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<blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 5973025" data-attributes="member: 40961"><p>...not to mention, D&D spells have never been so situational that preparing the wrong spells really made you "useless" for the day, unless the DM was intentionally making a point to have an entire day of monsters immune to a particular attack, AND you were obsessed with that particular attack. </p><p></p><p>Between the incredible versatility of early edition spells that didn't do damage, the squirrely way spell resistances worked, and the sheer volume of spell slots, you had to almost try to end up in that situation.</p><p></p><p>I'd be interested in seeing a game that actually used that issue as a gameplay element, but D&D hasn't ever meaningfully been it. About the only example I can think of where that happens is prepping "sleep" at level 1 and then fighting undead... or maybe the "I didn't think we'd fight at all today so I only prepped Shape Stone so I could work on my mansion." Beyond that, you have to practically try to be so niche that you can't take all comers. And there's no incentive to build your spell list in that way, because while certain enemies are resistant to certain spells, vulnerabilities are much more rare, giving you a strong incentive to diversify even if you think you know what you're facing that day.</p><p></p><p>If you wanted to make a game where choosing the right spells each morning was a big deal, you'd probably want to make the effectiveness of spells much more swingy given varying types of enemies. And then you'd want to reward picking multiple spells of a particular type, instead of diversifying. And you'd want to cut back on complete utility spells that are as effective as the player's imagination of which are useful in virtually all situations (wall of force, etc). And you'd want to cut back on buffing spells that help other players, because they're as useful as your allies are, which, since your allies are PCs instead of a PC's expendable resource, is hopefully most of the time.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cadfan, post: 5973025, member: 40961"] ...not to mention, D&D spells have never been so situational that preparing the wrong spells really made you "useless" for the day, unless the DM was intentionally making a point to have an entire day of monsters immune to a particular attack, AND you were obsessed with that particular attack. Between the incredible versatility of early edition spells that didn't do damage, the squirrely way spell resistances worked, and the sheer volume of spell slots, you had to almost try to end up in that situation. I'd be interested in seeing a game that actually used that issue as a gameplay element, but D&D hasn't ever meaningfully been it. About the only example I can think of where that happens is prepping "sleep" at level 1 and then fighting undead... or maybe the "I didn't think we'd fight at all today so I only prepped Shape Stone so I could work on my mansion." Beyond that, you have to practically try to be so niche that you can't take all comers. And there's no incentive to build your spell list in that way, because while certain enemies are resistant to certain spells, vulnerabilities are much more rare, giving you a strong incentive to diversify even if you think you know what you're facing that day. If you wanted to make a game where choosing the right spells each morning was a big deal, you'd probably want to make the effectiveness of spells much more swingy given varying types of enemies. And then you'd want to reward picking multiple spells of a particular type, instead of diversifying. And you'd want to cut back on complete utility spells that are as effective as the player's imagination of which are useful in virtually all situations (wall of force, etc). And you'd want to cut back on buffing spells that help other players, because they're as useful as your allies are, which, since your allies are PCs instead of a PC's expendable resource, is hopefully most of the time. [/QUOTE]
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