And that's not to say that other levels don't need refining too, but many of the earlier level spells have been mentioned already. Like is heat metal going to remain in its current auto-damage with infinite range bonus action repeat form? I hope not, because while I love the spell, it definitely needs some toning down. Either fireball needs toning down, or similar damage spells for other elements need tuning up, as well fire is commonly resisted, the gap is still wider than that justifies etc.
Fireball and lightning bolt are more powerful by design because they are iconic spells.
Then why include any other damage dealing spells? If the thought process is: Spell == iconic -> everyone should use it -> make it more powerful than everything else so people are punished for using something else, then why even give people the choice? If you want everyone to use a certain spell just take away all the competing spells.
D&D's designers have actually revealed to us the reason for fireball's ridiculous damage, and it has everything to do with the culture and narrative of D&D, not its mathematical balance. Fireball is one of D&D’s most iconic spells. The sheer power of fireball is central in many fun D&D stories, as reported by playtest information from the playtests that gave form to fifth edition D&D. The designers saw fireball (and to a lesser extent lightning bolt) as integral to the experience of playing a wizard in D&D, and chose to improve its destructive power to encourage players to learn that spell over other less iconic ones.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Fireball and Lightning Bolt were central to a lot of fun D&D stories because in prior editions it was easily possible for the players to kill themselves via those spells. It used to be Fireball would fill volume to the point of travelling down corridors and going around corners. In 1e, I saw many a party get a TPK because of the Magic-User's bad placement of a Fireball. Heck, once I was in a group that managed to nuke the entire dungeon because of a cursed item triggering a fully loaded Helm of Brilliance in a 2e campaign.
They were big damage spells because there were significant *drawbacks* to using them. Modern D&D has gotten rid of magical drawbacks and catastrophic spell failures as a rule, which is, in my opinion, a mistake that is significantly contributing to the martial/caster divide. There needs to be more risk/reward situations put back into D&D.
Lightning bolt reflecting back down a hallway off the end wall and coming back at you...
honestly the martial/caster divide is created by more than just the lack of drawbacks. A low level 2e (didn't play 1e much) wizard just did not have much going for it. you had your one magic missile per day, and your 3 hit points. And your dagger/staff. Clerics were strongly discouraged to never cast anything that wasn't cure light wounds. And we never really got to higher levels of play, at least in the campaigns that I was in. Fighters, Rangers and Rogues were most common, with a cleric stuckee. 2e casters were hard mode, so we never really got to see what they were capable of. And we didn't have an internet to share the results.
Now, casters have cantrips to cast every round. I think they are generally weaker than they should be, but i'm probably in the minority there. And spells to allow a caster to do everything a martial can, only better. The disadvantages of Vancian magic have been removed, leaving a lot more flexibility than casters used to have. Not to mention a game designed around a fantasy of multiple encounters per rest which rarely happens for a variety of reasons. Casters aren't intended to be able to dump their spell slots, but in many games that's exactly what happens. The drawbacks to casters are just too minimized.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
They were big damage spells because there were significant *drawbacks* to using them. Modern D&D has gotten rid of magical drawbacks and catastrophic spell failures as a rule, which is, in my opinion, a mistake that is significantly contributing to the martial/caster divide. There needs to be more risk/reward situations put back into D&D.
Yeah, I'd be fine with them staying higher damage if a greater element of risk were added. As others have said evoker has got to be reworked for a start, as making nuke spells perfectly safe with zero effort was so obviously broken it should have never made it to the concept stage.
That said I'd also be fine with lightning bolt getting its old bounce mechanic back, but it would need to have its damage toned down to compensate. I'm all for more damage spells having interesting riders though; vitriolic sphere's secondary damage is both a bit boring and easy to forget, I'd rather have something useful like destroying/reducing cover or something, or tying its secondary damage to a surface effect or something.
There are loads of options anyway, but the point is we need to know what (if anything) Wizards of the Coast are considering so we can actually give feedback on it, especially since spell balance is so crucial to how balanced spellcasters are now.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Honestly, I think control spells are a much bigger deal than damage spells.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Fireball is good against hordes of weak enemies, but against a boss monster that has Magic Resistance and all manner of elemental resistances, a Fighter with a +1 magic weapon will be the one who will most consistently wear down its health.
One spell I'd like to see reworked is Enhance Ability. There are so many ways of granting advantage that that spell is downright worthless. How I'd handle it is the base spell will set the chosen ability score to 19 if it isn't already higher (maybe do something different for Constitution), and then if you upcast it by enough, you could potentially get higher values.
Against a big boss monster casters probably aren't using fireball. They are probably using counter spell, dispel magic, fly to keep out of range, Terrain affecting abilities, tasha's hideous laughter. The fighter is doing the damage, the caster is buffing the party, debuffing and disabling the boss.
Fireball and lightning bolt are more powerful by design because they are iconic spells.
Then why include any other damage dealing spells? If the thought process is: Spell == iconic -> everyone should use it -> make it more powerful than everything else so people are punished for using something else, then why even give people the choice? If you want everyone to use a certain spell just take away all the competing spells.
All those two do is area damage though, and they deal unreliable damage and target a decently strong save besides. There is a ton of reason to prepare things like Hypnotic Pattern, Fly, Fear, Counterspell, Haste, Slow, Dispel Magic, Tiny Hut etc over Fireball and Lightning Bolt already, even with the damage bump.
There are so many spells I'd like to see reworked (many of them nerfed) - at the very least, I'm wanting the designers to do a serious revision of wording for the spell descriptions to reduce the amount of ambiguity and/or arguments.
Fireball and lightning bolt are more powerful by design because they are iconic spells.
Then why include any other damage dealing spells? If the thought process is: Spell == iconic -> everyone should use it -> make it more powerful than everything else so people are punished for using something else, then why even give people the choice? If you want everyone to use a certain spell just take away all the competing spells.
All those two do is area damage though, and they deal unreliable damage and target a decently strong save besides. There is a ton of reason to prepare things like Hypnotic Pattern, Fly, Fear, Counterspell, Haste, Slow, Dispel Magic, Tiny Hut etc over Fireball and Lightning Bolt already, even with the damage bump.
Sure, but there is no reason to have other primary damage dealing spells like Minute Meteors, Ice Storm, Erupting Earth, Call Lightning or Tidal Wave. If the intention is for them to never be used since they are just out-classes by Fireball/Lightning Bolt. Make Fireball and Lightning Bolt the only 3rd level spells that are primarily damage-dealing, if you want those to be the ones people use. Also I'd argue half of the spells you listed need nerfing as well, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, and Counterspell definitely need significant nerfs.
The whole spelllist could really use an overhaul to flatten the power level of spells at each spell level. Everything considered a "must-take" needs a nerf and all the "why does this even exist?" spells need a buff.
Against a big boss monster casters probably aren't using fireball. They are probably using counter spell, dispel magic, fly to keep out of range, Terrain affecting abilities, tasha's hideous laughter. The fighter is doing the damage, the caster is buffing the party, debuffing and disabling the boss.
^^ this. I don't get nearly as many opportunities to drop a big fireball as I'd like...to the point in one of the games I am in recently, the DM grouped up some enemies in tight quarters for me twice, and was shocked at the damage I put out to the point he commented on it. Well, usually you don't give me tightly packed enemies, and my teammates don't give me space to drop the hammer.
I've usually got more important things to do, though. there's a lot of single target stuff, and fireball, just isn't really the best action for that. single target fireball only averages 28 damage (on a failed save), which feels underwhelming for single target, especially when I am dropping a 3rd level spell slot for it. Now, you let me hit 3-4 targets for 28 each, and I can see why you think fireball is overpowered. A fighter with a greatsword swinging twice at the same level is putting up 22 a round, with no resources expended.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Sure, but there is no reason to have other primary damage dealing spells like Minute Meteors, Ice Storm, Erupting Earth, Call Lightning or Tidal Wave. If the intention is for them to never be used since they are just out-classes by Fireball/Lightning Bolt. Make Fireball and Lightning Bolt the only 3rd level spells that are primarily damage-dealing, if you want those to be the ones people use. Also I'd argue half of the spells you listed need nerfing as well, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, and Counterspell definitely need significant nerfs.
The whole spelllist could really use an overhaul to flatten the power level of spells at each spell level. Everything considered a "must-take" needs a nerf and all the "why does this even exist?" spells need a buff.
I wouldn't say no to buffs to the others - but at the risk of repeating myself, they all do stuff besides damage, so the spells that only do damage should still spike higher than them.
As for the non-damaging spells - Counterspell could use a nerf (which it's getting), but I disagree on the rest.
Sure, but there is no reason to have other primary damage dealing spells like Minute Meteors, Ice Storm, Erupting Earth, Call Lightning or Tidal Wave. If the intention is for them to never be used since they are just out-classes by Fireball/Lightning Bolt. Make Fireball and Lightning Bolt the only 3rd level spells that are primarily damage-dealing, if you want those to be the ones people use. Also I'd argue half of the spells you listed need nerfing as well, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, and Counterspell definitely need significant nerfs.
The whole spelllist could really use an overhaul to flatten the power level of spells at each spell level. Everything considered a "must-take" needs a nerf and all the "why does this even exist?" spells need a buff.
I wouldn't say no to buffs to the others - but at the risk of repeating myself, they all do stuff besides damage, so the spells that only do damage should still spike higher than them.
As for the non-damaging spells - Counterspell could use a nerf (which it's getting), but I disagree on the rest.
I could see Hypnotic Pattern getting adjusted. Maybe using a specific umber of creatures affected within the cube, like the Slow spell of the same level. Not sure if it’s necessary but could see adjustments being made on various spells for balancing.
Hypnotic Pattern being able to target more creatures than Slow is fine. In addition to affecting a smaller area, HP has three significant drawbacks - it's a charm effect, any amount of damage ends it prematurely, and it has friendly fire.
The whole spelllist could really use an overhaul to flatten the power level of spells at each spell level. Everything considered a "must-take" needs a nerf and all the "why does this even exist?" spells need a buff.
I honestly feel like the spell lists could use some more *exclusivity*.
The cleric in one of my groups picked a domain solely on the premise that the domain in question grants fireball. I don't believe any cleric should ever cast fireball. Should clerics have a powerful option to do burst damage over a decent area? Sure, fine, I guess, but doesn't that dilute the class identity just a bit? Fireball is fine in its damage output... if the character casting it has like thirty hit points and an AC of 14. The balance needs to come in the necessity of party composition? The party wants someone to cast fireball? Well you got to bring the guy who goes down in three good hits who's a magnet for arrows.
I also think there's a fundamental problem in the way a DM is taught and expected to deal with players In combat, there needs to be a comprehensive guide for designing combat encounters and it *needs* to include guides on how to take out certain classes along for what levels the tactics in question are appropriate at. The current DMG section on building combat encounters is approximately 2 pages long and describes how to select monsters based on an "xp threshold" based on CR which it even says may be unreliable depending on what traits or features a monster might have. *Unacceptable.*
"How do I deal with my wizard always casting fireball?" "Either put your party in a small room, pick fire resistant or immune monsters, or pick monsters with long bows and shoot him from outside of max fireball range. No matter how subtle the wizard, an arrow in the neck will cramp his style." This information should be paraphrased into every DMG in print.
I HOPE we get some balance on familiars. I would honestly like to see a whole table of familiars that are separate from their MM counterparts. As it stands, Imp is still king for warlocks.
Imo they don't need to hard rebalance Warlock familiars- particularly since their last attempt doesn't give me any confidence they can do it well- but they could stand to add an overt Celestial option to the core mix, particularly with Celestial patron becoming a core subclass. People don't take Pact of the Chain because it's an optimal pick, they take it because they want a pet that's connected to their patron.
General Find Familiar-wise I don't think it really needs any changes- their core functions are remote scouting and delivering touch spells, and the rest is just flavor/cosmetics, and they're doing good on that score. No need to reinvent the wheel.
Imo they don't need to hard rebalance Warlock familiars- particularly since their last attempt doesn't give me any confidence they can do it well- but they could stand to add an overt Celestial option to the core mix, particularly with Celestial patron becoming a core subclass. People don't take Pact of the Chain because it's an optimal pick, they take it because they want a pet that's connected to their patron.
General Find Familiar-wise I don't think it really needs any changes- their core functions are remote scouting and delivering touch spells, and the rest is just flavor/cosmetics, and they're doing good on that score. No need to reinvent the wheel.
I get it. I’m just annoyed that chainlocks don’t get as much love. Two fiends, one fey, no celestial, one dragon, a skeleton if they keep it, and a slaad tadpole? Guess I just wish there was two per type and some balance on them. Hell, I’d be content if basic familiars got an upgrade for chainlocks.
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Then why include any other damage dealing spells? If the thought process is: Spell == iconic -> everyone should use it -> make it more powerful than everything else so people are punished for using something else, then why even give people the choice? If you want everyone to use a certain spell just take away all the competing spells.
I'm just stating what they said in interviews man, I am the messenger. Don't shoot.
Can't find the JC interview, but here's the spell spotlight: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/177-spell-spotlight-fireball
D&D's designers have actually revealed to us the reason for fireball's ridiculous damage, and it has everything to do with the culture and narrative of D&D, not its mathematical balance. Fireball is one of D&D’s most iconic spells. The sheer power of fireball is central in many fun D&D stories, as reported by playtest information from the playtests that gave form to fifth edition D&D. The designers saw fireball (and to a lesser extent lightning bolt) as integral to the experience of playing a wizard in D&D, and chose to improve its destructive power to encourage players to learn that spell over other less iconic ones.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Fireball and Lightning Bolt were central to a lot of fun D&D stories because in prior editions it was easily possible for the players to kill themselves via those spells. It used to be Fireball would fill volume to the point of travelling down corridors and going around corners. In 1e, I saw many a party get a TPK because of the Magic-User's bad placement of a Fireball. Heck, once I was in a group that managed to nuke the entire dungeon because of a cursed item triggering a fully loaded Helm of Brilliance in a 2e campaign.
They were big damage spells because there were significant *drawbacks* to using them. Modern D&D has gotten rid of magical drawbacks and catastrophic spell failures as a rule, which is, in my opinion, a mistake that is significantly contributing to the martial/caster divide. There needs to be more risk/reward situations put back into D&D.
Lightning bolt reflecting back down a hallway off the end wall and coming back at you...
honestly the martial/caster divide is created by more than just the lack of drawbacks. A low level 2e (didn't play 1e much) wizard just did not have much going for it. you had your one magic missile per day, and your 3 hit points. And your dagger/staff. Clerics were strongly discouraged to never cast anything that wasn't cure light wounds. And we never really got to higher levels of play, at least in the campaigns that I was in. Fighters, Rangers and Rogues were most common, with a cleric stuckee. 2e casters were hard mode, so we never really got to see what they were capable of. And we didn't have an internet to share the results.
Now, casters have cantrips to cast every round. I think they are generally weaker than they should be, but i'm probably in the minority there. And spells to allow a caster to do everything a martial can, only better. The disadvantages of Vancian magic have been removed, leaving a lot more flexibility than casters used to have. Not to mention a game designed around a fantasy of multiple encounters per rest which rarely happens for a variety of reasons. Casters aren't intended to be able to dump their spell slots, but in many games that's exactly what happens. The drawbacks to casters are just too minimized.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Yeah, I'd be fine with them staying higher damage if a greater element of risk were added. As others have said evoker has got to be reworked for a start, as making nuke spells perfectly safe with zero effort was so obviously broken it should have never made it to the concept stage.
That said I'd also be fine with lightning bolt getting its old bounce mechanic back, but it would need to have its damage toned down to compensate. I'm all for more damage spells having interesting riders though; vitriolic sphere's secondary damage is both a bit boring and easy to forget, I'd rather have something useful like destroying/reducing cover or something, or tying its secondary damage to a surface effect or something.
There are loads of options anyway, but the point is we need to know what (if anything) Wizards of the Coast are considering so we can actually give feedback on it, especially since spell balance is so crucial to how balanced spellcasters are now.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Honestly, I think control spells are a much bigger deal than damage spells.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Fireball is good against hordes of weak enemies, but against a boss monster that has Magic Resistance and all manner of elemental resistances, a Fighter with a +1 magic weapon will be the one who will most consistently wear down its health.
One spell I'd like to see reworked is Enhance Ability. There are so many ways of granting advantage that that spell is downright worthless. How I'd handle it is the base spell will set the chosen ability score to 19 if it isn't already higher (maybe do something different for Constitution), and then if you upcast it by enough, you could potentially get higher values.
Against a big boss monster casters probably aren't using fireball. They are probably using counter spell, dispel magic, fly to keep out of range, Terrain affecting abilities, tasha's hideous laughter. The fighter is doing the damage, the caster is buffing the party, debuffing and disabling the boss.
All those two do is area damage though, and they deal unreliable damage and target a decently strong save besides. There is a ton of reason to prepare things like Hypnotic Pattern, Fly, Fear, Counterspell, Haste, Slow, Dispel Magic, Tiny Hut etc over Fireball and Lightning Bolt already, even with the damage bump.
There are so many spells I'd like to see reworked (many of them nerfed) - at the very least, I'm wanting the designers to do a serious revision of wording for the spell descriptions to reduce the amount of ambiguity and/or arguments.
Sure, but there is no reason to have other primary damage dealing spells like Minute Meteors, Ice Storm, Erupting Earth, Call Lightning or Tidal Wave. If the intention is for them to never be used since they are just out-classes by Fireball/Lightning Bolt. Make Fireball and Lightning Bolt the only 3rd level spells that are primarily damage-dealing, if you want those to be the ones people use. Also I'd argue half of the spells you listed need nerfing as well, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, and Counterspell definitely need significant nerfs.
The whole spelllist could really use an overhaul to flatten the power level of spells at each spell level. Everything considered a "must-take" needs a nerf and all the "why does this even exist?" spells need a buff.
^^ this. I don't get nearly as many opportunities to drop a big fireball as I'd like...to the point in one of the games I am in recently, the DM grouped up some enemies in tight quarters for me twice, and was shocked at the damage I put out to the point he commented on it. Well, usually you don't give me tightly packed enemies, and my teammates don't give me space to drop the hammer.
I've usually got more important things to do, though. there's a lot of single target stuff, and fireball, just isn't really the best action for that. single target fireball only averages 28 damage (on a failed save), which feels underwhelming for single target, especially when I am dropping a 3rd level spell slot for it. Now, you let me hit 3-4 targets for 28 each, and I can see why you think fireball is overpowered. A fighter with a greatsword swinging twice at the same level is putting up 22 a round, with no resources expended.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I wouldn't say no to buffs to the others - but at the risk of repeating myself, they all do stuff besides damage, so the spells that only do damage should still spike higher than them.
As for the non-damaging spells - Counterspell could use a nerf (which it's getting), but I disagree on the rest.
I could see Hypnotic Pattern getting adjusted. Maybe using a specific umber of creatures affected within the cube, like the Slow spell of the same level. Not sure if it’s necessary but could see adjustments being made on various spells for balancing.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Hypnotic Pattern being able to target more creatures than Slow is fine. In addition to affecting a smaller area, HP has three significant drawbacks - it's a charm effect, any amount of damage ends it prematurely, and it has friendly fire.
Just going to say, I prefer slow to hypnotic pattern because of that lack of damage end and potential charm immunity.
I honestly feel like the spell lists could use some more *exclusivity*.
The cleric in one of my groups picked a domain solely on the premise that the domain in question grants fireball. I don't believe any cleric should ever cast fireball. Should clerics have a powerful option to do burst damage over a decent area? Sure, fine, I guess, but doesn't that dilute the class identity just a bit? Fireball is fine in its damage output... if the character casting it has like thirty hit points and an AC of 14. The balance needs to come in the necessity of party composition? The party wants someone to cast fireball? Well you got to bring the guy who goes down in three good hits who's a magnet for arrows.
I also think there's a fundamental problem in the way a DM is taught and expected to deal with players In combat, there needs to be a comprehensive guide for designing combat encounters and it *needs* to include guides on how to take out certain classes along for what levels the tactics in question are appropriate at. The current DMG section on building combat encounters is approximately 2 pages long and describes how to select monsters based on an "xp threshold" based on CR which it even says may be unreliable depending on what traits or features a monster might have. *Unacceptable.*
"How do I deal with my wizard always casting fireball?" "Either put your party in a small room, pick fire resistant or immune monsters, or pick monsters with long bows and shoot him from outside of max fireball range. No matter how subtle the wizard, an arrow in the neck will cramp his style." This information should be paraphrased into every DMG in print.
I HOPE we get some balance on familiars. I would honestly like to see a whole table of familiars that are separate from their MM counterparts. As it stands, Imp is still king for warlocks.
Imo they don't need to hard rebalance Warlock familiars- particularly since their last attempt doesn't give me any confidence they can do it well- but they could stand to add an overt Celestial option to the core mix, particularly with Celestial patron becoming a core subclass. People don't take Pact of the Chain because it's an optimal pick, they take it because they want a pet that's connected to their patron.
General Find Familiar-wise I don't think it really needs any changes- their core functions are remote scouting and delivering touch spells, and the rest is just flavor/cosmetics, and they're doing good on that score. No need to reinvent the wheel.
I get it. I’m just annoyed that chainlocks don’t get as much love. Two fiends, one fey, no celestial, one dragon, a skeleton if they keep it, and a slaad tadpole? Guess I just wish there was two per type and some balance on them. Hell, I’d be content if basic familiars got an upgrade for chainlocks.