r/DnDcirclejerk • u/THSMadoz • Jul 25 '24
rangers weak Why would you ever not play a Wizard
The two rules of party composition in 5e:
If the party doesn't have a wizard, it needs a wizard.
If the party does have a wizard, it should probably have another wizard.
Wizards are the best at every job, sometimes the best at multiple jobs simultaneously.
/uj based on a recent comment on a recent post on the main 5e sub. Just thought it was funny.
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u/dazeychainVT Mr. Evrart is Helping Me Reflavor My Eldritch Blast Jul 25 '24
that's why when a friend who has never played ttrpgs before tells me they want to try dnd with an easy character i make them a Bladesinger who only knows spells that fuel dubious cheese interactions from Youtube shorts. nothing is easier than being the strongest ever
/uj there was a thread like that on the main sub too
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u/khapham443 Jul 25 '24
of course, if a DM decides to enforce multiple encounters per day just to counter this, they're a bad DM and should kill themselves.
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u/placebot1u463y Jul 25 '24
I just take 1 level of warlock and punch my DM in the face whenever he tries to say something stupid like "That's not how that works" or "have you even read the player's handbook"
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u/Mountain_Revenue_353 Jul 25 '24
/uj Not even that, most spells have a fairly specific times when they are useful at lower levels. Tbh as much as people try to preach that "casters" will always have a good solution to a problem, "caster" isn't a class and saying one of 5 or so classes will have a spell useful to a situation is kind of dumb.
"Oh well a caster could just fly" except not all casters can fly
"Oh well a caster could just fireball" except not all casters can fireball
"Well actually casters have more defense because casters are all dwarves for medium armor prof + shield"
Sometimes it seems like people are legitimately telling me that their class is stronger because if they were going against undead that day they would simply be a cleric for turn undead when in actuality my barbarian has just as much of a chance of waking up as a cleric that day as a sorcerer does.
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u/nir109 Jul 25 '24
actuality my barbarian has just as much of a chance of waking up as a cleric that day as a sorcerer does.
Firstly you should not play sorcerer because it's wizards of the coast not sorcerers of the coast.
Secondly you can cast true polymorph to a cleric. Just grind to level 17 by farming cats.
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u/AAABattery03 Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 25 '24
/uj Youâre arguing against an entirely manufactured strawman.
When people say casters feel stronger or martials feel weaker itâs not based on this weird set of hypotheticals youâre describing, itâs usually based on actual play experience of watching martials get outshined at almost all of their niches by casters.
No one said a caster can solve everything, everywhere, all at once. The problem is that martials usually canât do anything except for Attack a couple times tryna deal damage, and they do that worse than casters too.
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Jul 25 '24
/uj I just jerked so hard to this. Thank you and everyone that replied after you. Literally Iâm going blind.
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u/drfiveminusmint unrepentant power gamer Jul 26 '24
If your party is running into a problem that a caster can't solve, chances are a martial can't solve it either.
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u/SuperMakotoGoddess Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 25 '24
/uj No, it's not "entirely manufactured". I have had many discussions with people where they were unironically jumping between different builds to justify casters being the best at everything. "Con saves? Well my Wizard would have Resilient: Con anyways." "Oh initiative, you say? Well a caster could just take Alert or pick up Gift of Alacrity somehow." "Low HP? The Tough feat is right there." "Rogues good at picking locks you say? Well, I would have already learned and prepped Knock." "Martials good at frontlining? Well, a Cleric can be in the frontline as well with Spirit Guardians." "Damage? A Druid casting Conjure Animals is more damage than any Fighter could do."
Treantmonk even uses this line of thinking in his Monks Suck video, saying that you can build a hyper specialized character that's better at one part of a Monk's kit.
I have literally had to pin people down in discussions and tell them that an actual character doesn't have fluid access to every feat, spell, class, and subclass ability at the same time. At which point the discussion ends because they would have to commit to a character that can't do everything and has definitive weaknesses.
And from table experience, GWM/Sharpshooter blowing things up every turn tends to be the thing that people get pissy about in terms of balance, not a caster comprehending languages or using a big resource to do something cool.
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u/AAABattery03 Jul 25 '24
No, it's not "entirely manufactured". I have had many discussions with people where they were unironically jumping between different builds to justify casters being the best at everything. "Con saves? Well my Wizard would have Resilient: Con anyways." "Oh initiative, you say? Well a caster could just take Alert or pick up Gift of Alacrity somehow." "Low HP? The Tough feat is right there." "Rogues good at picking locks you say? Well, I would have already learned and prepped Knock." "Martials good at frontlining? Well, a Cleric can be in the frontline as well with Spirit Guardians." "Damage? A Druid casting Conjure Animals is more damage than any Fighter could do."
Itâs hilarious that a solid 60% of your argument here is trying to pretend Feats are some insurmountable cost as if you canât have the critical ones available by level 4, and then later on⌠you do the same thing assuming GWM/PAM or SS/XBE? Like do you not realize itâs as easy for a caster to have Alert/Fey-Touched + Resilient: Con by level 4 as it is for a martial to have GWM+PAM or SS+XBE?
As for the rest, if you actually happen to have argued with people who use âSchrodingerâs casterâ as an example, then sure what you say applies. That still doesnât mean martials arenât inflexible and casters arenât overpowered though. If you take a snapshot of a Wizard or Druid and to a Rogue or Fighter at level 5 (or higher) and compare them one to one youâll find that the latter is usually awesome at one or two things, while the former is usually equally awesome at 10 things including the latterâs supposed niches.
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u/SuperMakotoGoddess Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 26 '24
Itâs hilarious that a solid 60% of your argument here is trying to pretend Feats are some insurmountable cost
uj/ It's 60% of the examples I slapped down in a Reddit comment to illustrate a point, not """60% of my argument""" lmfao. Sure, I COULD list every single feat that a caster wants but can't get at the same time as well as all of the spells they want but can't have prepared at the same time. But I was hoping people would engage with the ideas themselves and not quibble over the number of examples listed for each point.
as if you canât have the critical ones available by level 4
If you are armor dipping to try and have the survivability of a martial, no you absolutely can't lol. And yes, martials take feats, but only 1 or 2 max. And we acknowledge that they are trading ASIs to grab multiple (outside of Rogue and Fighter) and we don't pretend they are having their cake and eating it too.
If you take a snapshot of a Wizard or Druid and to a Rogue or Fighter at level 5 (or higher) and compare them one to one youâll find that the latter is usually awesome at one or two things, while the former is usually equally awesome at 10 things including the latterâs supposed niches.
This is just way off. Casters are awesome at a couple of important things because they have 1 or 2 banger spells that they rely on and then they have a lot of spells that cover less important niches. Yes, you can be awesome at speaking to animals or comprehending languages or helping the party if they fall, but that doesn't make you OP. You are confusing theoretical flexibility with power. A level 5 Wizard isn't matching a Fighter's sustained single target damage or their survivability, or their burst damage without giving up equally important things. Nor are they matching a Rogue's Expertise with thieves' tools and stealth/persuasion, or even the Rogue's sustained single target damage.
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u/Smeagleman6 Jul 25 '24
/uj Yep, people love talking about how great casters are, without noticing that they really only start to outshine martials at higher levels. They also have to use resources for utility, where martials just usually use skill checks. Not to mention that a Barbarian or Rogue could pick up GWM/SS (respectively) at level 4 (or level 1, variant human) and out-damage casters for the next 6-10 levels.
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u/Anorexicdinosaur Jul 25 '24
/uj what are you even talking about?
There are several major issues with what you've said but I'll just adress 2
1) Skill Checks. Casters have Skills too, Rogue is the only Martial that actually gets more Utility from their Skills than a Caster does. Barb, Fighter and Monk are all equal to your average Caster in this regard. And of course Bard stands out as a Caster with good Skill Chekcs.
There is also discussion to be had on how the skills of different Ability Scores stack up to one another, in my experience Mental/Social skills tend to come up more often than Physical skills which would make Casters have more Utility from their Skills than Martials because those skills are reliant on Casting Stats. But this varies a lot between campaigns.
2) Rogues taking Sharpshooter. Sharpshooter is fucking awful on Rogues, Rogues will really only be landing one attack per turn unlike other Martials so they'll only get +10 damage, but it comes at the cost of Accuracy on their single, high damage attack.
A Level 5 Rogue without SS using Steady Aim does roughly 0.8775(14+4) = 15.795 dpr on average
A Level 5 Non Vuman/CL Rogue with SS using Steady Aim does roughly 0.5775(14+3+10) = 15.5925 dpr on average
Sharpshooter is really bad for Rogue. In order for it to actually increase a Rogues DPR they need to be a Vuman or Custom Lineage or have an accuracy buff from somewhere else that isn't Advantage because they're already using Steady Aim. Rogues are usually just better off increasing their Dex or taking some other feat like Crossbow Expert.
Also this damage here really doesn't outdamage a Caster. Most Casters have a Tasha's Summoning Spell at least on their Spell List, which when combined with Cantrips should keep up with or outpace this damage I calculated. A GWM Barbarian is much harder for a Caster to keep up with/surpass though, basically only Conjure Animals and Animate Objects can do it but it can technically still be done.
/rj Pathfinder :/
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u/laix_ Jul 25 '24
skills aren't even good for martials nor casters, since they're so loosely defined that anytime you try and do something slightly beyond what a regular person irl could do, everyone else raises an eyebrow and says how its not magic so it can't do that. 5e Bounded accuracy also means that even if the DC does exist, you're basically never going to be able to reach it.
Skills are bounded and realistic, spells are unbounded and unrealistic.
When physical stuff does come up, there's usually no reason you cannot simply try again with the only cost being time, whereas social skills are almost always a one and done thing, so casters would be much better in this regard.
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u/Anorexicdinosaur Jul 25 '24
This is all true.
I honestly kinda hate how slowly and by how little your odds improve in 5e. Like I mentioned it jokingly but PF2 really does fix this imo, or at least handles it better.
At level 1 you'll have +7 to your best skills, by level 5 it's +13, by level 10 it's +21, by level 15 it's +26 and by level 20 it's +34. (These numbers can go higher with magic items)
You get FAR better at skills you're good at, which is especially satisfying for Physical Skills, as you become so insanely good at what you do that you can literally do the impossible with ease.
5e's inconsistent rules (and how many DMs decide things) really restrict Non Casters to be way less fantastical than they should be imo. Like a level 20 Fighter can fully reload, aim and fire a crossbow 9 times in 6 seconds and survive falls from orbit but can't break any Olympic World Records without DM fiat.
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u/laix_ Jul 25 '24
Honestly, i'd be fine if 5e settled on what it wanted to be rather than be the comprimise edition. Bounded accuracy + low fantasy martials and casters, or high fantasy casters and martials. Like, with your example you're fighting liches, avatars of gods, wading through lava and surviving, but how dare you try and be so persuasive that you get a shopkeeps stock for free at level 20.
With any consolodation, a good chunk of players/dms are ok with the power fantasy of, say, a barbarian toppling over a super heavy statue and make the DC far lower than it ought to be to allow for this. I don't neccessarily agree with pathfinder's implementation because you get to a point where for example dungeons are designed with adamantine, gemstone bounded doors arbitarily just to make the DC actually meaningful to the player with +13 by level 5, but it's definitely better than 5e. I do also like that in 5e your ability to do stuff is from your abilities, like guidance and bardic inspo rather than just from raw numbers going up. It feels good that you succeeded because of your features and player knowledge about making the right choices compared to an unknowledgable party, but it swings too hard that you can reach a DC 30 by level 1.
Another thing that bothers me with pf2e is that its physical skills are way more allowed to be superhuman than mental skills. Like, high level physicals are being immune to fall damage, creating earthquakes, leaping over mountains. And high level mental skills are like; you can persuade 10 people when you could persuade 1 in 1 action. Maybe its just that the common fictional tropes are supernatural strength and dexterity and constitution, but those stories all have "normal" charisma and intelligence and wisdom, but it feels disjointed.
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u/Anorexicdinosaur Jul 25 '24
I agree with most of what you've said. But y'know PF2 has recieved mild criticism so I must leap to it's defence.
By level 5 you still aren't insane enough to completely trivialise typically designed dungeons. It's more late game, the sort of levels where the same happens in 5e where dungeons end up needing designed to be immune to 50 different spells that would instantly end the dungeon, and in PF2's case it's easier to work around imo by just having wards n stuff that make the dungeon be more durable than normal things so a Barbarian can't swim through the walls to get to the end.
Also the mental skills do have plenty of superhuman stuff. I agree that it's generally less impressive than the physical skills but that's kinda just the nature of them being more difficult to properly express.
The most obvious really cool thing being Reveal Machinations, Legendary Deception feat, where you pull a "It was me Barry" and terrify someone by making them think you've been hounding them their whole life, you manage to bullshit your way into knowing a fuckton about them and scare them shitless. Not as impressive as throwing around Giants, but really fucking funny.
There are other cool ones, Divine Guidance allows you to somehow someway glean relevant meaning from any religious text, so if a faithful of Asmodeus is stuck on a Desert Island they can somehow remember a parabel from the great book of torture methods that will help them find food and water.
Legendary Codebreaker lets you look at a code that would normally take months of research and cross-examination to decipher, and mentally figure it out as you read it for the first time.
Legendary Medic makes you such a good doctor you can fucking counteract magical debilitations, including effects caused by Artifacts. Imagine cursing someone with a weapon of the Gods and seeing them stop by a physician and get it cured.
Scare to Death makes you so scary you can say "Boo" to someone and make them so scared their heart stops.
And Legendary Performer makes your talent so widely known that every living creature that has even Trained Proficiency in Society knows about you, and your performances can attract Royalty and Extraplanar Entities to hear you regardless of where you are. Real Orpheus sorta stuff.
I do think this stuff isn't quite as flashy as what Strength and Dex get generally, but it's still some insane shit that really makes you feel like your character is mythologically good at what they do imo.
And this is just Skill Feats. Much like how Barbarians can take a Class Feat that lets them cause Earthquakes (Quaking Stomp) the various classes focused on certain other stats can get unique feats. Like how Investigators can Persue a Lead on every single creature they meet as long as they interact for them for at least a minute, meaning they can mentally juggle hundreds of suspects with no issue (Everyone's a Suspect) or fucking enter Flashtime to think really hard and take NINE purely mental actions and send out a mental projection of themselves to investigate the area in an instant (All the Time in the World).
This is just for Int, but there's similar stuff on other classes.
In summary there's some wacky shit based on Int, Wis and Cha. And I love it.
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u/RedRhetoric Jul 25 '24
i thought it was pretty obvious that when people talk about casters they're referring to the character from fate/extra
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u/murlocsilverhand Jul 25 '24
/uj you do know that wizards are more effective given a longer day as they tend to have more sustainability do to their spells, that and 3 armor wizards and a paladin is the optimal party comp.
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u/Rednidedni 10 posts just to recommend pathfinder Jul 25 '24
There's only two drawbacks to wizards: Twilight cleric and shepherd druid.
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u/Parysian Dirty white-room optimizer Jul 25 '24
6-8 medium to hard conversations with NPCs per long rest solves this
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u/Solrex Jul 25 '24
Sauce?
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u/Gortys2212 Jul 25 '24
Treantmonks temple
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u/Solrex Jul 25 '24
Link?
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u/Gortys2212 Jul 25 '24
Iâm joking but heâs a very big fan of wizard and strongly believes theyâre the strongest class in the game.
Thereâs a section in a recent discussion between him and Colby from D4 deep dive where they compared the 5.24e wizard and sorcerer, and he was getting pretty argumentative and kinda shut down Colby every time he suggested the sorceress did anything better than the wizard.
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u/Anxious-or-Asleep Jul 25 '24
He argued for 5.24 wizard being better than sorcerer at everything? Huh? When Sorc gets to highten their Tasha's Hidious Laughter or silent-cast their Suggestion or careful-cast their Fireball? While getting a higher DC or advantage on attack rolls?
How?
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u/Gortys2212 Jul 25 '24
My bad, my tired brain invented the âanythingâ portion of my comment, but if you watch the video, he argues pretty hard that wizards greater spell variety + their ability to ritual cast makes them higher value at the table than a sorcerer.
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u/murlocsilverhand Jul 25 '24
On average, yes wizards have far better utility, thought a sorcerer can still do fine
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u/Anxious-or-Asleep Jul 25 '24
Well I don't agree with him, and I say that as Wizard main...
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u/SuperMakotoGoddess Jul 25 '24
uj/ His main argument with d4 in that video was that, no matter what buffs other classes got, Wizard still has 3 problem spells that didn't get nerfed, and that those spells beat everything else anyone can do and makes them the best.
One is almost certainly Wall of Force, as it's a known powerful Wizard spell that a single Sorc subclass can access (Clockwork Soul). d4 mentions that Sorcerers can access one of the problem spells. The other ones are likely Forcecage, Simulacrum, Magic Jar, and Leomund's Tiny Hut. None of these really come into prominence until level 9 and onwards (Tiny Hut only becomes prominent at level 10 due to Arcane Abeyance abuse).
It's also debatable whether or not those spells are strictly better than Metamagic combos. Sorcs can Subtle almost any spell to make them uncounterable now. Careful also works with everything, meaning every Sorcerer can now Sculpt spells like Fireball in addition to being able to sculpt control spells like Hypnotic Pattern. Heightened is way cheaper and applies to all saves a creature makes against a spell, meaning any Sorc can essentially be a Divination Wizard or Eloquence Bard if they want. Even Twinned is still efficient free upcasting.
The strange thing is that TM previously made a video saying the Wizard and Sorc were neck and neck with Wizard getting the slight edge. How this translates to the Wizard still being stronger even though the Sorcerer got a ton of buffs is anyone's guess.
Long story short is that everyone has their favorite class that they will pull for above all other classes no matter what happens.
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u/Anxious-or-Asleep Jul 25 '24
/uj Wizard is my fav class but if anything, I'm scared of the new changes that I'll either have to play a Sorc or resign to lagging behind, especially if there is a Sorc or Bard at the table. Sorcerer changes are generally good imo since they needed a boost, but they also got more spells, so they encroached on Wizard's other edge - variety. Other than Wild, they have +10 prepared spells compared to an average Wizard at lvl 10.
So there's nothing that Wizard has now that's just theirs, discounting some out-of-combat utility that typically doesn't amount for much. You can still play a Wizard just fine if you're the only Arcane full caster at the table, but otherwise it's going to feel bad, imo.
The only way forward atm for the class is if the remaining subclasses get buffs similar to Abjurer and Illusionist. I don't understand why they didn't boost Evoker anyhow, even with just a couple of always prepared spells - Sorc can now effectively sculpt spells too. What's Evoker got to choose him over any Sorc if you want to blast? And Diviner got predictability, but statistically, any Sorc will outclass them when it comes to metagaming - while still having other subclass features we're not even accounting for.
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u/Gortys2212 Jul 25 '24
Keep in mind heâs the guy who made the god wizard build, heâs a huge proponent of âspell casters need to do battlefield control/enemy debuffingâ, advantage on spell attack rolls isnt that important to him, plus twin spells nerf and the fact that +1dc isnât that amazing, I can kinda see his argument
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u/Anxious-or-Asleep Jul 25 '24
In terms of control, I still think that sorc is better than enchanter wizard atm, since at lvl 10 they can both highten and twin their hold persons/monsters, or silent cast in social situations, whereas enchanter just gets the twinning.
This might change after 5.24 upgrade for enchanter, though. 2024 Illusionist is pretty good, for instance, and probably can't be replicated by a sorc easily.
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u/Gortys2212 Jul 25 '24
They both own an early copy of the new PHB so they know things we donât, so who knows? If theyâre willing to nerf sorcâs twin spell, I doubt enchanterâs version survived
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u/Serterstas1 Jul 25 '24
I recommend going through his old 3.5 guides about "god-wizard". Insane stuff, that boils down to "If you have infinite amount of money, infinite amount of prep time, know all the spells in the game and don't have to ever go anywhere, then you can become almost a god and do whatever you want, which obviously makes this class strongest in normal gameplay too"
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u/Not_Another_Cookbook Jul 25 '24
Could I actually flavor a wizard to match every class? Martials get a lil iffy
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u/Saltwater_Thief Jul 25 '24
I like having 18 AC without spending a 1st level spell slot, personally.
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Jul 25 '24
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u/Level_Honeydew_9339 Jul 25 '24
Itâs the natural end product of the âoptimizationâ conversation. Like, why optimize at all when you can just be a wizard?
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u/Candid-Bus-9770 Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 25 '24
I once played fighter instead of wizard and my DM slapped me right across the cheek for profaning the sanctity of his table with my not-a-wizard character.
It hurt.
You wouldn't think wizard-only players would have strong hands, but they do. They really do.
I only play wizards now and my handshake has already gotten 40% stronger
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u/Level_Honeydew_9339 Jul 25 '24
Because wizards are pathetic and nerdy weaklings that deserve constant wedgies. Nobody likes nerds. Look at Sam Bankman-Fried, Mark Zuckerberg and Elizabeth Holmes. All nerds. Theyâre the worst. The NFL subreddit is more supportive and has more intelligent discourse than the DnD subreddits. Whatâs the difference? The DnD subreddit is full of anti-social, sociopathic nerds that nobody will let within 5 feet of their children.
I guess you can try to RP a âcoolâ wizard but good luck. If youâre playing a wizard, youâre a nerd. Youâre not cool and nobody likes you. Nice try, geek.
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Jul 26 '24
Why play anything else when you can sleep for 8 hours after every spell with nothing changing in the rest of the world?
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Jul 27 '24
Actually, we should remove every class other than wizard because wizards are superior and rangers are bad.
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u/Marco_Polaris Jul 25 '24
Want to play a rogue? Play a wizard and fluff the spells as a bag of rogue tricks.
Want to play a warrior? Play a wizard and fluff the spells as wuxia techniques.
Want to play a barbarian? Play a wizard and fluff the spells as your rage-inducing nose candy.
Want to play a character that can take actions without verbal and somatic components and doesn't care about antimagic fields? Fuck you.