So I've been thinking for a while about these two spells, and I've come to the conclusion that having two blatantly overpowered 3rd level spells is bad for the game. There are a lot of options outside these two spells but I never see them. The actual guidelines say that a 3rd level AOE should deal 6d6 damage, and I'm thinking of changing Fireball to that. As for Lightning Bolt I'm thinking of just making it a sub target spell (which makes more sense considering how Lightning Works). I'm wondering what others think about this because there are some Higher level spells that feel balanced compared to Fireball (like Cone of Cold or Synaptic Static) but others don't (Circle of Death).

Lightning Bolt is not overpowered.  In fact I rarely have seen it used to get more than 2 targets.  Fireball typically gets 3-4.  As such it sucks as an Area spell except in rare circumstances - like you happen to be in a corridor facing a line of enemies.

When compared with other third level spells, Fireball is good, but not the best.

The top four 3rd level Wizard spells I have found are:

1. Counterspell
2. Fireball
3. Hypnotic Pattern
4. Haste

Counterspell is by far the best spell.  Useful from the time you get it till the time you quit playing.  Fireball is great at 5th level, but slowly loses umph every single level after 6th.  Unless you upcast it, the damage slowly becomes less relevant and even then it has to compete with the higher level spells it replaces.   Part of the issue is Hypnotic Pattern does NOT have that problem.   The area may be smaller (30 ft cube instead of 40 ft diameter ), but one failed save means the lower level minions are out of the fight, allowing you to defeat the bad guy without distractions. Works even better if you are a Div or Chron mage and can guarantee a failed save on the bad guy. 

Finally Haste is great for all combat situations if you have a friendly fighter.   Single bad guy, mob of many, or merely having to outrun death, Haste works out great.

Its up to you and your players... but the more I play the more its all situational. You truly cannot just look at numbers.

Eg. If you have a large pack of ghouls charging you... would you rather A) Cast fireball (8d6) and hopefully get them all... what if some survive, charge, attack, paralyze you, get automatic critical damage on hit?; B) Cast Levitate and hover 15-20 feet above them for 10 minutes (100 turns); or C) Cast Spike Growth and have them move at 1/2 movement over 40 feet taking 16d4 damage... Its all situational.

Fireball's "pros" can also be its "cons".

• 20ft Radius (40ft Diameter)! Awesome if your combat involves enemies just being plopped on a map bunched up a decent distance away from each other. What about in rooms? You have to have a straight path to where it is going to explode... so if you have someone charging you, you can't throw it behind them just standing there. What if its a single target rather than minions? Are there innocent bystanders or homes?
• 8d6 Fire Damage! That's 2d6 more than the average you cited! But it's fire damage... Many creatures are resistant or even immune to fire. Good luck casting it in my Avernus Campaign! Also, it is no good at being upcast... its only a 1d6 per level higher... so it scales off later.
• Its Only A 3rd Level Spell! Great, so is Counterspell, so you trade a reaction for the Player's entire action...
• Awesome Explosion! That ball of fire also goes 20 feet into the air and makes a huge flash of light in the explosion. Hope your players are ready for any attention that may draw.

Also, why scale back your player's' power when you literally control everything else. Hit Points are averaged. Instead of nerfing your player's fireball by 2d6... you could:

• Provide some of the group of enemies are more trained that have higher hit points (not take the average). The player feels more epic for taking out some and weakening the remaining.
• Spread the enemies out into squads
• Ambush
• Send Enemies in waves

In my opinion, I'd rather my players feel epic by changing things up on my end as the DM rather than tell them they are weaker. Again, whipping out a spreadsheet is a waste of time in comparison to players' limitless imagination.

Fireball is meant to feel epic. It may have consequences... but let it feel epic in my opinion. (It ultimately is up to you and your players and what makes you all happy!)

Fireball is by far the more problematic of the two spells -- it covers a very large area, it can hit targets you don't have line of effect on, and it has pretty long range (rarely relevant in dungeons, but more relevant overland; notably, it's longer than the range of counterspell).  I'd be inclined to change them to 6d6(+1d6 per level up) for Fireball, 6d8 (+1d8 per level up) for Lightning Bolt, and maybe change range to 100'.

I'm not entirely convinced by the broad utility of Haste. Yes, it's a large mobility bonus, but it's only a bonus single attack per round, which is not a lot of damage, and when the spell ends (concentration broken, dispel, whatever) the target loses an action. It's not a bad spell, but it's still situational.

Also, when listing OP level 3 spells, don't forget Tiny Hut.

I honestly have not seen much use out of Fireball or Lightning Bolt. For everything I have seen they are standards to take for the "I would rather have it and not need it then need it and not have it" mentality. They are great for clearing low-level mobs if grouped right and not much else.

The majority of my wizards don't take either fireball or lightning bolt. There are better 3rd level spells to take, and I generally find that my cantrip damage output is good enough until I get higher level for better AoEs to take later like Sickening Radience, Cloudkill, Cone of Cold, etc. Fireball and LB are good spells, sure, but frankly nothing special. Fire resistence and even immunity are too commonly encountered, there are too many times where the battle area is too small to use without hurting me and/or the party (Evoker is useful in this regard, but I find that subclass a bit too bland for my tastes) and LB is too akward of an AoE to get more than 1 or 2 enemies with it - I'd have been better just upcasting hold person. Once, in all the years of D&D across many campaigns of different styles, DMs and combats: Once, I was able to get 3 enemies with it. Once. So yeah, cool aesthetic if it fits a theme but otherwise not worth taking.

They're very overestimated spells with some limited combat use. I prefer more interesting, useful spells.

Yeah, Lightning Bolt has generally been fine, except for when my players were all standing in a straight line for some reason. This has been something I've thought about for a while. One of the problems is that upcasting fireball beats out other spells still, like Ice Storm, Flame Strike, and Circle of Death. And you can use lots of fire resistant or immune enemies but I like to have a variety. My main problem is that Fireball invalidates most other AOE spells of similar level and that's kind of lame in my opinion. Also overusing Counterspell is a jerk move DM side, I've been a wizard in a campaign with too many counterspells and it gets old fast.

As for Lightning Bolt as a single target spell, I think it might be more interesting and powerful as a ranged spell attack, which could then be Twinned, increased with spell sniper, and you could crit, and there aren't that many higher level ranged spell attacks for some reason. Also it's nearly impossible to dodge lightning so an attack makes more sense to me.

Fireball is by design overpowered, and has been stated as such. Not everything is going to be balanced all the way from level 1 to 20 and each class has it's peaks and valleys as well as each spell list has it's peaks and valleys. This gives each player a chance to feel like their character is the more powerful than others at certain points of the game. I for one love fireball and have used it a lot all the way to 20 on my Wizard. When you hit level 5 and can actually do some serious damage as a Wizard, it feels good! Up until then, you really don't have much output other than shatter for AOE. Fireball and counterspell are basically the first 2 you have to get when you hit 5. Haste is ok, but my fighter would rather me cast greater invis as it gives him advantage the same as haste but no lost round if I break concentration due to damage or just to cast something else.

If you nerf either or both of those spells then you are flattening out a peak for those classes that really finally need one. 

Yes it was designed to be overpowered. I think that was poor design. If a wizard's peak is supposed to be 5th level, then where is the Fighter's, or the Barbarian's, or the Paladin's? These classes should be at the strongest at 5th level because that's when their damage output doubles. So if we say that every class should at some point feels stronger, when do these classes feel stronger? Fireball outdamages martial characters as well, since it almost always hits 2 targets for an average of 28 damage each. A Paladin with a greatsword and using both their 2nd level slots on Divine Smites will still not out damage Fireball (7+4+13. . *2= 49. 28*2=56). And the wizard used significantly fewer resources there. There are other abilities too but in raw damage output nothing at 5th level (character wise) beats fireball. And martials only go down from there. Sure they can go on longer, but that doesn't mean much when most combats are 4 rounds or so. I was just talking about comparing spells but Fireball also makes it so that other classes just can't keep up.

As for Shatter, it does 13.5 average damage for 27 on two targets. That's still really strong compared to other classes at 3rd level.

Fireball is also a pretty blunt instrument. That huge radius can really make placement tough, once the melee classes have charged in. Doubly so inside. I think the size actually acts as a bit of a balancing mechanic. In some situations it can be very powerful, but in many you risk frying your fighter and paladin. 

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Fireball is by far the more problematic of the two spells -- it covers a very large area, it can hit targets you don't have line of effect on, and it has pretty long range (rarely relevant in dungeons, but more relevant overland; notably, it's longer than the range of counterspell).  I'd be inclined to change them to 6d6(+1d6 per level up) for Fireball, 6d8 (+1d8 per level up) for Lightning Bolt, and maybe change range to 100'.

I'm not entirely convinced by the broad utility of Haste. Yes, it's a large mobility bonus, but it's only a bonus single attack per round, which is not a lot of damage, and when the spell ends (concentration broken, dispel, whatever) the target loses an action. It's not a bad spell, but it's still situational.

Also, when listing OP level 3 spells, don't forget Tiny Hut.

You are misunderstanding Haste.  You do not cast it on yourself, you cast it on  your allied Fighter.  They get x2 speed, +2 AC, advantage on Dex saves and a full extra ACTION, not a single attack.   To cast Haste you must be 5th level and a 5th level Fighter Ally gets two attacks per action, not 1 attack.   So no it is not a singlle attack per round, it is usually 2 attacks per round.   As the fighter goes up in level, that increases to +3 attacks and eventually +4 attacks.

Haste is definitely one of the useful skills.

Tiny Hut is a great safe to sleep at night spell, but that is about it.   Preventing being ambushed in the night is good, but not OP.  Especially if the bad guy recognizes what it is and wisely sets up an ambush for when the spell ends.

Haste specifically doesn't let you make more than one attack with the Hasted action.

A 5th level caster using Fireball by your math gets a possibility of 56 damage. And?

They can only do this 2 times per long rest.

A properly spec'ed and utilized rogue of 5th level is possibly doing around 25 damage a round. This is not dependent on short or long rests.

Fireball, as many have already pointed out, can hurt friendlies. A melee rogue RAW has zero chance of hurting teammates.

Also, the trigger happy 5th level caster could use his spell slots too early and a too careful one might never use their "nukes" always waiting for a better target.

By 9th level you can have access to things like Cloudkill and the argument against Fireball becomes moot.

A little creativity and teamwork from your players and you have the possibility of 5d8 damage per round for 10 minutes. If I did the math right that is 500d8 damage. An upcast fireball with a 5th level spell slot is going to do 10d6...and there are very few ways no matter how creative you are to make that damage go up.

Well both wizards and sorcerers can actually do fireball 3 times a day at 5th level (arcane recovery/sorcery points), and a warlock of the fiend can do even more, but even with what you've said it's still enough damage to go past other classes. Your average 5th level rouge does only 19 damage in a round, by the way (3.5*3 + 4.5 + 4) which actually less than a fighter does (7+4=11 *2= 22). The fact that they can do it more frequently is also not that important considering most games of 5th edition don't have that many fights in a day anyway and very few combats go past 4 rounds. Lets say that you have 3 fights in a day each lasting 4 rounds at 5th level, and you get one short rest. The rogue will deal 19 damage each turn for a total of 228 damage across all four combats (19*12). 3 Fireballs each hitting two targets deals 168, and the wizard still gets 9 turns to do other things, such as Firebolt for 11 damage (which would be 99 more damage to bring them to 267 damage). Or they can throw out 3 shatters (13.5*2=27 *3= 81) and 5 firebolts (55) for a total of 304 damage in the same day. The fighter with their 28 attacks (two action surges due to short rest) will at this point deal more damage (11*28=308) but I've never played a game with this many fights in the same day. And this is all assuming you only ever hit two targets. If each of your well timed Fireballs (ambushes anyone) hits 3 targets then you deal and additional 84 damage during the day, going well past the fighter at this point.

Spellcasters having access to a lot of damage isn't necessarily a problem, but attacks miss, while Fireballs don't. This extra damage also comes with a bunch of utility spells that can solve lots of problems, and the fact that Fireball deals so much damage makes other spells of the same level become less enticing.

Charmandenator, you do know that when comparing spells you need to factor the whole spell, not just the damage? Right?

You seem to be relying too much on damage points for your comparisons and ignoring like most of what those other spells actually do.

A 4th level Sickening Radiance AoE, is vastly superior in almost every way but one (instant damage) than a 4th level Fireball.

A 5th level Cone of Cold is superior than a 5th level Fireball: the damage type is less resisted, it covers more area, it's easier to target safely.

Facing a single monster baddy? That 5th Level Hold Monster will let everyone else auto-crit against it, which will be a lot more damage to the target than it would get if you stuck to using a fireball.

It's not always about damage. If all your combat encounters boil down to 'I cause X damage' - you're in some very boring combat.

The examples I showed specifically only dealt damage (I briefly mentioned Synaptic Static as being balanced compared to Fireball). Cone of Cold would be another spell to change along my lines of current thinking because a 5th level spell is supposed to deal 8d6 damage. I never mentioned Sickening Radiance or Cloudkill because those spells fill different rolls. I'm specifically looking at damage dealing spells and comparing Fireball to those spells because you don't compare apples to oranges. Also, Cold damage is even more commonly resisted than Fire in the monster manual (46 vs 37) though Fire has more immunities.

While Fireball and Lightning Bolt are slightly over powered for their level, I’ve found that when I play a wizard I don’t learn them unless I find them in a spell book or scroll. I’ve found that wizards are far more effective if they take spells that synergize with their allies instead of damage dealing spells most of the time. Sure, doing a ton of damage is fun, but protecting and enhancing the rest of the party is far more effective! A strategically placed and timed Fog Cloud or Web spell has a much bigger impact on combat than a Fireball does most of the time.

Quote from Charmandenator >>

Well both wizards and sorcerers can actually do fireball 3 times a day at 5th level (arcane recovery/sorcery points), and a warlock of the fiend can do even more, but even with what you've said it's still enough damage to go past other classes. Your average 5th level rouge does only 19 damage in a round, by the way (3.5*3 + 4.5 + 4) which actually less than a fighter does (7+4=11 *2= 22). The fact that they can do it more frequently is also not that important considering most games of 5th edition don't have that many fights in a day anyway and very few combats go past 4 rounds. Lets say that you have 3 fights in a day each lasting 4 rounds at 5th level, and you get one short rest. The rogue will deal 19 damage each turn for a total of 228 damage across all four combats (19*12). 3 Fireballs each hitting two targets deals 168, and the wizard still gets 9 turns to do other things, such as Firebolt for 11 damage (which would be 99 more damage to bring them to 267 damage). Or they can throw out 3 shatters (13.5*2=27 *3= 81) and 5 firebolts (55) for a total of 304 damage in the same day. The fighter with their 28 attacks (two action surges due to short rest) will at this point deal more damage (11*28=308) but I've never played a game with this many fights in the same day. And this is all assuming you only ever hit two targets. If each of your well timed Fireballs (ambushes anyone) hits 3 targets then you deal and additional 84 damage during the day, going well past the fighter at this point.

Spellcasters having access to a lot of damage isn't necessarily a problem, but attacks miss, while Fireballs don't. This extra damage also comes with a bunch of utility spells that can solve lots of problems, and the fact that Fireball deals so much damage makes other spells of the same level become less enticing.

Only if not properly spec'ed and not properly supported. This is a team game. Rogues when used right will get 2 sneak attacks a Round. 1 on their turn and 1 on someone else's turn through reactions. So by your math, they should get a potential 38 damage a Round. This is not resource-based like spells so it is only right that resource dependant features like spells have a little more oomph.

Please let me know if you find a way to increase the damage of a Fireball with teamwork. 

Quote from Charmandenator >>

The examples I showed specifically only dealt damage (I briefly mentioned Synaptic Static as being balanced compared to Fireball). Cone of Cold would be another spell to change along my lines of current thinking because a 5th level spell is supposed to deal 8d6 damage. I never mentioned Sickening Radiance or Cloudkill because those spells fill different rolls. I'm specifically looking at damage dealing spells and comparing Fireball to those spells because you don't compare apples to oranges. Also, Cold damage is even more commonly resisted than Fire in the monster manual (46 vs 37) though Fire has more immunities.

Please let me know how Cloudkill does something other than damage?

And Synaptic Static has 1-minute effect that goes on after the damage. So that is not it is balanced in damage so much as it is being nerfed in damage cause it does extra stuff, not just damage.

Yes I believe Synaptic Static is balanced compared to Fireball because it comes with a potent debuff. As for Cloudkill, it does also heavily obscure the area and that spell is damage over time rather than damage at the moment. Looking further into this I was surprised at how limited AOE is at 3rd level, it's Fireball, Erupting Earth, and Tidal Wave really. The main point of this was to look at specifically damage of these spells compared to what the designers actually intended spells to do. Simply stated, a 3rd level spell is not supposed to deal as much damage as Fireball does. Other points have kind of been distractions. In my own games, Fireball has never been an issue, and I've typically buffed other spells compared to it, but that led me to thinking if Fireball's damage output is more of an issue. My current conclusion is that spellcasters are much more powerful than martial characters, and Fireball is part of a larger design flaw than a problem on its own. I think I've heard enough that I'm actually going to keep Fireball where it is, and I'm just going to make potent magic items for the Rogue and Fighter in my specific group to help them keep up, so to speak. Fireball being overpowered actually is a bit of a downside, because bad guys know to plan around this potent spell in world, and I think I've come to terms with where this spell is. I have found everyone's points to be interesting though, even if some of them where focusing on areas I was avoiding in my analysis (such as more support or single target magic vs simple AOE). 

Also, if any of you do find players overrelying on fireball, a great way to get away from that is to let them customize their spells a little. Maybe create a cone of icicles for a 3rd level cold spell, or have them drain the vitality of people near them for a necrotic AOE (reduce hit point maximum maybe). This game is very flexible and designed to be homebrewed, so I think it's great to let the players take initiative on that. Also I like making difficult combats and Fireballs help offset that at times.

Pssst, pssst, there are Tales which it tells there is no Earth bolt spell.

By the Tyr's beards !!    Why ??