Again (to Qoray), you're trading on a misinterpretation and a hold over stigma from earlier editions.
Casters are absolutely not stronger than martials, and that fallacy needs to die. It was true in earlier editions, but it's no longer the case in 5e. The best damage dealers in 5e are fighters and paladins... you don't get to a full caster for damage-dealing contribution until fourth or fifth position... and the best crowd-controllers are Monks. Control spells are powerful - but major targets have legendary resistances, and most major boss combats are over within five turns, which means that you can and often will be forced to waste most of those combats trying and failing to stick these spells, and contributing nothing, unless your DM is being exceptionally kind (because the creature can just pass the save, and often will, and only have to consider using a resist if they would fail). Conversely, creatures don't get a legendary "you don't hit" ability - and the way Larian are over-buffing attack rolls and weakening saves (as mentioned - several creatures so far have higher stats than they should, and as a result have better saving throws than they should have, as well as improper advantages), that becomes increasingly and overbearingly reliable and worthwhile, over deciding to do anything else.
If you just read the above comments, you'll see that what I'm saying is true - players are actively being pushed, hard, away from using save spells because of how ineffective they are in the game right now, compared to other choices. This isn't hyperbole or assumption - it's actual player testimony.
Sleep, in EA is an absolute joke - it's been nerfed into the ground, so thanks for bringing it up: First, it's not a saving throw spell anyway, so it's not overly relevant to this discussion... beyond that, monsters have increased Hp, so sleep can affect fewer targets. Sleep now only lasts for two rounds, instead of a 1 minute. Sleep is broken easily by the increased amount of ambient surface and radiant damage that the game throws around, and by the fact that every creature has a bonus action to shove a sleeping target - when the sleep spell calls out specifically using an action to wake a target up. Sleep never lasts on any creature fro more than one round, if it lasts for around at all and the target isn't woken up by the time its turn comes around (it usually is), and you will NEVER hit more than two targets with it. You are literally ALWAYS better off casting a reliable damage dealing spell with that spell slot, than you are casting sleep, in the current EA. What encounter, I'm curious, have you 'just ended' with sleep, in the EA?
I don't think anyone is saying that the attack roll spells themselves are too strong, or anything like that - the issue is that they've been made so much more reliable, buffable and favoured, while saves are substantially less effective than they should be in the current Ea, due to many factors, that players are feeling pressured into focusing on attack roll spells, because anything else is mostly a waste of a turn, in the current EA, and this isn't a good thing. There are not many attack roll spells; if players are feeling pressured into focusing on them to the near exclusion of other things, and are feeling like that's their only real option for being effective, compared to other things, then that's creating a pigeon-holed play-style that is really bad for players' flexibility, and will get worse as the game advances if it isn't addressed now.
I'm not personally making any comments on how it should be addressed - just that it needs to be.
Last edited by Niara; 28/11/22 03:47 AM.
