Quote Originally Posted by clash View Post
This may sound controversial but hear me out.

Casters can do a lot out of combat. They can teleport past obstacles, plane shift, open locked doors, fly etc.

But do these options actually matter?
As you can see from the thread replies... it depends.

Some DMs will make them matter, some won't. Some players will not attempt anything unless they have a button, some will. So it really matters how everyone approaches the game.

For my party... at my table our spellcasters don't grab Teleport and Plane Shift. They don't even grab Detect Magic or Identify or Dispel Magic, etc. They grab spells that they think will be fun and that they will use often.

We get by just fine.
If you need to get to the plane of fire as part of the campaign there will be a way to get to the plane of fire that didn't rely on class abilities or make assumptions.
This is what Descent Into Avernus does, which require you to be in Avernus a full 10 levels before anyone can cast Plane Shift.
Anytime you need to fly to overcome an obstacle there's either a way to fly or another way to overcome it
Yeah, I've never sat down at a table to start a game, and had the DM say "Ok so you start at a tavern, and now your quest requires that your level 2 characters trek through the Plane of Fire"

"Oh but... we don't have Plane Shift, or a way to protect ourselves from the constant fire damage on that plane"

"Too bad. Should have planned better. Not sure why you guys didn't look to your out of combat abilities differently..."
or the only reason flight is required is because you have it.
This is the big one right here, and why these conversations are rather contrived. These out of combat spells are SO important... only after the caster has learned them and prepared them. So as I said... it depends on your table's approach to the game. People are basically saying "Once your caster can learn Plane Shift, they better, otherwise [insert dilemma about a quest that takes place on the Plane of Fire]".
So are those spells as game altering as they seem or are they just good for making you feel useful when in reality they were not required.
It's just a way to reinforce the meme that spellcasters are better and can do more stuff, and a way for optimizers to benchmark how good their builds are by saying "we can do all of these things, and all of these things are necessary".

In reality, spellcasters thrust the responsibility of needing a spell for everything onto themselves, so they can turn around and say "I can shoulder the burden I have placed upon myself". In reality, they can be in the same predicament as anyone else, needing a flying mount to reach an ancient sky castle, journeying to a portal to reach another plane of existence, etc. They're not required to be able to do all of these things, except for people that say these are requirements.