D&D 5E 5E's "Missed Opportunities?"

[mrpopstar]

About the bold - IDK - they all face "as adventurers" very similar needs - so wouldn't they tend to have a lot of overlap in their spells? For which of them are Detect Magic and Shield and Light and Charm person not options they are likely to have wanted to have at some point and developed spells for it?

Seems to me what you would end up with is a lot of "same spell, different name, minor tweak" and a bloated spell list.

To oversimplify, I was thinking more along the lines of wizards casting spells that affect objects while witches cast spells that effect creatures and sorcerers cast spells that channel energy without any overlap of meaningful consequence. It would also be my preference that all casters use the same spellcasting mechanic for simplicity's sake. Overall I find spells and spellcasting to be cumbersome within an otherwise lean rule set. — That's just me.

 

[mrpopstar]

You have that already between classes. Arcane spellcasters have Mage Armour but Druids have Barkskin. Paladins of Shield of Faith.

I like the idea of different schools of magic for different traditions. You would probably have to add similar spells - like a defensive spell in each class - or have other classes, like the divine casters pick up the slack (I'm thinking detect magic).

From my experience of playing the aforementioned 'Possessor', I went about combat very differently than the Wizard who threw around fireballs and could cast Mage Armour. But it was still fun.

If I remember correctly, Conjuration had two sub-categories: summoning and something else. Possessors got summoning and Wizards got things like teleport. Enchantment or illusion (I forget)had two categories too (phantasms and illusions). Phantasms were illusions that occurred in a person's head and were in the possessor's list while straight up visual illusions belonged to illusionists. (like invisibility)

It would be so much work to parse all the spells though. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

That's exactly what I'm thinking of. Parse things out and draw solid lines between who gets what.

 

[5ekyu]

That's exactly what I'm thinking of. Parse things out and draw solid lines between who gets what.

When I have seen this tried in actual play it tended to go to one of two unsatisfactory results -

1 everybody had and used the "same spells as far as results but the cosmetics were different leading to essentially a devaluing of the six choice itself.

My +3 AC spell is from conjured swarms of animals or insects interesting and making it harder to get clear shot. Your is a force shield. The other guy's is an illusion fuzzy thing.

My fireball is a fireball but the summoner has an insect stinger ball and the charmer has a painball etc all do 8d6 in 20'r etc.



2 There are actual hard core meaningful differences between them but that results in some being reduced to niche charscters better served up as NPCs because they dont cover as many of the necessary elements as several others (necessary from campaign "what we do" perspective.)
You guys manage to break that streak and concoct ye olde "we found the sweet spot" where it all stays in a happy middle ground of a meaningful choice vs breaking cuts vs cosmetic only - that is great.

For me, I think they had the right idea with fewer penalties, cuts and denials (removing the wizard specialist opposite schools) but instead they lost out by not giving you **more benefits** to your specialty.

I would like to see say a sub-class specific short rest arcane recovery that only applies to your specialty. More incentive in play to use your specialty to solve the problem rather than just whatever is best.

"When you cast a spell of abdc school of 1st or higher, check off add 1 to your arcane recovery total. When you take that arcane recovery, regain the higher number of levels of slots."

Could also give extra prep slots equal to int only for school abcd spells.

In general I find incentivizing the focus better than cutting out the other option as far as "winds up successful dedign and play".

But again, maybe you got the just right goldilocks sweet spot that shows the others wrong.

 

[mrpopstar]

When I have seen this tried in actual play it tended to go to one of two unsatisfactory results -

1 everybody had and used the "same spells as far as results but the cosmetics were different leading to essentially a devaluing of the six choice itself.

My +3 AC spell is from conjured swarms of animals or insects interesting and making it harder to get clear shot. Your is a force shield. The other guy's is an illusion fuzzy thing.

My fireball is a fireball but the summoner has an insect stinger ball and the charmer has a painball etc all do 8d6 in 20'r etc.

Eh, everybody uses the same choice spells anyway. And I'd prefer to remove fire ball from the enchanter spell list altogether. Wizard and enchanter are different things in my view.

2 There are actual hard core meaningful differences between them but that results in some being reduced to niche charscters better served up as NPCs because they dont cover as many of the necessary elements as several others (necessary from campaign "what we do" perspective.)

Secretly I wish classes were as simple and straightforward as the npc priest, mage and related. (Don't tell anyone.)

You guys manage to break that streak and concoct ye olde "we found the sweet spot" where it all stays in a happy middle ground of a meaningful choice vs breaking cuts vs cosmetic only - that is great.

For me, I think they had the right idea with fewer penalties, cuts and denials (removing the wizard specialist opposite schools) but instead they lost out by not giving you **more benefits** to your specialty.

I would like to see say a sub-class specific short rest arcane recovery that only applies to your specialty. More incentive in play to use your specialty to solve the problem rather than just whatever is best.

I like that idea, but it's an additional thing to track and I'm anti-tracking. (I'm a danger to the game!)

"When you cast a spell of abdc school of 1st or higher, check off add 1 to your arcane recovery total. When you take that arcane recovery, regain the higher number of levels of slots."

Could also give extra prep slots equal to int only for school abcd spells.

In general I find incentivizing the focus better than cutting out the other option as far as "winds up successful dedign and play".

But again, maybe you got the just right goldilocks sweet spot that shows the others wrong.

I think a sweet spot is possible, we all just have to keep engaging with feedback.