You shouldn’t be finding those kinds of people. Particularly because it’s hard for power gamer PCs to even get to the +16 save range area.
I have already had the same problems and I am only lvl 3. haha. My DC save seems so easy to beat. it seems really all I can do is offensive spells in battle. of course the utility spells are awesome out of battle which I do get to use. It just seems so far I have not had luck with enemies not passing a DC save.
At lvl 3 I understand having a lower DC, and even with enemies who should have saving throws that are correspondingly lower as well wizards are meant to be bran new novices at the lowest levels so they should have a higher chance of their spells failing. Which by the same argument a level 20 wizard, with good prep and knowledge of your enemies, should be able to much more reliably cast his spells with the mid levels falling in between. The trouble is I actually feel as if my wizard is doing worse at these mid levels, and even when I try to find the enemies weaknesses it seems the prevailing answer is, "they either don't have any or are smart enough to compensate for weaknesses in ways you can't bypass. You just have to beat them down, they're meant to be tough."
So side question: regardless of how appropriate the saving throw bonuses the enemies I'm going up against, other than having an INT of 20 and trying to curse my target or put bane on them, what can I do at lvl 8/9 to help ensure these spells are landing. Mind you magic items won't be much of a possibility, but that doesn't mean I might not be missing spell combos or class mechanics.
On that first point, its just wrong. That's how literally every spellcaster works not just wizards.
Second, if you really want to force things to happen play a divination wizard, being able to force a 2 on a saving throw is brutal and can at least pause an enemy for a round or two.
As far as spells go though, maybe just try grabbing spells that don't just rely on a save. Heat metal is a solid offensive debuff on nearly any enemy, plus maybe the wall spells etc.
When I’m playing a spellcaster I hate the “save or suck” spells with a passion because when the single target of the spell makes its saving throw nothing happens. Compare that to a melee character who has two rolls every round to effect combat at 5th level instead of only one. I also like to use control/buff/debuff spells to make the rest of the party more effective because it’s a team effort and a simple Fog Cloud can block a large group of opponents and give the party a chance to take them on in smaller groups instead of all at once.
Look at your spells strategically and change them up based on what you expect to be facing that day. Mountain climbing? You need Feather Fall or Levitate. Facing a large group of weaker opponents? It’s Fireball time! Facing one powerful opponent? Magic Missile can hit everything and believe it or not, casting Dragons Breath on an ally who is in melee can let that ally do more damage than they’d do swinging their sword! Even if the opponent makes its saving throw. Not to mention Enlarge on your barbarian or Gust of Wind to hold it back and let your ranged attackers soften it up a little bit.
Look at your spells strategically and change them up based on what you expect to be facing that day. Mountain climbing? You need Feather Fall or Levitate. Facing a large group of weaker opponents? It’s Fireball time! Facing one powerful opponent? Magic Missile can hit everything and believe it or not, casting Dragons Breath on an ally who is in melee can let that ally do more damage than they’d do swinging their sword! Even if the opponent makes its saving throw. Not to mention Enlarge on your barbarian or Gust of Wind to hold it back and let your ranged attackers soften it up a little bit.
This is exactly what I've been doing from the get go as I intentionally built the character around the idea of being more utility than combat, but I've always taken a few combat spells to try and do my own part, but that has been a bit useless for reasons I described before. I haven't really bothered with magic missile, but our Ranger has a wand of magic missiles but it rarely is effective either due to the enemies either having access to the shield spell or an item that prevents magic missiles from hurting them. I wasn't really asking how to play a wizard when my damage spells aren't landing, but more if the fact that they have never landed because of the enemies having such high saving throws was normal. Additionally, regardless of if it was normal or not, if there was anything I could do about it. But still, I appreciate you taking the time to answer so thank you.
It really sounds like your DM doesn't understand they are making the game unbalanced. Your ranger can't even use a wand of magic missiles effectively at 3rd level because most enemies have access to shield or special anti magic missile items? That's wrong. Can your party get this incredible gear too?
Have an honest talk with your DM. Show them this thread. Let them know they are making the game less fun. Any good DM will listen to that.
It really sounds like your DM doesn't understand they are making the game unbalanced. Your ranger can't even use a wand of magic missiles effectively at 3rd level because most enemies have access to shield or special anti magic missile items? That's wrong. Can your party get this incredible gear too
If they are using Shield then count spell slots and levels. Use the wand to burn the casters spell slots, especially if you know he has cast a couple 1st level spells already. Using a damaging cantrip and counterspell is also a good tactic.
If you defeat somebody with a brooch of shielding then you better be receiving that item as loot. You are not playing an MMO where the mob attacks with a battle axe and drops a dagger.
It sounds like Mind Sliver may be a good cantrip to acquire.
As for armor that makes you immune to magical damage. Does your DM realize that is Artifact level gear? There is only one armor that gives immunity to an elemental type (and only one type) and it's Legendary. Armor of resistance (single element type) is Rare . Spellguard Shield as probably the most effective and is only Very Rare.
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Hello all, as the title suggests I'm wondering if I'm playing an Onomancy Wizard wrong. My wizard is lvl 8, is a war caster, with a 20 INT so the spell save DC is 16 and a +8 to spell attacks and has a Staff of Charming at the moment (I can't get any other staff/wand/rod as they can only be found in bigger cities which the party has no reason to go to and cost far more money than what we have anyways). I'm in a party of 5 with the others being a lvl 9 barbarian, a lvl 9 paladin, a lvl 9 rogue, and a lvl 8 ranger. Basically my problem is that I've never touched the big bad guys with any spells for the few fights the wizard has participated in (I played a monk before, but I may be leaving the campaign soon and the story presented a nice closing to play the monk out, so the wizard is a temp that I'm less invested in RP wise).
Without going into too much detail of what the fights have broken down into, the only thing my wizard has been effective at is support non-combat spells with the exception of once being able to wipe out a horde of low lvl fighters with fireballs and Blink (so they wouldn't overwhelm me), while the rest of the party was able to wade through all of that to the spellcasters I couldn't see due to terrain and not being able to move through the horde.
Basically this is what we've been seeing... Against every BBG my wizard has crossed the BBGs have had +10 or more to their strong saving throws (highest of +16) and at least a +6 to their low saving throws attributes. Out of more than a dozen spells I've thrown at them with saving DCs, only three have worked to which the DM told me each time that the BBG suffered no ill effect from either being immune to charm effects (a dragon in human disguise), immune to mind effects (a brain intellect thing), or immune to all types of damage except bludgeoning/slashing/piercing (a fighter type that had enchanted armour). Of course after learning those lessons in each fight I tried to use different tactics, I even thought of trying to curse them so I was more likely to be able to Extract Name and be able to actually use Resonants, but the BBGs always then saved against my DC or I couldn't get above their AC (almost all have had an AC of like 20 or more). Each time we've been able to take down the BBGs has been by melee classes eventually getting through the AC and hacking/slashing them to death (minus the dragon in disguise, which we had to run from and must find an artifact to allow us to actually fight the thing). True some of this has come down to bad luck of me rolling low or them rolling high, but it seems that after attempting to Extract Name 9 times now (I've tried to do it on more than just the BBGs) and it only working once, and that out of more than a dozen spells I've tried to use combat wise almost all have been saved against or missed, with the 3 that worked also being rendered useless, has all led me to wonder if I'm missing something or doing something wrong in combat. I find myself taking my character down the RP path of, "well, I can't touch these BBGs or when I do they are immune to spell effects, maybe I'm of better use at only supporting my team." I'm fine with taking that RP path and doing more support/buff type stuff and attempting to counterspell anything sent our way, it just seems a bummer to give up the whole Onomancy combat features with this subclass though. So out of curiosity, does it seem like I've just had some horrible luck, are wizards just not great at breaking through BBG defenses until higher levels, am I not using combat spells right, or is it something else? Appreciate any help.
To be honest, this just sounds like your DM doesn't care much about the whole "This system is designed with certain thresholds in mind for each level" +16 to a save is bonkers, and if you've been struggling this much without him throwing you a bone at all it might be worth going all offense. This is moreso of a dm with poor design understanding than you actually doing anything wrong. Three options to solving this would be,
1. Just talk to them and say "Hey my character has been straight up useless in all the combats thus far, like that time you basically had the armored dude literally immune to almost every spell I had. Can you maybe not design your adventures around stuff like that since it really isn't that fun to play?" This might work, but also depends on how good of a dm they actually are. Its possible they just haven't noticed the problem yet, and even decent gms struggle at times to look at things from a player perspective and how some design ideas aren't seen not because people didn't think of them, but realized that they are shitty to play with.
2. Alter your playstyle, become some kind of demon or devil summoner for power, overwelm them with zombies, buff the ever loving hells out of the paladin. Also remember that there are plenty of spells that shift the battlefield in your favour with the right synergies. Tossing up a Wall of Force to split enemies into going into certain directions or breaking up the wave so when the rest arrive the first are already wiped out. Fog cloud to obscure an area so enemies don't know what is happening. Hallucinatory Terrain to do all sorts of funky things (assuming the gm doesn't start giving everything absurd investigation bonuses). Setting up Glyph of Warding beforehand for a possible ambush strategy. Counterspell for all your worth to make those enemy spellcasters puddy. In the end, the class isn't meant to focus on damage to begin with, but everything else in the game (not to say fireballs and disintegrates aren't effective murder tools.
3. Assuming the first doesn't elicit desirable results (may need to try multiple times), and the second ends up being untenable or undesirable for contextual reasons, you can always just leave. If the dm is being either adversarial to the point of making your character useless, or too incompetent to understand and fix the problem, leaving is often a decent idea. No tabletop is better than bad tabletop as the saying goes, for good reason.
+16 to a save....
paladin aura of protection +5 max.
nat stat +5 max
proficient in save max prof bonus +6
total +16
..... at level 10. You shouldn’t be finding those kinds of people. Particularly because it’s hard for power gamer PCs to even get to the +16 save range area.
Blank
I have already had the same problems and I am only lvl 3. haha. My DC save seems so easy to beat. it seems really all I can do is offensive spells in battle. of course the utility spells are awesome out of battle which I do get to use. It just seems so far I have not had luck with enemies not passing a DC save.
At lvl 3 I understand having a lower DC, and even with enemies who should have saving throws that are correspondingly lower as well wizards are meant to be bran new novices at the lowest levels so they should have a higher chance of their spells failing. Which by the same argument a level 20 wizard, with good prep and knowledge of your enemies, should be able to much more reliably cast his spells with the mid levels falling in between. The trouble is I actually feel as if my wizard is doing worse at these mid levels, and even when I try to find the enemies weaknesses it seems the prevailing answer is, "they either don't have any or are smart enough to compensate for weaknesses in ways you can't bypass. You just have to beat them down, they're meant to be tough."
So side question: regardless of how appropriate the saving throw bonuses the enemies I'm going up against, other than having an INT of 20 and trying to curse my target or put bane on them, what can I do at lvl 8/9 to help ensure these spells are landing. Mind you magic items won't be much of a possibility, but that doesn't mean I might not be missing spell combos or class mechanics.
On that first point, its just wrong. That's how literally every spellcaster works not just wizards.
Second, if you really want to force things to happen play a divination wizard, being able to force a 2 on a saving throw is brutal and can at least pause an enemy for a round or two.
As far as spells go though, maybe just try grabbing spells that don't just rely on a save. Heat metal is a solid offensive debuff on nearly any enemy, plus maybe the wall spells etc.
When I’m playing a spellcaster I hate the “save or suck” spells with a passion because when the single target of the spell makes its saving throw nothing happens. Compare that to a melee character who has two rolls every round to effect combat at 5th level instead of only one. I also like to use control/buff/debuff spells to make the rest of the party more effective because it’s a team effort and a simple Fog Cloud can block a large group of opponents and give the party a chance to take them on in smaller groups instead of all at once.
Look at your spells strategically and change them up based on what you expect to be facing that day. Mountain climbing? You need Feather Fall or Levitate. Facing a large group of weaker opponents? It’s Fireball time! Facing one powerful opponent? Magic Missile can hit everything and believe it or not, casting Dragons Breath on an ally who is in melee can let that ally do more damage than they’d do swinging their sword! Even if the opponent makes its saving throw. Not to mention Enlarge on your barbarian or Gust of Wind to hold it back and let your ranged attackers soften it up a little bit.
Professional computer geek
This is exactly what I've been doing from the get go as I intentionally built the character around the idea of being more utility than combat, but I've always taken a few combat spells to try and do my own part, but that has been a bit useless for reasons I described before. I haven't really bothered with magic missile, but our Ranger has a wand of magic missiles but it rarely is effective either due to the enemies either having access to the shield spell or an item that prevents magic missiles from hurting them. I wasn't really asking how to play a wizard when my damage spells aren't landing, but more if the fact that they have never landed because of the enemies having such high saving throws was normal. Additionally, regardless of if it was normal or not, if there was anything I could do about it. But still, I appreciate you taking the time to answer so thank you.
It really sounds like your DM doesn't understand they are making the game unbalanced. Your ranger can't even use a wand of magic missiles effectively at 3rd level because most enemies have access to shield or special anti magic missile items? That's wrong. Can your party get this incredible gear too?
Have an honest talk with your DM. Show them this thread. Let them know they are making the game less fun. Any good DM will listen to that.
Your DM is nerfing you and making your opponents way over powered.
Professional computer geek
If they are using Shield then count spell slots and levels. Use the wand to burn the casters spell slots, especially if you know he has cast a couple 1st level spells already. Using a damaging cantrip and counterspell is also a good tactic.
If you defeat somebody with a brooch of shielding then you better be receiving that item as loot. You are not playing an MMO where the mob attacks with a battle axe and drops a dagger.
It sounds like Mind Sliver may be a good cantrip to acquire.
As for armor that makes you immune to magical damage. Does your DM realize that is Artifact level gear? There is only one armor that gives immunity to an elemental type (and only one type) and it's Legendary. Armor of resistance (single element type) is Rare . Spellguard Shield as probably the most effective and is only Very Rare.