D&D 5E Another D&D Next Playtest Survey

an_idol_mind · Jul 18, 2012

I personally liked providing my input.

Going through the list, it seemed like wizard spells are great at 1st level, giving a lot of interesting choices. 3rd level is the "Heck yeah!" spell moment where you get fireball and lightning bolt. After 6th level, the spells become less interesting to me overall.

Clerics seem not to have many spells that really define what they do aside from heal. They could certainly use more spells that call down angels or demons or show how they wield their divine might a bit more - preferably without being directly damaging, or at least not to the same extent as wizards.

If I was drawing up an edition from scratch, I think I'd be tempted to axe all spells above 6th level (they weren't in the original game, anyway). Then make those uber-spells something that requires a ritual/feat/power/whatever other special ability you want to use that reflects your character getting cool stuff. But that's just me spitballing.

ZombieRoboNinja · Jul 18, 2012

I think this is more to help them pick out what spell names to preserve, not whether or not the wizard will have the traditional range of different spell types. (So I doubt they'll get rid of illusions because nobody thought Minor Image was "iconic" sounding enough.)

Haldrik · Jul 18, 2012

Thanks for staying on top of this stuff.

Haldrik · Jul 18, 2012

I see divine spellcasters as the main ones responsible for:

DIVINATION SCHOOL
• Divination = Clairvoyance = project mind = project body = Teleportation = Dimension Door = Planeshift
• Divination = see future = influence future = probability manipulation = luck = Bless
• Divination = see future = project into future = time travel = Time Hop = Time Stop
• Clairvoyance = project mind = transfigure body into immaterial disembodied mind

HEALING SCHOOL
• connect to eternal ideal self = higher self beyond space, time, death = resurrection = heal-cure
• connect to ideal self = boost Strength, Intelligence, etc.
• connect to ideal self of other creature = summon avatar of Planar Ally
• connect to ideal self = Wish, Limited Wish, Miracle

INVOCATION SCHOOL
• invocation = conjure = quintessence, fifth element, immaterial substance of spirit = light and force
• light and force = positivity, positive energy
• light and force = “laser” radiant damage, positivity (gentle healing and harsh harming), force damage
• light and force = manifestation of something made out of light and force, like Blade Barrier, like Flamestrike (not really fire element, but searing light and force)
• light and force = animate force = Telekinesis
• manifestation of light and force = hologram = Star Trek holodeck, like Blade Barrier = physically existing objective illusion (but not mental subjective hallucenatory phantasm)

When angels appear in the material world, they are really manifestations of light and force, in other words, made out of quintessence.

Minigiant · Jul 19, 2012

Copied and Pasted "Good/Evil/Law/Chaos/Cure/Inflict spells are iconic to create clerics of all stripes and alignments." over and over and over.

The Animal's Ability spells drained most of my 2nd level choices.

ComradeGnull · Jul 19, 2012

Minigiant said:
Copied and Pasted "Good/Evil/Law/Chaos/Cure/Inflict spells are iconic to create clerics of all stripes and alignments." over and over and over.

The Animal's Ability spells drained most of my 2nd level choices.

Oddly, I chose none of the Animal's Thing spells and instead included a comment that said 'it's stupid that there are six of these spells, and more stupid that there are six more to learn if you want the 'Mass' form of them'.

One second level spell called... 'Noun's Attribute' or something, decide which ability to target at cast time, put it into a 5th or 6th level slot if you want 'Mass' appended.

Feel similarly about all the 'Greater' and 'Lesser' forms.

DEFCON 1 · Jul 19, 2012

I also made it a point to write in the survey that I didn't feel having multiple spells all doing the same thing (just at different power levels or the number of people it affected) as separate spells was necessary, and indeed a waste of space.

If the idea was to make more powerful spells require higher spell slots (so for instance, to cast a Fireball that did 7d6 you had to use a 4th level spell slot rather than a 3rd)... then most spells should be consolidated down to a single spell, and the more powerful / more people versions should be listed in that spell for each spell level.

So you'd have 'Cure Wounds' as a 1st level spell healing a d8 (rather than Cure Light Wounds). But cast it in a 2nd level spell slot heals 2d8 (rather than having 'Cure Moderate Wounds' on your spell list) and so on. Do the same for all the illusory 'Image' spells... the 'Charm' spells, the 'Hold' spells, the 'Power Word' spells, the 'Summon Monster' spells etc. etc. Consolidate them all! And then... once you see how barren some of the spell levels are (since they are nothing but more powerful versions of lower level spells), you can create some UNIQUE spells to fill the levels in.

Minigiant · Jul 19, 2012

DEFCON 1 said:
I also made it a point to write in the survey that I didn't feel having multiple spells all doing the same thing (just at different power levels or the number of people it affected) as separate spells was necessary, and indeed a waste of space.

If the idea was to make more powerful spells require higher spell slots (so for instance, to cast a Fireball that did 7d6 you had to use a 4th level spell slot rather than a 3rd)... then most spells should be consolidated down to a single spell, and the more powerful / more people versions should be listed in that spell for each spell level.

So you'd have 'Cure Wounds' as a 1st level spell healing a d8 (rather than Cure Light Wounds). But cast it in a 2nd level spell slot heals 2d8 (rather than having 'Cure Moderate Wounds' on your spell list) and so on. Do the same for all the illusory 'Image' spells... the 'Charm' spells, the 'Hold' spells, the 'Power Word' spells, the 'Summon Monster' spells etc. etc. Consolidate them all! And then... once you see how barren some of the spell levels are (since they are nothing but more powerful versions of lower level spells), you can create some UNIQUE spells to fill the levels in.

Can't XP you.

But yes.
You can effectively replace caster level with spell slot level.

Cure Light Wounds: Heals 1d8 HP per spell level.
Charm Person: Charm 1 person per spell level.
etc

etc

Herschel · Jul 19, 2012

I found the survey utterly irritaing. I almost wish virulent rashes in uncomfortable places on the team that put that together. It contained a lot of what I hated about previous editions: Clerics as healbots/support-only characters, Wizards with spells for eveything. They'd have to REALLY re-work the spells from their named ancestors to garner my interest.

Raith5 · Jul 19, 2012

Minigiant said:
Copied and Pasted "Good/Evil/Law/Chaos/Cure/Inflict spells are iconic to create clerics of all stripes and alignments." over and over and over.

Agree. I also agree with others that there is some silly duplications built into the list of spells. I also clicked non of the above for second level clerics spells - they just all looked boring as hell (except cure moderate wounds).

I found it a little funny how 4th ed spells only really made it into first level spells for wizard and clerics.

All in all, wandering down memory lane of spells through the editions I just thought surely there are some new ways we represent these spells.