D&D 5E Is It Time To Not Assign Spellcasting Classes ANY Casting Mechanics?

[Kinak]

But here's the thing...

Divorce yourself from the years of playing a wizard who uses Vancian magic. Now look purely at Vancian game mechanics on its own. What do you have?

I think I mentioned this up thread, but I dislike Vancian magic. "Hate" is probably too strong a word, but I almost never play Vancian casters and rarely include Vancian casting NPCs in my games.

Despite that, I'd rather booklearning be Vancian than what you're describing. I think there are probably better ways to represent booklearning, but I want it to be represented, not just the idea of booklearning handed over as an empty shell without any mechanics attached to it.

It's like saying that fighters and rogues and barbarians and monks should choose whether they get expertise dice, bonus feats, unarmed combat, rage, or sneak attack. I could provide valid story reasons for those all day long with rogues fighting like tigers when their backs are against the wall and fighters knowing how to take advantage of tactical situations.

But I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that because, bereft a mechanical identity, classes are less than backgrounds. Why have four classes that can choose to get sneak attack when you could just have one class that's built around sneak attack class and cut out the middleman?

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I like the main idea quite a lot, but I think it falls just a wee bit short of where it is ultimately aiming. Namely, instead of moving "spell casting mechanics" out of the classes, move "spell casting mechanics + stuff closely associated with those mechanics" out of the classes.

That might be mostly a semantic point, but I think there is some gray areas where judgment is needed. And I'm not sure exactly where the lines are drawn, either. For example, with the wizard, if you want to recreate the Vancian casting mechanics, you take the spells, and the slots, fire and forget (all in the OP idea), but also the spell lists. After all, access to certain spells is a huge part of the power. OTOH, maybe you don't move out the wizard's vast affinity to manipulate magic items. You could argue that the wizard gets that because he casts all those spells, but you could also say that he gets it through the "sage of magic" side of the class, rather than the spellcasting perse.

Other examples are something like a druid casting in animal form or a bard or cleric casting in armor. Those inform the classes, but are really a crucial part of a given spellcasting mechanic.

Which brings me to another non-purist point. This idea will work better if it's presented and understood that not all spell casting mechanics are meant to work with all spell casting classes. Any X in any combo with any Y is as fraught with potential peril as only X1 w/ Y1, X2 w/ Y2 , etc. I'd much prefer to see the spellcasting split out, but then the class descriptions be something like this:

Wizard - this learned spell caster may use spell casting options A, D, or E, with A as the default. May use G or H under certain circumstances (see text). Option B does not work well with the wizard and should be avoided. All other options will likely require some adaptation or custom rules to fit to the wizard.

Basically, acknowledge that some combinations have been explored and tested and found to generally work, others work for some groups with certain styles, some usually don't work, and the rest are, for whatever reason, "not certified" to work, but may or may not if you fool with them enough.

Over time, the "rating" of combos will naturally change, and not merely because new spell casters and mechanics are introduced or changed. So maybe instead of placing such information in the class listing, it technically belongs in the first part of the spell casting section. Perhaps, given sufficient experience, eventually every caster can take almost any given castng mechanic, with known adjustments for what didn't work before. (For example, the wizard that takes the traditional cleric casting option, complete with "casts in armor," instead can cast in "non-metal armor".)

The main idea is too good of an idea to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

 

[jefgorbach]

Personally, I would unify ALL spells (clerical, druid, psi, sor/wiz, etc) using a core user-customizing mechanic like McWod with the individual classes providing the corresponding fluffy description to provide initial differentiation with Specialization modifying either cost or casting difficulty.

 

[Li Shenron]

The biggest problem is that there is NO one casting mechanic which you'll get even close to half the players to agree on as what should be "core".

...

I mean... what would you suggest to be this simplest possible "core" casting mechanic?

But it's obvious: vancian. That's what D&D magic originally was, that's what D&D magic always has been until 4e (even tho 3e introduced spontaneous casting for Sorcerers and Bards, it was still seen as the "default" used by all the other 5 spellcasting classes).

It's immediately recognizable, a shared experience to everyone who ever played D&D (before 4e), and a piece of cake to learn - although definitely not a piece of cake to play.

Your thread idea is actually pretty good. In 3ed vancian magic was almost the default, but then UA came over and introduced several spellcasting variants that could be applied to each class quite freely: spontaneous clerics & druids showed how the sorcerer mechanics could be in fact applied to any other vancian class, then there was a spell-point variant and a recharge-magic variant. The real problems were that (a) UA came out several years later and (b) those magic variants were really not even remotely as playtested as the default vancian.

What you suggest is not different from merging the UA magic variant chapter into the PHB, implying that each spellcasting variant is given the same design weight and playtesting effort as the default vancian, which is clearly very important because it is what puts all spellcasting mechanical options on par.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But it's obvious: vancian. That's what D&D magic originally was, that's what D&D magic always has been until 4e (even tho 3e introduced spontaneous casting for Sorcerers and Bards, it was still seen as the "default" used by all the other 5 spellcasting classes).

I agree with you that *if* we were to pick one casting mechanic that would be a default... Vancian would make the most sense from a tradition point of view. But there are a couple issues with that which we now have to deal with...

1) What do you do with the Sorcerer class?

If we are selecting ONE default mechanic that covers EVERY spellcasting class (prior to casting mechanic swap-outs), does the Sorcerer become superfluous? Considering the whole point of the Sorcerer was to get away from Vancian mechanics in the first place?

2) Are the people who don't like or outwardly HATE Vancian magic going to be willing to buy the game if it ASSUMES as default that Vancian trumps other methods? *Even if* the book says quite clearly "you can exchange the Vancian mechanics to another one as you'd prefer"?

We've seen quite clearly all along (and especially in 4E) that just because the book tells the players THEY CAN change things (like "refluffing" for example, to create a Fighter archer by using the Ranger class and stripping away the nature fluff)... more often than not they get annoyed and bothered that the game EXPECTS them to do it.

The advantage of not assigning ANY casting mechanics to any of the classes (prior to the "Here's a default campaign build you can use!" chapter in the back) is that the book and by extension Wizards of the Coast is telling everybody that "All of your preferences for magic are equal to each other, and no one mechanic trumps any other. You ALL can/have to choose how magic works in your game."

I myself think that's the preferable way to go with some of the "big" game mechanic issues, because you don't alienate a percentage of your audience right off the bat. HEALING is another one. Because just by saying in some book "Healing Surges are the default style for this game, but you can take it out and put in this other non-healing surge mechanic if you want"... you immediately piss off every single player who can't stand healing surges (or whatever surge-like system 5E eventually has). And even though THEY CAN swap it out... they're instead going to react with "SCREW THIS GAME, I'M NOT EVEN GONNA PLAY IT IF THIS IS THE CHOICES WOTC ARE GOING WITH!"

To my mind... some things are almost universally accepted by 95%+ of the D&D audience, and thus you can have a "core" default. Like Hit Points to determine your total health. But some things ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE to being universally accepted (and indeed, you'd be lucky to get 50% of the audience to agree with what the "default" should be)... and thus at that point WotC shouldn't even TRY to make a "core" rule and instead just tell everybody up front "Choose any of these options for your game that work for you, because we know each of you disagree with what should work best."

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

No offense but I really disagree with this idea.

First off, there HAS to be a default that all the classes are written up with. You want to at least pretend that a beginner can pick up the PHB and write up his first spellcasting character without making complex decisions about mechanical playstyle. In fact, forcing this kind of purely mechanical decision on the player at character creation undoes a lot of the good work WOTC has done in packaging backgrounds and specialties that take a lot of the nitty-gritty and guesswork out of character creation.

And despite the OP's suggestion, I'll argue that they can't just have the class description say "The wizard is Vancian Prepared by default; see page 207 to figure out what that means." A new player (or for that matter any player) wants to see what their character gets all on one page, preferably on one table, so they know how their character grows at each level.

So then you're stuck arguing about what the default for each class should be, which is where we're at already.

OK, moving past that. There are only a handful of magic system that we can even pretend are this interchangeable: Vancian (prepared, spontaneous, or whatever the 5e cleric is) and spell-point are the main ones I've seen in D&D. A system that relies primarily on encounter powers or at-will powers requires a completely different spell list (like the warlock has) for it to be balanced at all. You can't just say, "A Prepared Vancian character gets three 3rd-level spells as dailies at level 6, and a Encounter character gets a single 3rd-level spell as an encounter power at level 6." That might possibly work to some degree for a spell like Fireball, but what about Cure Serious Wounds or Fly or Invisibility? Pretty much any healing or non-combat spell can only be balanced with the assumption that there is a daily limit on use.

Plus, a lot of the most interesting spellcasting systems make use of spells that can't be socketed into the standard 9 levels a wizard or cleric uses. Some, like the warlock's incantations, scale with level; others can be custom-scaled based on what resources you expend to use them (like spending psionic points in 4e). With the current 5e core I could easily write up a Pyromancer class who only gets one "spell" (Fire) and learns new and more powerful uses for it (heating metal, enchanting flaming weapons, etc) as he levels up. That wouldn't fit into the rubric for spellcasters the OP has outlined.

People are arguing in other threads about exactly how Vancian wizards should be. Nobody seems to be arguing that sorcerers can't use spell points (even though they never have in any other core edition of D&D) or that warlocks should get tons of daily spells. This tells me that we're really arguing here specifically about the wizard and his juicy list of classic D&D spells, and there's no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater by screwing up every other spellcasting class to fix the wizard's identity crisis.

Here's an alternate wizard solution: make the school specializations specialties, and make the "arcane traditions" give you options as to how Vancian you want to be. (Make a "wild mage" tradition that works like a 3e sorcerer, and a "favored spell" tradition that gets one or two encounter spells, and so on, along with the standard Vancian wizard.) This way people who want to play a pure-Vancian Illusionist can do so, and those who want a non-Vancian wizard get it.

 

[Ahnehnois]

And despite the OP's suggestion, I'll argue that they can't just have the class description say "The wizard is Vancian Prepared by default; see page 207 to figure out what that means." A new player (or for that matter any player) wants to see what their character gets all on one page, preferably on one table, so they know how their character grows at each level.

I find this a very strange notion. This certainly has never been the case in any version of D&D; there have always been quite a few pages of magic rules separate from the classes that one needs to understand in order to play the game. I don't think asking a beginner to give at least a brief readthrough of the magic and combat chapters is offputting.

Certainly, the mechanics could stand to be simpler, but legacy issues make that very unlikely. I think it would be best to present the classes with a recommended casting mechanic, but simply write the wizard with system-neutral class features.

 

[Li Shenron]

I agree with you that *if* we were to pick one casting mechanic that would be a default... Vancian would make the most sense from a tradition point of view. But there are a couple issues with that which we now have to deal with...

1) What do you do with the Sorcerer class?

If we are selecting ONE default mechanic that covers EVERY spellcasting class (prior to casting mechanic swap-outs), does the Sorcerer become superfluous? Considering the whole point of the Sorcerer was to get away from Vancian mechanics in the first place?

Let's keep in mind that we are talking on a purely speculative level, because it's quite clear that the direction of 5e is that of giving each class its own default spellcasting mechanic, and (possibly, but they might change if they run out of ideas) also all at least somewhat different from each other.

That said, you are totally right that the first (3e) Sorcerer's purpose was to try a variation from vancian. The flavor difference was not actually apparently enough at that time to think it needed anything else from the Wizard (well, it got something less, i.e. the bonus feats... but I think at that time the designers were actually afraid that spontaneous casting might be too good, hence also the spell level delay).

I have no idea about the 4e Sorcerer, but the 5e draft for the class is already expanding the concept into something beyond the mere spells. We've only seen one example of sorcerous origin, so we can't take it for granted that ALL origins would grant some transformation powers after using a certain amount of willpower points, but this could at least be a starting point: the Sorcerer could be a class that, whatever the spellcasting method chosen (assuming your original suggestion) is such that the more resources are expended (points, slots, favors...), the more the character "transforms" into something else.

2) Are the people who don't like or outwardly HATE Vancian magic going to be willing to buy the game if it ASSUMES as default that Vancian trumps other methods? *Even if* the book says quite clearly "you can exchange the Vancian mechanics to another one as you'd prefer"?

Yes, they should. But the best way to convince them would be if the designers immediately show, in the first published adventures but also in every PC/NPC example from supplements, several characters that are in fact different combinations of class + spellcasting mechanic. If the designers show that they are going to use the idea, the gamers will get along. If published material always falls down to the default then clearly nobody believes that the different mechanics are on par.

I myself think that's the preferable way to go with some of the "big" game mechanic issues, because you don't alienate a percentage of your audience right off the bat. HEALING is another one.

I totally agree with healing.

For such fundamental campaign "dials" there should be no default, but rather a small set of alternatives (3 to 5) to choose from.

Same with alignment use.

Same with magic items availability.

Same with XP/level advancement rate.

But those are game-defining "settings". Change one of them, and the game changes for everyone at the table.

YMMV, but IMHO a spellcaster's mechanic changes the game a lot for that player but it only changes a little bit for everybody else.

In fact I've just been thinking... I hate encounter powers, but the best way for a player to make me accept encounter powers is probably don't even tell me that he has them Just use them without cheating and without telling me, so that I might think you've just prepared many slots with the same spell, and I'm probably fine.

And even though THEY CAN swap it out... they're instead going to react with "SCREW THIS GAME, I'M NOT EVEN GONNA PLAY IT IF THIS IS THE CHOICES WOTC ARE GOING WITH!"

Honestly, I don't care for such people at all (but I think they are much fewer than we think).

 

[Remathilis]

For such fundamental campaign "dials" there should be no default, but rather a small set of alternatives (3 to 5) to choose from.

Same with alignment use.

Same with magic items availability.

Same with XP/level advancement rate.

But those are game-defining "settings". Change one of them, and the game changes for everyone at the table.

Both.

The game should assume a default, but it should allow a variety of optional settings as well. However, a "if you don't know/no preference, use X" option should be included.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I find this a very strange notion. This certainly has never been the case in any version of D&D; there have always been quite a few pages of magic rules separate from the classes that one needs to understand in order to play the game. I don't think asking a beginner to give at least a brief readthrough of the magic and combat chapters is offputting.

Certainly, the mechanics could stand to be simpler, but legacy issues make that very unlikely. I think it would be best to present the classes with a recommended casting mechanic, but simply write the wizard with system-neutral class features.

In pretty much every edition of D&D, the question "what does this class give me at each level" is answered by looking at the entry for that class in the Classes chapter. (I think there may have been an extra chart or two for 3e spellcasters to use to figure out bonus spells and so on.) 4e improved on 3.x in this respect (IMO) by putting each class's powers in with that class's entry, rather than making spellcasters flip to the back of the book to figure out what they could do.

Yes, of course you need to figure out how the rules work for casting a spell or swinging a sword, but that's a very different thing than having the core mechanics of a class located across three separate chapters (Classes, Spellcasting Mechanics, and Spells).