Casters are definitely more interesting in 5E.
But then they kind of get hamstrung by Concentration, which means your spells tend towards a couple Concentration spells at most and then all direct damage stuff.
Like my sorcerer has Twin Spell and Haste. So the best thing to do every fight is usually Haste my Barbarian and Ranger. Every fight. Without exception. Then I cast Firebolts, maybe magic missile. MAYBE Fireball, but probably not because Haste.
My melee guys swing their weapons and that’s about it.
My druid is the most fun because his stuff is generally weaker and more situational, which means there isn’t a “best thing to do” every fight.
Edit:
Now compare that to Pathfinder where my mage Hastes everyone, casts Hold Person, then Phantasmal Killers and… all those things just keep doing their thing at the same time. The buff spam is annoying and the scaling of saves, AC and attack bonus, but I have more spells and more things I can do generally.
Also Attunement is another “great idea, but actually not that fun” thing. You have a bunch of cool magic items, but you can’t use them because Attunement. Knock is cool, but I’d rather have a save bonus. Meanwhile in Pathfinder my dudes are toting around all kinds of cool crazy stuff all at once. My boots that give +3 initiative are never worth an Attunement slot once I have basically anything else as an option.
I get all the 5E changes and why they made them, but I also find they make things less cool and less interesting. It encourages a flowchart style of play.
I just “finished” a run in the Lost Valley (bugged out near the end, stuck waiting on a patch I guess) and this was my first go with Druid. It seemed like every spell I had required concentration, and rarely was there anything better than Spike Growth (I think that’s the name, level 2 ground effect).
I’m curious about haste because I tried it once but then the character I’d cast it on lost a full turn at a bad time. Is that what happens if the caster’s concentration gets broken, and if so will that not occur if I’m using scrolls or potions to provide it? I didn’t even pick haste on my Wizard because I was afraid to use it. I feel it would be even worse twinned, if I lost turns on both dps because my sorcerer failed a concentration check.
That’s a most understandable explanation. Thanks! I’ll pay attention to my play patterns when I go through the Solasta expansion. I’m curious whether I do the same things every combat and if repetition causes any feelings.
Aesthetically I prefer fewer magic items used by characters, because it centers the ability in the characters. However, when I get to playing, I like to have a larger set of abilities. Those two aspects taken together lead me to favor 5E’s reduction in numerical boosts across items and spells.
@OutlandishHaste always has the downside for the target when the spell ends, and I think for a potion the imbiber has to maintain concentration.
But generally it’s not hard to keep your wizard out of the line of fire. Shield, cover, Misty Step and just hiding around a corner if needed all work really well.
Druids do have a fair number of Concentrations, but stuff is more situational. Like the Spike Growth is great, until the enemy is in melee or all around you or ranged or flies. Then you can swap to something else or just open with something else. He’s constantly doing all sorts of different stuff every fight. Unlike literally everyone else. He’s probably the weakest party member from a pure number standpoint but at least he varies. Sometimes he’s a bear. Or a healbot. Or an AoE dps. Or controller. Always something. Everyone else is basically a flow chart.
My Sorc casts: Haste Twinned, Greater Invis Twinned or maybe Phantasmal Killer Twinned. And then it’s just magic missile and sorching rays. Oh and counterspells.
My Barb hits Rage and attacks. Sometimes Reckless.
My Ranger puts Hunter’s Mark on things and attacks. Sometimes he gets to cast Goodberry between fights.
I often find myself doing pointless or inefficient things because I’m so bored of what works.
I suppose I was thinking about it from a numbers perspective and unless the druid was hitting things with spike growth he felt weak. I did enjoy transforming occasionally, especially with the occasional flying shenanigans.
Thanks for the help with haste; guess I’ll just have to do a better job of babysitting the caster if I want to use it.
i agree that its frustrating that so many spells require concentration. but since the ingredients for speed potions seem to be abundant i’ve switched to using those. i also like that optima
pre buffing before a hard fight doesnt take so long.
Do you need a Cleric for healing in Lost Valley? Played through the main campaign on release. I’m going to start Lost Valley and want to use the new Druid and Barbarian. I also read that a Rogue is useful so that last slot will be a Wizard. Not sure if I can run a party without a dedicated healer.
The new Druid subclass is more than capable of keeping everyone healed.
Heck Druids in general probably are.
The reality of 5E is that the only healing that really matters is Healing Word on people who drop. All you really need to do is keep people from actually dying, which requires one point of healing once they drop to zero and can be repeated endlessly. Take 40 points of damage with 1 hit point? Doesn’t really matter, it’s the same as taking 2 points in that same scenario as long as your base hit points are high enough.
There are only 2 real healing spells: Cure Wounds and Healing Word. Everything else is gravy. And the Druid Subclass gets basically all of that gravy innately and a healing bonus as well as a class feature.
At least on normal difficulty in the new campaign I’m not sure I needed a healer at all. I was drowning in gold and could buy or craft potions if I needed them. I did use healing word, but if that character slot had been filled by another dps I might have been fine.
I might try a no healer run, although I still have never done the original campaign and I’m not sure how it would work for that. I was waiting for sorcerer to come out and then got distracted.
I more or less hate the idea of the “big six” magic items and required pre-buffing in Pathfinder so I feel 5e is nicer even if it has it’s own annoyances. Going blind into the Solasta (main campaign) with no 5e experience feels fresher.
I wish we could have more voices, more variation in faces, and more magic items but so far its good.
I’ve not seen anything that REQUIRES rogue in Lost Valley. There are a few traps that you can either avoid or choose to absorb, and a few locked item (knock or a pc with the lowlife background).
I am at a plotpoint for a faction where I need to get an item from a guard. I’m thinking of picking pockets, but there are likely be other options.
FYI: I’m using the CE mod with multiclass enabled, so my rogue is a multiclass with ranger.
I think an easy fix to Concentration (a mechanic I like on paper but in practice can start to feel really limiting in practice) would be to allow pure caster classes a second Concentration “slot” at level 10 or something. That’s a nice reward for single-class pure casters, and it lets the game keep the concentration spell power levels intact. At least make it an optional feat/perk that can be selected in lieu of an attribute point(s) bump maybe.
Well my game hit a bug as near as I can tell so my run pretty much ended.
I assume there was a final confrontation, but whatever. I’ll check it out again sometime down the road.
Now I just gotta figure out what to play. I want to start a new WotR run, but they’re in the “update every day or two stage” which with mods means the game is basically non-playable for me. Could hit some TWW3 with all my mods or go back to Elden Ring. Not sure which sounds appealing atm.
Seconded on user-made content - check out Temple of Evil, which is the one the guy that made the custom campaign I had so much fun with created using the early access he had to the new tools, so it should have proper quests and other goodies. It sounds like people like it a lot and he put a ton of work into it.
I’m playing WotR right now but I’ve removed all mods, just in case, for now. I really miss the faster walk speed and some other changes, but not enough to keep me from playing my new run, fwiw.
Oh, now a ToEE mod sounds super appealing. I bought the actual module back in Oct/Nov in 85 when it was first released, the day it came out. Got out of class and swung by a local bookstore (no longer there) that carried tons of gaming stuff because its owner was a nerdy retired English teacher. Plus in the early 80s it was right next to a Godfather’s pizza, so all my teen needs were met there. Well, almost all.
