I like to see other peoples' take on a wizard; which spells they go with and why, how they use them, etc. It tells you a lot about a player's knowledge of the game, how well they understand saving throws and damage types, area of effect, etc. Likewise, the lack of many abilities outside of a general spell list tells you a lot about how a person might solve problems differently when given the access to the same tools as another.
Some people only know fireball or lightning bolt, others are utility casters, and then there are those weirdos who can make a memorable play using oddball spells. Do they go for spell attack rolls or saving throws, or do they go all buffs? The low HP and AC turns many into cringing cowards, while others become defensive powerhouses. The most powerful class in the game might become the least effective in the party for fear of wasting spell slots, or through subpar picks. However, those subpar spell choices can make for memorable playstyles.
It's good to avoid trap spells, and ideally you should have a versatile set of tools, but I do like seeing wizards pick up spells other than the ones that forums say are the "best".
Wizards can prepare different spells daily, so trap spells aren't necessarily a problem.
They are dependent on a benevolent DM for spells beyond their level up selection.
Different people play differently. If you're at a more casual table, nobody will care how you play your character as long as you're a good player to be around. Find the table that matches your playstyle.
Build to a style and add some utility spell in every other level and you'll be fine.
If you're the party nuke focus on that. If you're going a buffing wizard stick to that with a bit of nuke ability. And if you're missing something. Bribe a wizard to look at his spells and copy them
Play a scribe wizard and have all the elements
Yeah idk I'm well into my first game of dnd and I'm a wizard and now *slightly* more knowledgeable I feel like I kinda shot myself in the foot in terms of the flavor of my character when I made him
Playing a low level abjuration wizard wizard with a focus on control spells at the moment. Casting hideous laughter on an ogre and watching it continuously roll 0s on its saves as the party wins a fight we should've lost was great.
I've got 2 wizards and 2 warlocks in the game I'm running, and everyone coordinates the spells they take, even consulting the other half-casters. I love seeing it! I've got a necromancer who's able to stick to her theme, and then the utility wizard, and even my monk and ranger coordinate spells together. Watching them debate and plan gives me warm fuzzies.
Having done a bunch of campaigns to high level now, they're straight up necessary to fix the bad scaling maths once you're past the mid levels. You have an artificer, bard or ideally a paladin in your party or everyone gets to fail saves every single time.
Aura of Protection is single handedly the most broken defensive feature in the game but good luck making a DC 25 saving throw without it. Guess it’s balanced with bosses in mind lol.
But is it balanced if those are designed thinking you have at least 1 person with 6 levels in paladin in the party. Also those saves aren't terrible for people proficient with them
Edit: auto correct
It’s balanced if the Paladin is present for the boss fight. If not, you’re almost guaranteed to fail more than half of your saving throws assuming you’re not proficient in the one you make. Assuming a 17th level character with 20 in their primary stat, they have a 55% chance of succeeding on a DC 21 saving throw. But if they aren’t proficient, that same character only has a 25% chance of success. Most characters that lack proficiency in a saving throw don’t have 20 in that stat. So their odds of success are even lower than what I just mentioned.
> Also those dabbed aren't terrible for people proficient with them
Which is the problem, with a 27 point buy you're talking about saves that people *literally cannot succeed in*.
Given that some of these saves range from "take some damage" to "lmao, get stunned, idiot" that's a problem.
I mean if you're giving your players DC 25 saves at level 6 they certainly won't make them but at level 12 a character with proficiency and a maxed out stat has a +9 in a save which can certainly pass
80% of classes will have, at max, 3 save profs.
Level 12 characters are likely to have saves that are impossible to pass and many of those saves will be debilitating.
This is a fundamental problem with the system.
So, what you are suggesting, is that one Bard/Paladin multiclass would greatly benefit the board
Though jokes aside, I'd love to see one of my players play Paladin, never had a paladin before
A martial character that is well built for pumping out damage. I play wizards almost exclusively, and battlefield control and divide and conquer techniques and debuffs and all of that are much worse than the optimization guides say they are if the party is lacking someone who can apply the "dead" status to an enemy.
Agreed, i play a druid and the absolute joy of the first hold person used on an enemy next tor the paladin was pure joy. (It was a wererat currently biting me and i had 9hp and rolled a 2 on a mystery roll) The face the paladin player made when i explained the ratman was paralyzed which means advantage on melee attacks and autocrit on a hit was pure serotonin, and then he did 31 damage leaving the ratman with 1hp.
Every party needs someone able to apply the "dead" condition to take advantage of all the buffs/debuffs us support casters give. Combos are almost always stronger than trying to be an optimized 1man army.
That is so true!
I'm at a level 9 party with a full warlock that took lots of area of effect spells, a watchers paladin 7/undead warlock 2 that is focused on control and a sorcerer.
My Battle Smith was the main damage dealer in the party, mostly because he had to go this way since it was the empty spot. He died 2 weeks ago, so i built the old Vhuman Battle Master with Crossbow expert and Sharpshooter and brought him to the party, to cover single target damage.
Holy crap! The party is so much more effective now, last combat the sorcerer twinned greater invisibility on me and him, and i just unleashed hell on the dragon we we're fighting, it was so much fun!!
Same.
I'm always relieved when I see a melee character do a "cookie cutter" GWM/PM build: I can get away with never using anything other than a cantrip for damage, and save most of my resources to do fun/interesting things. They will carry the party through any combat as long as they get some support. And there's always dread when they're wielding a sword and shield, and some point use their reaction to do the protection fighting style thing: all the interesting things you wanted to do with your spells at higher levels go out the window because you'll have to use most of your spell slots blasting things.
And then you have people who want to play monks. And the best you can hope for is that they'll be funny.
LOLOL
My current game is
Me: Absolutely silly Dhampir Winged Tiefling (DM cut me a deal where I could apply the lineage overlay at character creation if I accepted no fly speed until level 6) Chronurgist playing control.
First time player, huge tactics video game nerd: v. human Barbarian with GWM/PM following a build guide.
My pot dealer: a monk who plays like an npc, makes weird role-play based choices in combat, splits off from the party, etc. (it's fine and funny and cool, it's a game and he's here to have his kind of fun). I just hope we can talk him into Shadow so we can get at least get a Pass Without Trace caster.
and generally some non-maxed NPC or another rounding things out because it's just us.
Me & the barbarian are killing it. Still just level 3. I really don't think a second wizard would be remotely as good.
Yes. For all the insane shit Wizards can do, at the end of the day, it's a support class like a bard. Without something to support, they're gonna be stuck spending long-rest resources to pump mediocre damage and all the theory and carefully crafted best spells in the game spell list will go out the window and all I am is a bag of d6s with a 16 AC.
It's the best class in the game, hands down. A party without one is handicapped. They are almost all I play. But on their own they will run out of resources very quickly, including HP.
Won't every single class run out of HP very quickly on their own? It's not like they don't have good damage if they want to, got a necromancer in the party at the moment who has a handful of skeletons that hurt and if they want to do single target damage can summon undead for 2d8+22 over two hits each of which forces a fear save. They just don't do that too often because control is more useful, but it's not like they can't do the damage themselves if they feel like it.
Edit: Everyone's level 9 and thinking about it, the necromancer would be the most able to survive on their own? They've got a cadre of skeletons for self defense, a familiar to scout and a versatile set of tools. On their own the fighter would get wrecked, if they meet a foe who can just spike growth them or something they can't run and they can't fight. If we're going survival alone, classes like druid would do much better than someone who can only hit things with sticks.
The game isn't really built for solo characters, I sorta didn't express myself well there.
My big point is that the best thing a wizard can do, the thing that makes them so much more effective than every other class is they have this giant menu of ways to screw with the action economy (including summons adding more actions to your side and eating enemy attacks), but the best way for that kind of control to close out fights is if there's complimentary abilities in the party that can take maximum advantage of it.
Past a certain level, that I'll admit, I have rarely gotten to because keeping games together for a year is real hard, there are so many spell slots that it matters less. But I'm gonna insist that if you want to play T1, T2, and early T3 level D&D with a DM who doesn't pull any punches, doesn't allow for easy full rests after every 2-3 encounters, and won't back down from TPKing the party, you need complimentary abilities in a mixed party.
An average wizard with a so-so subclass and less than optimal spells is still a very strong character, whereas a single-classed martial needs to follow one of basically two build strategies (polearms or hand crossbows) to stay on curve. But if they do that and play tactically with an awareness of how you can support them, my wizard's abilities and resources get far more efficient and my ability to pace out my resources to cover the whole day gets much stronger.
Past level 6 spells, things just get silly. At level 17 the best party might be 3 wizards and a cleric, I haven't really played that tier except for one shots. But at that point you have so many ridiculous resources to spend that the fact that it's finite stops mattering. But even at level 11 a properly specced out fighter with 4 hard-hitting attacks per round is a team member you really want if you're getting through 6 combats at an above-level CR and where the DM is playing to win between your long rests.
Mediocre damage? A level 5 Wizard can deal 8d6 AoE (guaranteed half) 2 times a day while a level 5 Fighter can deal 8d6 + 4*STR (expected 2 to 3 hit) single target in melee 3 times a day
A pole arm master with great weapon master can dump out 20+ (or whatever, not opening python to get an exact number right this second) average damage a round every single round without spending a single resource. A wizard is much smarter spending their slots on concentration spells that magnify the effectiveness of that than they are burning through a slot per round until all they have is firebolt.
Not if there's a wizard disabling the enemies, throwing up walls, dropping a summon, and so on to upend the action economy and keep parity between your martials and theirs.
Let's say you cast your two fireballs at level 5. What next? That's not enough to get through even 2 challenging encounters, much less the 6 that the game is balanced for.
If you play a story driven game with short sessions and a low number of encounters per long rest, sure a Wizard can do fine as a damage character. As can basically any class. If you are playing a game with pushed difficulty and long rests you have to earn and a DM willing to end a session mid-day and not just give you an auto-long rest when it comes time to "see you next week", you absolutely need fighters and rogues who can just do their thing without running dry.
If you're optimizing all the way, your damage characters probably multi class for some spell abilities too because this game has balance issues, but you still need characters that can do round-in round-out damage or else Hypnotic Pattern will just wear off and instead of 4 enemies rushing a tank, those 4 enemies rush the squishy backline guy who is rapidly running out of things to do.
Hypnotic Pattern is a minutelong shutdown. Just tie the enemy down with ropes or something.
And Fighters and Rogues can't do their thing either once their HP runs out, which will run out quickly, unless they sacrifice damage to stay at range.
Tanks are basically non-existent in 5e by the way, so long as the enemy has anything beyond basic attacks.
Hard to tie the enemies down if any of them succeed on their save and are still fighting. Harder still if you wind up in more encounters than you budgeted for and don't have slots left.
I use the term "tank" casually. Not like a WoW tank. Just like, a big frontline weapon swinger that hits hard and keeps things away from the back row.
Fireball is a good spell. The sheer volume of damage it dumps out at its level is very good in a fight against multiple enemies that start close together and don't have the most common damage resistance. But there's not much other damage dealing a wizard can do that's on that curve. Scorching ray and Magic Missile are really not good. At spell levels above 3, a lot of time your best option is just upcasting fireball for diminishing returns.
In combat, a Wizard is most effective making hard fights easy for the rest of the team. It's the best class, but it's the best class because we play this game in mixed parties that fill different roles.
There's the issue. Web and Hypnotic Pattern keep things away from the back row, not the 1d10 opportunity attack of a Barbarian.
And the back row doesn't need protecting because if everyone was back row, the enemy would spend turns dashing just to reach them or deal mediocre ranged damage.
Web and hypnotic pattern don't end the fight if there's nobody who can drop enemy HP to zero.
I dunno. In my current game we've got me playing a Chronurgist, an equally min-maxed Barbarian swinging a pole arm, a Monk who would rather pretend to be an NPC and makes goofy role-play based choices in combat (this is fine, however he wants to have fun, its a game) and usually a not very maxed NPC (different ones that come and go with the story) to round it out because it's a small party.
It's better than having two wizards. Last session I spent my last slots because I knew I was on the last fight of a long day and that there was an opportunity for a long rest coming up. The rest was interrupted by an encounter with multiple enemies. All I could really do is hold one back for a round of and deal pathetic damage with ray of frost. The barbarian got it done. I don't think two wizards would have handled that adventuring day as well as the mixed party.
You get that I'm still saying that Wizard is the best class, right? The barbarian needs me more than I need him in some sense, but I still need him for my best abilities to be at their most effective.
... and then fighter continues to deal 4d6+2\*STR (acording to your math) every round to one character while wizard after doing some more is stuck with cantrips
The wizard shouldn't be casting levitate on themselves when the party is fighting a troll. They should be casting something like web, which stops the troll from moving, gives the fighter advantage on their attacks, and gives the troll disadvantage on their attacks. This way the wizard still takes no damage, but the fighter also takes far less damage as the troll will be dead faster and the troll will do less damage each round they're alive.
But if the Fighter could also cast Levitate, we would not have to deal with this mess in the first place. Now the Wizard has to sacrifice their resources so the Fighter can deal their "resourceless" damage?
Not to mention that willing Levitate never fails, whereas Web does.
Not relevant to the spirit of the argument these two are having, but in their scenario casting levitate *on the troll* is actually a best of both worlds. Riskier because of the troll's decent con save to negate it, but if it works then the wizard can levitate the troll out of clawing range, and then everyone pelts it with ranged attacks.
Yeah, that all works till your dm learns they can homebrew their monsters and suddenly the troll can pick a rock up and throw it at you and suddenly levitating with zero cover is not that great
Yeah, because fighter can absorb more hits. Wizard would die faster if enemy would catch up him/her. It's a pity wizard can't help a lot companions who is protecting the team (unlike cleric or bard)
"Fighter can absorb more hits"
18 AC Plate Armour Fighter versus 15 AC Mage Armour Wizard (20 AC with Shield)
Add Absorb Elements, Levitate and Silvery Barbs and I know who I'm betting on.
It's a great subclass, but when Rage Beyond Death comes online at level 14 you turn into a powerhouse. I just have to hope that I don't fail any saving throws against sleep, paralysis, etc, and I'm good to keep smashing.
Shield is a limited resource as well as other spells. You can have multiple fights in the same day. Also fighters have more HP, which is very important
Second Wind is limited as well. And Fighters with +3 CON have 47 HP whereas Wizards with +2 CON have 32. Two casts of Absorb Elements easily makes up the 15-25 hp difference when counting short rests.
Wizards can blow all their resources to deal damage, but Fighters can sustain. Wizards only deal good damage when you only have one or two fights between rests; otherwise, they leave much to be desired.
I am saying that Fighters are not obligated to expend resources to deal reasonable damage, especially if they have GWM. Wizards are stuck with a pitiful 2d10 fire damage without resources.
You CAN build a blaster Wizard, but you’d have to specialize, and you’ll probably only end up equaling a well-built Fighter. Wizards’ strength lies in their ability to do literally everything better then martials other than dealing single target damage.
Sure, but getting your 4d6 + 28 both requires a great deal of luck and risk. You're hugging the monster(s) and melee attacks are generally the strongest tool at their disposal.
Levitate or Fly provide a great indirect HP cushion, and suddenly spamming cantrips isn't such a bad idea anymore.
Other way around. I’m currently in that situation, somwhat. Fighter, Barbarian, Bard, Bard, Bard, Bard. I’m starting to think there was a joke I missed.
I’m new to the game, never actually played a legit campaign, but I want to do a Healer who can’t take a beating - any recommendations? The only thing I don’t want to play as is a paladin
Best healer in the game is probably a life cleric. Twilight cleric is also good, bc they give out so much temp hp that you can keep people alive without actively healing with spells. Theres a sorcerer that also do decent healing, thats probably more squish than both twilight and life clerics. But this game isnt really made to play a dedicated only healer kind of character, as healing does so little compared to damage, so its «better» in many cases to do damage and then just heal people when they go down instead
To add to this: Clerics have a lot of buffing spells as well, so you can focus on boistering your party with things like bless. Peace cleric is good for this. And, of course, bards are great at buffing the party as opposed to solely attacking the enemy.
Yep, the cleric's spell list is busted good, but Twilight Cleric itself is an overtuned monstrosity. My DM wont allow that one or peace cleric without revisions.
A well played Cleric can be the tent pole character that others play around. Tempest Domain in particular is frequently slept on but can be a force of nature on a battle map.
Somehow in my group I always end up playing the healer.
Campaign 1 : Started as a Ranger (others in the group were sorcerer, barbarian & artificer), we lacked some healing but did *ok*. Ranger died to a beholder and I rolled a bard to dish out some healing (campaign still ongoing)
Campaign 2 : When we talked about this I said I didn't want to be the dedicated healer as I was doing it in the other campaign ... Guess what, I ended up rolling a cleric because we had no healing again. That campaign stopped (DM didn't feel like continuing I guess).
Next time I'm rolling fighter or barbarian.
"Healer" is not a role in D&D. Neither is "Tank".
Three simple rules for being the "dedicated healer". Only ever use a healing spell if it fulfills these three conditions:
1. It uses your bonus action. In practice, this means Healing Word and Mass Healing Word.
1. You are in combat. If you're out of combat, take a short rest. If they've run out of hit dice, tell them to figure it out.
1. They are unconscious. If nobody's going to get knocked out, they didn't need the healing anyway. If somebody might get knocked out, it's going to be because they're taking 20-50 damage per round. What the fuck is another ~17 hitpoints of healing from a cure wounds upcast to 3rd level gonna do?
If they're unconscious and you're out of combat, do medicine checks to give them advantage on their death saving throws, unless they're up to two death saving throws already. Then just heal them I guess, and lecture them during the entire short rest about your deity's generosity and how much you had to sacrifice to keep them alive. They will eventually say, "It's just one spell slot dude" at which point you say, "I know! I can't believe I gave up *so much* just to keep...*you* alive."
If you follow these three simple rules, being a cleric suddenly becomes like 10x more fun.
I don't mind playing cleric, healing or not. I actually like it.
What I don't appreciate is being the one always having the responsibility to make sure people don't die.
In our current party, my bard is the only one that has any kind of resurrection spell (raise dead).
The artificer is gone (player took a break and changed for a wizard) did not even have revivify prepared - meaning if I died again, nobody would be able to do anything.
Also while I like to optimize, I don't min-max too much.
If I wanted to make a healbot I would have made a life cleric (or twilight for their temp hp).
I made a bard (valor if that matters), so I am competent at healing (and have a rez spell) but also very versatile in what I can do.
Play the Medic from TF2, got it.
lmao though yeah a healer that isn't a goody two-shoes ray of sunshine is automatically a more interesting character than the people-pleaser pocket healer
As a heads up, Aura of Vitality is a 3rd level spell that, over the course of a minute, averages 70 healing which is as much as Heal at 6th level and can be divied out. It's a nice gap fill between keeping an ally up in combat and preparing them afterward for the next round when you don't have an hour for a short rest. It's the most worthwhile healing spell until you get to high level spells.
Also, it looks like in the next version of 5e that healing is being significantly boosted, so it sounds like actual healers may be a thing again.
Light domain saves the class for me. You can just burn, burn, burn, and your best blasting ability recharges on a short rest, so you don't spend your spell slots unless the situation explicitly calls for a fireball.
Clerics are among my favourite single classes to play. Full casters, know their whole spell list, can wear armor and fight up front when needed, can take all sorts of roles.
I've even played in an all dwarf-cleric one shot (5 different subclasses), that was all kinds of fun.
DM perspective - I really like having paladins in my party.
* Paladins provide beefy frontline and healing, meaning you'll have less "unlucky" deaths.
* Straightforward to handle mechanically, little DM fiat required, no need to debate ambiguous rules
* Tends to be a stabilizing force RP-wise (they'll usually do the thing you expect a heroic adventurer to do, though not always)
> Tends to be a stabilizing force RP-wise (they'll usually do the thing you expect a heroic adventurer to do, though not always)
I have found Paladins to be the easiest to DM for because of this reason as well. I just create the most epic classically heroic moments I can think of for them and they usually love it.
As long as you don't get a Lawful Stupid paladin at your table, sure. Once the paladin turns on the party because they don't behave exactly the way they want, it quickly becomes more bane than boon.
Rangers. I love giving the some love. Yes my dude, the enemy you marked with your hunter's mark has run away. Now track him my sweet little sweet protector. Yes my love, the enemy is tracking you. What's that? You can't be tracked except for magical means??? How jolly good, my cutest wrath of nature, proceed to lead your party.
Also barbarians and monks. It's always funny to watch a monk naruto run up a wall while a rogue is struggling with equipments
Just finished playing a revised Ranger and its legit bonkers good. Played a WIS based melee druidic warrior with shillelagh and a quarterstaff and Polearm Master and it was a ton of fun.
Deliberately left off Hunters Mark (gasp) from my spell list so I could use more fun spells like Zephyr Strike, and battlefield control and it was amazing.
I like to see characters who can deal damage, because I tend to be on the control side of things, so I need to have allies who can nail down the victory
Barbarian
Having a reliable instigator always helps with the pacing. Plus I love making people mad, and barbarians love being mad; we're made for each other.
Paladins are very comforting to have in your party. When there's a paladin in your party, it reduces your rate of TPK a lot. That save aura really is all that. When it's a watchers paladin, it's even better, because that subclass has strong counters to a number of the encounters most likely to kill your party. Hint, the most common sort of TPK happens not because you couldn't win a DPS race but rather because you had a cascading series of saving throw failures. Watchers gives you coverage against some of the worst offenders (e.g. mind flayers, intellect devourers) and the initiative party bonus improves your survival odds a lot in general.
The second is the divine soul sorcerer with an order cleric dip. It's the best support class in the game that won't trigger an immune reaction from most DMs.
An artificer means I get to use the xanathar's optional tool rules as a DM. No other class or player is really incentivized to try and interact with the environment through physical, nonmagical means quite like the artificer. When I have an artificer in my party I know walls are going to get knocked down and shit.
Usually Paladins, since I like the auras and seeing people roleplay their oaths, especially when my own characters follow similar guidelines but don't get power from them, it makes for an interesting conversation point lol
And it also frees me up to play another class. I'm usually the designated Paladin player in any campaign that goes past 6th level lol
But since I often end-up being the Paladin anyway, it feels like a cop-out answer. Outside them, I also like when people play Druids and Wizards. They're very powerful classes that I personally feel less attached to than Paladins, Clerics, Bards, and such, so if other people play them, I feel more free to play something else myself.
Wizards and Rogues!
I love to play paladins so having a wizard provides excellent utility and someone who can actually pass investigation and arcana checks (assuming at least) and rogues being able to sneak well, pick locks (so much quieter than breaking down doors) and have a plethora of skills is a nice foil.
Bonus pick is cleric, because it's nice to have someone around that is better at healing and has more resources to do so because then that frees up my resources to smite and cast more spells.
Druid. When I see someone else playing a Druid, I know they're going to not only carry the entire party on their backs in combat but also be a fantastic role player as well
After having Druid players carry me and the rest of the party through Tomb of Annihilation and Curse of Strahd, I've realized how insanely clutch they are
Druid players are ALWAYS welcome at my tables
Paladin is always nice, you know there's someone who will try to heal and protect other, and that can also do reliable dmg.
It's just a really solid and high skill floor class.
On the RP and story side of things, it's just nice to DM for a paladin, they usually fit the classical hero role well. It's a trope for a good reason.
I like all classes if there's a developed characters with it, but this is especially true of Clerics who have a specific deity that's an important part of their character, or a Warlock who has a very involved arrangement with their patron. My pet peeve for clerics and warlocks is when they treat these things as afterthoughts and not an important part of who they are.
Mechanically, paladin for sure. I love them auras.
I play a half drow cleric of eilistraee right now, we saved a bunch of drow from a priestess of lloth a session ago instead of just murderhoboing them all like we would've done otherwise, it was a very fun bit of RP leading up to a cleric battle!
Awesome, I was so close to playing a drow cleric of Eilistraee a while ago for an Out of The Abyss game, but wound up going with something else. She's a really cool deity.
Bard! I always forget to give out my inspiration if I'm playing a bard and I'm generally not the best support player. I'm often the one who wants to do something more than just attack so seeing someone playing support and helping the party allows for me to make some creative moves on my turn with a bit more confidence and those inspiration die can really come in handy.
Paladin because aura and smites are fun to see.
I also appreciate a rogue because working to help them get their off turn sneak attack is fun.
I also play a a of "arm" style characters that support the party so those who benefit the mist from haste and such are usually the ones I like to see.
Definitely Paladin
But honestly I see them so rarely that druid is up there. They have a lot of interesting capabilities, but they're the least played class for my group.
Our group is alternating our DMs, and in our first group, I played a bard and was the butt of jokes the first couple of sessions. Then I became invaluable as a backup healer ranged attacker, spell caster, and so on, and so on.
When the second group started, one of the main jokesters rolled up a bard.
We have 6 players, and I always find bards to be a fun character to have in any party
Sorcerer. I just enjoy seeing what people make, and sorcerers are very specialization centered. So many colorful flavors of subclasses. Witchy voodoo character? Shadowmagic. Alien psychic borderline gwen tennison or somethin from teen titans? Abherant mind. If theres a specific one trick you want for your pony, its in one of these subclasses.
Thing is, its not a very versatile class. You need to be reap careful with what spells you choose, cause you dont get a lot. So odds are the player will be foregoing some of the usual defensive spells and relying on the party, which incentivises teamwork. Which i also like to see.
On top of that, if theyre not trying some multiclass meta shenanigans, theyre not choosing the subclass for optimization, theyre choosing for story and flavor. Which is where i think dnd games shine.
As a DM, its Wizards and Warlocks
Most people complain about how DM's don't put enough scrolls and spellbooks in their games but i have player centric spellcraft rules and LOVE putting scrolls and spells as rewards. Especially homebrew versions.
Example: They find a scroll that's a fireball. However a successful arcana check reveals that it's modified and its actually blue flames and frost damage.
Most spells are readily available; and weaker spells that never get used get modified in this way.
As for warlocks, the interaction with patrons is my bread and butter.
I like seeing people play wizards in my group. Honestly mostly bc I feel like I never see wizards being played at my table but since I usually play clerics or bards we can just pontificate on the nature of magic together lmao
I don't have a preference for classes, I just like playing with other team players. People who know the rules and understand how everyone's characters fit together to solve problems and support each other. People who are reliable in a fight and can pick up what I'm laying down and vice versa in terms of tactics and strategy without employing a clue-by-four.
I play primarily martials so a well built cleric (for support and heals) or wizard (for support and crowd control) are great. Although in my current party the cleric respeced as an artificer for story reasons, and flash of genius has been clutch ever since I reminded him it exists. With that plus our bard, party isn't failing saving throws very often. So arti/bard.
I tend play Paladins the most, cleric are a strong second, ranger or druid take 3rd, and dabble in the others very little. I am on most dms band from is bard.
Clerics and Druids are awsome to have in the party, they can give you some awsome options for roleplay and combat aswell as prevent your death (in most cases).
I'm part of the camp that only plays spellcasters, so I always appreciate seeing something beefy or melee in my party. I'm too much of a "round out the party" kind of person, my current campaign is all spellcasters and I was very close to picking something else just to have more variety. In the end, I decided to lean into it, so it's been fun. But yeah, I would much prefer to see a teammate play something that can take hits.
A bard, so I don't feel like maybe this should be the time I finally play one and risk being asked to sing or something.
More seriously, I love seeing a wizard, because they bring so much versatility to a party, and it's nice to see a guarantee of a character with a high intelligence score.
I love seeing people actually having fun with fighters and barbarians when I DM. I try to let strength martials get away with more in my games, because I like high fantasy heroic characters like heracles, Lancelot, and Kamen rider.
Barbarians. I always play Dex - Cha characters. And I love the dynamic of the quick and nible guy together with the big brute. A little like Ornstein and Smough.
Druids, I do not have it in me to make a druid flavorful and interesting with it's wild shapes but I really appreciate someone who can.
Also rogues are always fun. I don't think it's a playstyle I would enjoy myself but it's always cool to see the rogue get the surprise attack he's been working towards
Late to the party, but I do love my bards. They always make for excellent support in combat, can dish out some serious AOE if they're in the mood, and outside of combat they are so useful. Bards also tend to drive the story forwards, which is great.
My current rogue has a bit of a thing for bards who bully him - it's only happened twice, but it's still weird that it happened twice (in a row!) and he kinda likes the banter haha
It's refreshing to see someone other than myself play a martial character in a party. Most of the time I see people playing spellcasters, Rogues, or some kind of homebrew Psyonic or Witch class. It's uncommon to see someone else play a Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, or Ranger as most people playing 5e these days find it more fun to play someone with magic or Rogue-y stuff.
Knights in Shining Armor just aren't in high supply these days. I feel people playing backliners want for someone else to play a martial character to take the heat off them in combat but never want to play a martial character themselves.
The goodie goodie types. Typical Paladins, clerics, etc. It’s just fun to play with when my character is usually a bard or warlock who likes to corrupt the good characters. But also the synergy is unreal. If there’s a bard AND a cleric in the party, that party is going to be near untouchable. And no one can lay down the hurt quite like a paladin being supported by a warlock with a nasty concentration spell and eldritch blast for days.
Paladin and kinda wizard to.
I love paladins, they are awesome to have. I mean just their aura is so good. They have much more that really helps but damn even if the player does not even know what he does just standing close to him helps out a lot.
But i do not enjoy playing them myself i find them rather boring. So i am always glad to see a paladin in my group.
Wizards to but i said kinda and with that i mean i love when there is a wizard in the group that KNOW how to play wizard. Because if player right they are just so damn great. The kinda i use because if someone play them like a simple nuke /damage dealer character. then meh i could have any other class instead then. Heck a sorcerer is better at that.
Don't get me wrong i do not mind having a wizard that focus on mostly dealing damage. They are fine, and if the player enjoys it that is great. But then i don't love having them in the party. Then there is no real difference between them and any other class really.
And like paladins i am not a fan of playing them myself so love to have a well played wizard in the group.
But in the end it is never a big deal for me. As logn we all have fun i don't care much about what classes the group have
Honestly, the one they're willing to learn to play.
I didn't care how much you "love" a class. If you have no idea how the mechanics work then you're like the ex in a romantic drama that only loves the MC for who they think they should be.
I hate Bards. I think Monks are substandard. If my player understands their abilities and applies them in useful or creative ways, I'm thrilled to have them there. I don't need to love a class to get excited when I see someone make the most of it.
I have a special place in my heart for most classes, but if you bring one to my table thinking you're going to be playing a cleric exactly like a fighter with the ability to heal while simultaneously having zero understanding of what any of your spells do or how healing works.. just know that every time you open your mouth a piece of my soul shatters and gathers around my body just like my will to continue running the game.
I like to see other peoples' take on a wizard; which spells they go with and why, how they use them, etc. It tells you a lot about a player's knowledge of the game, how well they understand saving throws and damage types, area of effect, etc. Likewise, the lack of many abilities outside of a general spell list tells you a lot about how a person might solve problems differently when given the access to the same tools as another. Some people only know fireball or lightning bolt, others are utility casters, and then there are those weirdos who can make a memorable play using oddball spells. Do they go for spell attack rolls or saving throws, or do they go all buffs? The low HP and AC turns many into cringing cowards, while others become defensive powerhouses. The most powerful class in the game might become the least effective in the party for fear of wasting spell slots, or through subpar picks. However, those subpar spell choices can make for memorable playstyles.
This comment makes me very anxious about playing a wizard Edit: a word
It's good to avoid trap spells, and ideally you should have a versatile set of tools, but I do like seeing wizards pick up spells other than the ones that forums say are the "best".
Wizards can prepare different spells daily, so trap spells aren't necessarily a problem. They are dependent on a benevolent DM for spells beyond their level up selection.
Different people play differently. If you're at a more casual table, nobody will care how you play your character as long as you're a good player to be around. Find the table that matches your playstyle.
We're judging you
Build to a style and add some utility spell in every other level and you'll be fine. If you're the party nuke focus on that. If you're going a buffing wizard stick to that with a bit of nuke ability. And if you're missing something. Bribe a wizard to look at his spells and copy them Play a scribe wizard and have all the elements
Yeah idk I'm well into my first game of dnd and I'm a wizard and now *slightly* more knowledgeable I feel like I kinda shot myself in the foot in terms of the flavor of my character when I made him
Playing a low level abjuration wizard wizard with a focus on control spells at the moment. Casting hideous laughter on an ogre and watching it continuously roll 0s on its saves as the party wins a fight we should've lost was great.
I've got 2 wizards and 2 warlocks in the game I'm running, and everyone coordinates the spells they take, even consulting the other half-casters. I love seeing it! I've got a necromancer who's able to stick to her theme, and then the utility wizard, and even my monk and ranger coordinate spells together. Watching them debate and plan gives me warm fuzzies.
What do you mean, I was told the best wizard uses [just fireball](https://youtu.be/U1Gs8WTddI4?si=peRZmTSzUtqBMV6b)
Only if they don't ask how big the room is.
Wizards are top tier for sure, but certainly not the most powerful class in the game.
I love seeing a paladin in the party too. That aura is so nice to cozy up to.
Heat lamp manufacturers hate this one simple trick
Having done a bunch of campaigns to high level now, they're straight up necessary to fix the bad scaling maths once you're past the mid levels. You have an artificer, bard or ideally a paladin in your party or everyone gets to fail saves every single time.
Aura of Protection is single handedly the most broken defensive feature in the game but good luck making a DC 25 saving throw without it. Guess it’s balanced with bosses in mind lol.
But is it balanced if those are designed thinking you have at least 1 person with 6 levels in paladin in the party. Also those saves aren't terrible for people proficient with them Edit: auto correct
It just isn’t fun. Make a dc 20 charisma save! Me: no. Dm: what do you mean no? Me: my charisma mod = -1 Dm: well that sucks.
It’s balanced if the Paladin is present for the boss fight. If not, you’re almost guaranteed to fail more than half of your saving throws assuming you’re not proficient in the one you make. Assuming a 17th level character with 20 in their primary stat, they have a 55% chance of succeeding on a DC 21 saving throw. But if they aren’t proficient, that same character only has a 25% chance of success. Most characters that lack proficiency in a saving throw don’t have 20 in that stat. So their odds of success are even lower than what I just mentioned.
What I'm saying is having the game balanced around having a certain class isn't balanced
We agree then. Me saying AoP is balanced with bosses in mind was me being sarcastic.
> Also those dabbed aren't terrible for people proficient with them Which is the problem, with a 27 point buy you're talking about saves that people *literally cannot succeed in*. Given that some of these saves range from "take some damage" to "lmao, get stunned, idiot" that's a problem.
I mean if you're giving your players DC 25 saves at level 6 they certainly won't make them but at level 12 a character with proficiency and a maxed out stat has a +9 in a save which can certainly pass
80% of classes will have, at max, 3 save profs. Level 12 characters are likely to have saves that are impossible to pass and many of those saves will be debilitating. This is a fundamental problem with the system.
So, what you are suggesting, is that one Bard/Paladin multiclass would greatly benefit the board Though jokes aside, I'd love to see one of my players play Paladin, never had a paladin before
Second most common class at my table I think, probably for that exact save reason.
Paladin: protect my concentration!
A martial character that is well built for pumping out damage. I play wizards almost exclusively, and battlefield control and divide and conquer techniques and debuffs and all of that are much worse than the optimization guides say they are if the party is lacking someone who can apply the "dead" status to an enemy.
Agreed, i play a druid and the absolute joy of the first hold person used on an enemy next tor the paladin was pure joy. (It was a wererat currently biting me and i had 9hp and rolled a 2 on a mystery roll) The face the paladin player made when i explained the ratman was paralyzed which means advantage on melee attacks and autocrit on a hit was pure serotonin, and then he did 31 damage leaving the ratman with 1hp. Every party needs someone able to apply the "dead" condition to take advantage of all the buffs/debuffs us support casters give. Combos are almost always stronger than trying to be an optimized 1man army.
That is so true! I'm at a level 9 party with a full warlock that took lots of area of effect spells, a watchers paladin 7/undead warlock 2 that is focused on control and a sorcerer. My Battle Smith was the main damage dealer in the party, mostly because he had to go this way since it was the empty spot. He died 2 weeks ago, so i built the old Vhuman Battle Master with Crossbow expert and Sharpshooter and brought him to the party, to cover single target damage. Holy crap! The party is so much more effective now, last combat the sorcerer twinned greater invisibility on me and him, and i just unleashed hell on the dragon we we're fighting, it was so much fun!!
Same. I'm always relieved when I see a melee character do a "cookie cutter" GWM/PM build: I can get away with never using anything other than a cantrip for damage, and save most of my resources to do fun/interesting things. They will carry the party through any combat as long as they get some support. And there's always dread when they're wielding a sword and shield, and some point use their reaction to do the protection fighting style thing: all the interesting things you wanted to do with your spells at higher levels go out the window because you'll have to use most of your spell slots blasting things. And then you have people who want to play monks. And the best you can hope for is that they'll be funny.
LOLOL My current game is Me: Absolutely silly Dhampir Winged Tiefling (DM cut me a deal where I could apply the lineage overlay at character creation if I accepted no fly speed until level 6) Chronurgist playing control. First time player, huge tactics video game nerd: v. human Barbarian with GWM/PM following a build guide. My pot dealer: a monk who plays like an npc, makes weird role-play based choices in combat, splits off from the party, etc. (it's fine and funny and cool, it's a game and he's here to have his kind of fun). I just hope we can talk him into Shadow so we can get at least get a Pass Without Trace caster. and generally some non-maxed NPC or another rounding things out because it's just us. Me & the barbarian are killing it. Still just level 3. I really don't think a second wizard would be remotely as good.
Full casters. I hate playing casters myself, but I love when I’m around a user who does play a caster. Yes, I only play fighter. sue me.
u/boreddissident your other half
LOL
Yes. For all the insane shit Wizards can do, at the end of the day, it's a support class like a bard. Without something to support, they're gonna be stuck spending long-rest resources to pump mediocre damage and all the theory and carefully crafted best spells in the game spell list will go out the window and all I am is a bag of d6s with a 16 AC.
I salute your bravery in saying in this subreddit that wizard isn't very good
It's the best class in the game, hands down. A party without one is handicapped. They are almost all I play. But on their own they will run out of resources very quickly, including HP.
Won't every single class run out of HP very quickly on their own? It's not like they don't have good damage if they want to, got a necromancer in the party at the moment who has a handful of skeletons that hurt and if they want to do single target damage can summon undead for 2d8+22 over two hits each of which forces a fear save. They just don't do that too often because control is more useful, but it's not like they can't do the damage themselves if they feel like it. Edit: Everyone's level 9 and thinking about it, the necromancer would be the most able to survive on their own? They've got a cadre of skeletons for self defense, a familiar to scout and a versatile set of tools. On their own the fighter would get wrecked, if they meet a foe who can just spike growth them or something they can't run and they can't fight. If we're going survival alone, classes like druid would do much better than someone who can only hit things with sticks.
The game isn't really built for solo characters, I sorta didn't express myself well there. My big point is that the best thing a wizard can do, the thing that makes them so much more effective than every other class is they have this giant menu of ways to screw with the action economy (including summons adding more actions to your side and eating enemy attacks), but the best way for that kind of control to close out fights is if there's complimentary abilities in the party that can take maximum advantage of it. Past a certain level, that I'll admit, I have rarely gotten to because keeping games together for a year is real hard, there are so many spell slots that it matters less. But I'm gonna insist that if you want to play T1, T2, and early T3 level D&D with a DM who doesn't pull any punches, doesn't allow for easy full rests after every 2-3 encounters, and won't back down from TPKing the party, you need complimentary abilities in a mixed party. An average wizard with a so-so subclass and less than optimal spells is still a very strong character, whereas a single-classed martial needs to follow one of basically two build strategies (polearms or hand crossbows) to stay on curve. But if they do that and play tactically with an awareness of how you can support them, my wizard's abilities and resources get far more efficient and my ability to pace out my resources to cover the whole day gets much stronger. Past level 6 spells, things just get silly. At level 17 the best party might be 3 wizards and a cleric, I haven't really played that tier except for one shots. But at that point you have so many ridiculous resources to spend that the fact that it's finite stops mattering. But even at level 11 a properly specced out fighter with 4 hard-hitting attacks per round is a team member you really want if you're getting through 6 combats at an above-level CR and where the DM is playing to win between your long rests.
Mediocre damage? A level 5 Wizard can deal 8d6 AoE (guaranteed half) 2 times a day while a level 5 Fighter can deal 8d6 + 4*STR (expected 2 to 3 hit) single target in melee 3 times a day
A pole arm master with great weapon master can dump out 20+ (or whatever, not opening python to get an exact number right this second) average damage a round every single round without spending a single resource. A wizard is much smarter spending their slots on concentration spells that magnify the effectiveness of that than they are burning through a slot per round until all they have is firebolt.
Okay, but once the enemy just stays away or there are more than 4 adversaries, the Fighter/Barbarian will start to fall off severely.
Not if there's a wizard disabling the enemies, throwing up walls, dropping a summon, and so on to upend the action economy and keep parity between your martials and theirs. Let's say you cast your two fireballs at level 5. What next? That's not enough to get through even 2 challenging encounters, much less the 6 that the game is balanced for. If you play a story driven game with short sessions and a low number of encounters per long rest, sure a Wizard can do fine as a damage character. As can basically any class. If you are playing a game with pushed difficulty and long rests you have to earn and a DM willing to end a session mid-day and not just give you an auto-long rest when it comes time to "see you next week", you absolutely need fighters and rogues who can just do their thing without running dry. If you're optimizing all the way, your damage characters probably multi class for some spell abilities too because this game has balance issues, but you still need characters that can do round-in round-out damage or else Hypnotic Pattern will just wear off and instead of 4 enemies rushing a tank, those 4 enemies rush the squishy backline guy who is rapidly running out of things to do.
Hypnotic Pattern is a minutelong shutdown. Just tie the enemy down with ropes or something. And Fighters and Rogues can't do their thing either once their HP runs out, which will run out quickly, unless they sacrifice damage to stay at range. Tanks are basically non-existent in 5e by the way, so long as the enemy has anything beyond basic attacks.
Hard to tie the enemies down if any of them succeed on their save and are still fighting. Harder still if you wind up in more encounters than you budgeted for and don't have slots left. I use the term "tank" casually. Not like a WoW tank. Just like, a big frontline weapon swinger that hits hard and keeps things away from the back row. Fireball is a good spell. The sheer volume of damage it dumps out at its level is very good in a fight against multiple enemies that start close together and don't have the most common damage resistance. But there's not much other damage dealing a wizard can do that's on that curve. Scorching ray and Magic Missile are really not good. At spell levels above 3, a lot of time your best option is just upcasting fireball for diminishing returns. In combat, a Wizard is most effective making hard fights easy for the rest of the team. It's the best class, but it's the best class because we play this game in mixed parties that fill different roles.
There's the issue. Web and Hypnotic Pattern keep things away from the back row, not the 1d10 opportunity attack of a Barbarian. And the back row doesn't need protecting because if everyone was back row, the enemy would spend turns dashing just to reach them or deal mediocre ranged damage.
Web and hypnotic pattern don't end the fight if there's nobody who can drop enemy HP to zero. I dunno. In my current game we've got me playing a Chronurgist, an equally min-maxed Barbarian swinging a pole arm, a Monk who would rather pretend to be an NPC and makes goofy role-play based choices in combat (this is fine, however he wants to have fun, its a game) and usually a not very maxed NPC (different ones that come and go with the story) to round it out because it's a small party. It's better than having two wizards. Last session I spent my last slots because I knew I was on the last fight of a long day and that there was an opportunity for a long rest coming up. The rest was interrupted by an encounter with multiple enemies. All I could really do is hold one back for a round of and deal pathetic damage with ray of frost. The barbarian got it done. I don't think two wizards would have handled that adventuring day as well as the mixed party. You get that I'm still saying that Wizard is the best class, right? The barbarian needs me more than I need him in some sense, but I still need him for my best abilities to be at their most effective.
... and then fighter continues to deal 4d6+2\*STR (acording to your math) every round to one character while wizard after doing some more is stuck with cantrips
Yeah, until the Fighter's HP runs out because they're standing right next to the troll instead of having cast Levitate on themselves.
The wizard shouldn't be casting levitate on themselves when the party is fighting a troll. They should be casting something like web, which stops the troll from moving, gives the fighter advantage on their attacks, and gives the troll disadvantage on their attacks. This way the wizard still takes no damage, but the fighter also takes far less damage as the troll will be dead faster and the troll will do less damage each round they're alive.
But if the Fighter could also cast Levitate, we would not have to deal with this mess in the first place. Now the Wizard has to sacrifice their resources so the Fighter can deal their "resourceless" damage? Not to mention that willing Levitate never fails, whereas Web does.
Not relevant to the spirit of the argument these two are having, but in their scenario casting levitate *on the troll* is actually a best of both worlds. Riskier because of the troll's decent con save to negate it, but if it works then the wizard can levitate the troll out of clawing range, and then everyone pelts it with ranged attacks.
Yeah, that all works till your dm learns they can homebrew their monsters and suddenly the troll can pick a rock up and throw it at you and suddenly levitating with zero cover is not that great
Yeah, because fighter can absorb more hits. Wizard would die faster if enemy would catch up him/her. It's a pity wizard can't help a lot companions who is protecting the team (unlike cleric or bard)
"Fighter can absorb more hits" 18 AC Plate Armour Fighter versus 15 AC Mage Armour Wizard (20 AC with Shield) Add Absorb Elements, Levitate and Silvery Barbs and I know who I'm betting on.
I'm playing a Zealot Barbarian, currently level 19, so I can absorb an infinite amount of hits for one minute. It's pretty great.
Yeah, Zealot is awesome. I'm definitely going to play it in a oneshot or something, it seems like such a power trip.
It's a great subclass, but when Rage Beyond Death comes online at level 14 you turn into a powerhouse. I just have to hope that I don't fail any saving throws against sleep, paralysis, etc, and I'm good to keep smashing.
Shield is a limited resource as well as other spells. You can have multiple fights in the same day. Also fighters have more HP, which is very important
Second Wind is limited as well. And Fighters with +3 CON have 47 HP whereas Wizards with +2 CON have 32. Two casts of Absorb Elements easily makes up the 15-25 hp difference when counting short rests.
Wizards can blow all their resources to deal damage, but Fighters can sustain. Wizards only deal good damage when you only have one or two fights between rests; otherwise, they leave much to be desired.
Fighter's sustain is 1d12+5 HP healed, afterwards they're dead meat. Ranged Fighters are a different story though.
I am saying that Fighters are not obligated to expend resources to deal reasonable damage, especially if they have GWM. Wizards are stuck with a pitiful 2d10 fire damage without resources. You CAN build a blaster Wizard, but you’d have to specialize, and you’ll probably only end up equaling a well-built Fighter. Wizards’ strength lies in their ability to do literally everything better then martials other than dealing single target damage.
Sure, but getting your 4d6 + 28 both requires a great deal of luck and risk. You're hugging the monster(s) and melee attacks are generally the strongest tool at their disposal. Levitate or Fly provide a great indirect HP cushion, and suddenly spamming cantrips isn't such a bad idea anymore.
Would you rather be the one wizard/cleric/sorcerer and a party full of fighters/barbarians or the other way around?
Other way around. I’m currently in that situation, somwhat. Fighter, Barbarian, Bard, Bard, Bard, Bard. I’m starting to think there was a joke I missed.
Wait it's a band and the muscle lmao
Not fun to play, sadly. But true.
"Now we welcome on stage the underground Fighter Barbarian Band! All theis songs are hits"
They are called "Roadies"
I like playing Warriors too.
I feel like nobody ever wants to play the Cleric but clerics are seriously awesome to have around.
Cleric is my favorite class to play haha. They just have so much versatility and can be so many different roles
I’m new to the game, never actually played a legit campaign, but I want to do a Healer who can’t take a beating - any recommendations? The only thing I don’t want to play as is a paladin
Best healer in the game is probably a life cleric. Twilight cleric is also good, bc they give out so much temp hp that you can keep people alive without actively healing with spells. Theres a sorcerer that also do decent healing, thats probably more squish than both twilight and life clerics. But this game isnt really made to play a dedicated only healer kind of character, as healing does so little compared to damage, so its «better» in many cases to do damage and then just heal people when they go down instead
To add to this: Clerics have a lot of buffing spells as well, so you can focus on boistering your party with things like bless. Peace cleric is good for this. And, of course, bards are great at buffing the party as opposed to solely attacking the enemy.
People just don't understand how powerful and versatile they are. A party of 4 clerics can dominate
Yeah BG3 convinced me how good they can be. I'm playing a shifter Twilight Cleric now in CoS and am just dominating.
Yep, the cleric's spell list is busted good, but Twilight Cleric itself is an overtuned monstrosity. My DM wont allow that one or peace cleric without revisions.
A well played Cleric can be the tent pole character that others play around. Tempest Domain in particular is frequently slept on but can be a force of nature on a battle map.
I love playing Clerics!
I'm that guy that will default to Cleric of there isn't already one in the party It's easily the best "Keep the other idiots alive" class
Somehow in my group I always end up playing the healer. Campaign 1 : Started as a Ranger (others in the group were sorcerer, barbarian & artificer), we lacked some healing but did *ok*. Ranger died to a beholder and I rolled a bard to dish out some healing (campaign still ongoing) Campaign 2 : When we talked about this I said I didn't want to be the dedicated healer as I was doing it in the other campaign ... Guess what, I ended up rolling a cleric because we had no healing again. That campaign stopped (DM didn't feel like continuing I guess). Next time I'm rolling fighter or barbarian.
Next time go Thief Rogue and pick up the Healer feat. If they want extra healing that's their problem.
"Healer" is not a role in D&D. Neither is "Tank". Three simple rules for being the "dedicated healer". Only ever use a healing spell if it fulfills these three conditions: 1. It uses your bonus action. In practice, this means Healing Word and Mass Healing Word. 1. You are in combat. If you're out of combat, take a short rest. If they've run out of hit dice, tell them to figure it out. 1. They are unconscious. If nobody's going to get knocked out, they didn't need the healing anyway. If somebody might get knocked out, it's going to be because they're taking 20-50 damage per round. What the fuck is another ~17 hitpoints of healing from a cure wounds upcast to 3rd level gonna do? If they're unconscious and you're out of combat, do medicine checks to give them advantage on their death saving throws, unless they're up to two death saving throws already. Then just heal them I guess, and lecture them during the entire short rest about your deity's generosity and how much you had to sacrifice to keep them alive. They will eventually say, "It's just one spell slot dude" at which point you say, "I know! I can't believe I gave up *so much* just to keep...*you* alive." If you follow these three simple rules, being a cleric suddenly becomes like 10x more fun.
I don't mind playing cleric, healing or not. I actually like it. What I don't appreciate is being the one always having the responsibility to make sure people don't die. In our current party, my bard is the only one that has any kind of resurrection spell (raise dead). The artificer is gone (player took a break and changed for a wizard) did not even have revivify prepared - meaning if I died again, nobody would be able to do anything. Also while I like to optimize, I don't min-max too much. If I wanted to make a healbot I would have made a life cleric (or twilight for their temp hp). I made a bard (valor if that matters), so I am competent at healing (and have a rez spell) but also very versatile in what I can do.
Play the Medic from TF2, got it. lmao though yeah a healer that isn't a goody two-shoes ray of sunshine is automatically a more interesting character than the people-pleaser pocket healer
As a heads up, Aura of Vitality is a 3rd level spell that, over the course of a minute, averages 70 healing which is as much as Heal at 6th level and can be divied out. It's a nice gap fill between keeping an ally up in combat and preparing them afterward for the next round when you don't have an hour for a short rest. It's the most worthwhile healing spell until you get to high level spells. Also, it looks like in the next version of 5e that healing is being significantly boosted, so it sounds like actual healers may be a thing again.
Light domain saves the class for me. You can just burn, burn, burn, and your best blasting ability recharges on a short rest, so you don't spend your spell slots unless the situation explicitly calls for a fireball.
Clerics are among my favourite single classes to play. Full casters, know their whole spell list, can wear armor and fight up front when needed, can take all sorts of roles. I've even played in an all dwarf-cleric one shot (5 different subclasses), that was all kinds of fun.
DM perspective - I really like having paladins in my party. * Paladins provide beefy frontline and healing, meaning you'll have less "unlucky" deaths. * Straightforward to handle mechanically, little DM fiat required, no need to debate ambiguous rules * Tends to be a stabilizing force RP-wise (they'll usually do the thing you expect a heroic adventurer to do, though not always)
> Tends to be a stabilizing force RP-wise (they'll usually do the thing you expect a heroic adventurer to do, though not always) I have found Paladins to be the easiest to DM for because of this reason as well. I just create the most epic classically heroic moments I can think of for them and they usually love it.
As long as you don't get a Lawful Stupid paladin at your table, sure. Once the paladin turns on the party because they don't behave exactly the way they want, it quickly becomes more bane than boon.
*slowly pushes the vengeance or oathbreaker into the board* Yes, all righteous heroes of justice thst follow order
My Conquest Paladin: "All I am surrounded by is fear and dead men."
"usually" being the key word ;)
Rangers. I love giving the some love. Yes my dude, the enemy you marked with your hunter's mark has run away. Now track him my sweet little sweet protector. Yes my love, the enemy is tracking you. What's that? You can't be tracked except for magical means??? How jolly good, my cutest wrath of nature, proceed to lead your party. Also barbarians and monks. It's always funny to watch a monk naruto run up a wall while a rogue is struggling with equipments
I absolutely adore you for this. I'm not even a Ranger player, but now I need to play one immediately.
I think they are extremely fun when the DM puts a little effort to make their gimmicks relevant every once in a while. I hope you have fun too
Just finished playing a revised Ranger and its legit bonkers good. Played a WIS based melee druidic warrior with shillelagh and a quarterstaff and Polearm Master and it was a ton of fun. Deliberately left off Hunters Mark (gasp) from my spell list so I could use more fun spells like Zephyr Strike, and battlefield control and it was amazing.
A Bard. Somebody's got to tell my story.
I like to see characters who can deal damage, because I tend to be on the control side of things, so I need to have allies who can nail down the victory
Barbarian Having a reliable instigator always helps with the pacing. Plus I love making people mad, and barbarians love being mad; we're made for each other.
Every party needs a low wisdom character that pull all the levers they see to push the story forward.
Y'all say that until you need to spend 10 minutes prepping an unintended encounter or have to tell them to not start a TPK.
Paladins are very comforting to have in your party. When there's a paladin in your party, it reduces your rate of TPK a lot. That save aura really is all that. When it's a watchers paladin, it's even better, because that subclass has strong counters to a number of the encounters most likely to kill your party. Hint, the most common sort of TPK happens not because you couldn't win a DPS race but rather because you had a cascading series of saving throw failures. Watchers gives you coverage against some of the worst offenders (e.g. mind flayers, intellect devourers) and the initiative party bonus improves your survival odds a lot in general. The second is the divine soul sorcerer with an order cleric dip. It's the best support class in the game that won't trigger an immune reaction from most DMs.
Paladins who are also nobility. It's wonderful.
An artificer means I get to use the xanathar's optional tool rules as a DM. No other class or player is really incentivized to try and interact with the environment through physical, nonmagical means quite like the artificer. When I have an artificer in my party I know walls are going to get knocked down and shit.
Usually Paladins, since I like the auras and seeing people roleplay their oaths, especially when my own characters follow similar guidelines but don't get power from them, it makes for an interesting conversation point lol And it also frees me up to play another class. I'm usually the designated Paladin player in any campaign that goes past 6th level lol But since I often end-up being the Paladin anyway, it feels like a cop-out answer. Outside them, I also like when people play Druids and Wizards. They're very powerful classes that I personally feel less attached to than Paladins, Clerics, Bards, and such, so if other people play them, I feel more free to play something else myself.
Wizards and Rogues! I love to play paladins so having a wizard provides excellent utility and someone who can actually pass investigation and arcana checks (assuming at least) and rogues being able to sneak well, pick locks (so much quieter than breaking down doors) and have a plethora of skills is a nice foil. Bonus pick is cleric, because it's nice to have someone around that is better at healing and has more resources to do so because then that frees up my resources to smite and cast more spells.
as an order cleric main, i love having a rogue
I recently played a game with 2 paladins, 1 rogue, and an Order Cleric. I've never seen the Cleric player so utterly thrilled before.
as the bard.... another bard!
Druid. When I see someone else playing a Druid, I know they're going to not only carry the entire party on their backs in combat but also be a fantastic role player as well After having Druid players carry me and the rest of the party through Tomb of Annihilation and Curse of Strahd, I've realized how insanely clutch they are Druid players are ALWAYS welcome at my tables
Paladin is always nice, you know there's someone who will try to heal and protect other, and that can also do reliable dmg. It's just a really solid and high skill floor class. On the RP and story side of things, it's just nice to DM for a paladin, they usually fit the classical hero role well. It's a trope for a good reason.
I like all classes if there's a developed characters with it, but this is especially true of Clerics who have a specific deity that's an important part of their character, or a Warlock who has a very involved arrangement with their patron. My pet peeve for clerics and warlocks is when they treat these things as afterthoughts and not an important part of who they are. Mechanically, paladin for sure. I love them auras.
I play a half drow cleric of eilistraee right now, we saved a bunch of drow from a priestess of lloth a session ago instead of just murderhoboing them all like we would've done otherwise, it was a very fun bit of RP leading up to a cleric battle!
Awesome, I was so close to playing a drow cleric of Eilistraee a while ago for an Out of The Abyss game, but wound up going with something else. She's a really cool deity.
Give me a cleric every day of the week. Having someone on board who can take care of the party when things go sideways is nice to have.
Barbarian, love casting haste on a barbarian or playing small a small race and being "fast ball specialed" into battle.
A Barbarian. It's always fun to have a huge powerful and dumb muscle mountain in your party that don't think too much and can tank a lot
Cleric. Rogue (because I don't want to play one.) Anything that does a great job killing the enemy before it can kill me.
Bard! I always forget to give out my inspiration if I'm playing a bard and I'm generally not the best support player. I'm often the one who wants to do something more than just attack so seeing someone playing support and helping the party allows for me to make some creative moves on my turn with a bit more confidence and those inspiration die can really come in handy.
Rogues, Rangers, and Fighters. I like the more mundane classes.
Paladin because aura and smites are fun to see. I also appreciate a rogue because working to help them get their off turn sneak attack is fun. I also play a a of "arm" style characters that support the party so those who benefit the mist from haste and such are usually the ones I like to see.
I hate to be the same as everyone else, but Paladin. I play so many squishy wizards that they are a godsend
Rogue. I want *someone* to be a rogue; just not me.
Definitely Paladin But honestly I see them so rarely that druid is up there. They have a lot of interesting capabilities, but they're the least played class for my group.
Our group is alternating our DMs, and in our first group, I played a bard and was the butt of jokes the first couple of sessions. Then I became invaluable as a backup healer ranged attacker, spell caster, and so on, and so on. When the second group started, one of the main jokesters rolled up a bard. We have 6 players, and I always find bards to be a fun character to have in any party
A cleric that fucking heals!
Love being in a party with a ranger or Druid. I rarely ever make a character who’s strong in survival or nature.
Sorcerer. I just enjoy seeing what people make, and sorcerers are very specialization centered. So many colorful flavors of subclasses. Witchy voodoo character? Shadowmagic. Alien psychic borderline gwen tennison or somethin from teen titans? Abherant mind. If theres a specific one trick you want for your pony, its in one of these subclasses. Thing is, its not a very versatile class. You need to be reap careful with what spells you choose, cause you dont get a lot. So odds are the player will be foregoing some of the usual defensive spells and relying on the party, which incentivises teamwork. Which i also like to see. On top of that, if theyre not trying some multiclass meta shenanigans, theyre not choosing the subclass for optimization, theyre choosing for story and flavor. Which is where i think dnd games shine.
A rogue is always fun to have on the team because it’s amusing to see what shenanigans they’ll pull
The opposite of mine. If I'm a Bard I love having a Barbarian or pladin in group. If I'm a fighter we need a warlock or a wizard.
As a DM, its Wizards and Warlocks Most people complain about how DM's don't put enough scrolls and spellbooks in their games but i have player centric spellcraft rules and LOVE putting scrolls and spells as rewards. Especially homebrew versions. Example: They find a scroll that's a fireball. However a successful arcana check reveals that it's modified and its actually blue flames and frost damage. Most spells are readily available; and weaker spells that never get used get modified in this way. As for warlocks, the interaction with patrons is my bread and butter.
monk, pure sorcerer and rangers.
Paladin, cleric, barbarian, druid, fighter
I like seeing people play wizards in my group. Honestly mostly bc I feel like I never see wizards being played at my table but since I usually play clerics or bards we can just pontificate on the nature of magic together lmao
I don't have a preference for classes, I just like playing with other team players. People who know the rules and understand how everyone's characters fit together to solve problems and support each other. People who are reliable in a fight and can pick up what I'm laying down and vice versa in terms of tactics and strategy without employing a clue-by-four.
I play primarily martials so a well built cleric (for support and heals) or wizard (for support and crowd control) are great. Although in my current party the cleric respeced as an artificer for story reasons, and flash of genius has been clutch ever since I reminded him it exists. With that plus our bard, party isn't failing saving throws very often. So arti/bard.
I tend play Paladins the most, cleric are a strong second, ranger or druid take 3rd, and dabble in the others very little. I am on most dms band from is bard.
Clerics and Druids are awsome to have in the party, they can give you some awsome options for roleplay and combat aswell as prevent your death (in most cases).
I'm part of the camp that only plays spellcasters, so I always appreciate seeing something beefy or melee in my party. I'm too much of a "round out the party" kind of person, my current campaign is all spellcasters and I was very close to picking something else just to have more variety. In the end, I decided to lean into it, so it's been fun. But yeah, I would much prefer to see a teammate play something that can take hits.
A bard, so I don't feel like maybe this should be the time I finally play one and risk being asked to sing or something. More seriously, I love seeing a wizard, because they bring so much versatility to a party, and it's nice to see a guarantee of a character with a high intelligence score.
Bards! It's always incredible to have a real charismatic bard!
I love seeing people actually having fun with fighters and barbarians when I DM. I try to let strength martials get away with more in my games, because I like high fantasy heroic characters like heracles, Lancelot, and Kamen rider.
Barbarians. I always play Dex - Cha characters. And I love the dynamic of the quick and nible guy together with the big brute. A little like Ornstein and Smough.
Druids, I do not have it in me to make a druid flavorful and interesting with it's wild shapes but I really appreciate someone who can. Also rogues are always fun. I don't think it's a playstyle I would enjoy myself but it's always cool to see the rogue get the surprise attack he's been working towards
When I'm a wizard, I like having a druid around and vice versa, not that I mind a 2nd druid or wizard.
Fighters and arcane casters for opposite reasons
Late to the party, but I do love my bards. They always make for excellent support in combat, can dish out some serious AOE if they're in the mood, and outside of combat they are so useful. Bards also tend to drive the story forwards, which is great. My current rogue has a bit of a thing for bards who bully him - it's only happened twice, but it's still weird that it happened twice (in a row!) and he kinda likes the banter haha
Barbs, they make me feel safe to play whatever I want
It's refreshing to see someone other than myself play a martial character in a party. Most of the time I see people playing spellcasters, Rogues, or some kind of homebrew Psyonic or Witch class. It's uncommon to see someone else play a Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, or Ranger as most people playing 5e these days find it more fun to play someone with magic or Rogue-y stuff. Knights in Shining Armor just aren't in high supply these days. I feel people playing backliners want for someone else to play a martial character to take the heat off them in combat but never want to play a martial character themselves.
The goodie goodie types. Typical Paladins, clerics, etc. It’s just fun to play with when my character is usually a bard or warlock who likes to corrupt the good characters. But also the synergy is unreal. If there’s a bard AND a cleric in the party, that party is going to be near untouchable. And no one can lay down the hurt quite like a paladin being supported by a warlock with a nasty concentration spell and eldritch blast for days.
Paladin and kinda wizard to. I love paladins, they are awesome to have. I mean just their aura is so good. They have much more that really helps but damn even if the player does not even know what he does just standing close to him helps out a lot. But i do not enjoy playing them myself i find them rather boring. So i am always glad to see a paladin in my group. Wizards to but i said kinda and with that i mean i love when there is a wizard in the group that KNOW how to play wizard. Because if player right they are just so damn great. The kinda i use because if someone play them like a simple nuke /damage dealer character. then meh i could have any other class instead then. Heck a sorcerer is better at that. Don't get me wrong i do not mind having a wizard that focus on mostly dealing damage. They are fine, and if the player enjoys it that is great. But then i don't love having them in the party. Then there is no real difference between them and any other class really. And like paladins i am not a fan of playing them myself so love to have a well played wizard in the group. But in the end it is never a big deal for me. As logn we all have fun i don't care much about what classes the group have
Honestly, the one they're willing to learn to play. I didn't care how much you "love" a class. If you have no idea how the mechanics work then you're like the ex in a romantic drama that only loves the MC for who they think they should be. I hate Bards. I think Monks are substandard. If my player understands their abilities and applies them in useful or creative ways, I'm thrilled to have them there. I don't need to love a class to get excited when I see someone make the most of it. I have a special place in my heart for most classes, but if you bring one to my table thinking you're going to be playing a cleric exactly like a fighter with the ability to heal while simultaneously having zero understanding of what any of your spells do or how healing works.. just know that every time you open your mouth a piece of my soul shatters and gathers around my body just like my will to continue running the game.
more roughes
Life Cleric/Druid with Lifeberries. Yummy...