D&D 5E Why Has D&D, and 5e in Particular, Gone Down the Road of Ubiquitous Magic?

[SkidAce]

Or, put it another way. If my cleric has fireball, burning hands, flame strike, and various other things, how is he any different than a fire sorcerer or an evoker? Note, I've got no real complaint about the wizardly types firing away every round. That's fine. That's what they should be doing. But why is my cleric dropping fireballs several times per adventuring day?

Because he is a follower of Girru, the Bringer of Flame?

 

[Hussar]

Right. The guidelines for whether an item was available were based on the cost of the item and the size of the community in which you were shopping...

5th level feat vs a 1st level feat, IIRC.

But the cost difference actually reflected that the potions were much easier to acquire. A potion of CLW was 50 gp, a wand of CLW 750 - so you had to be in a larger community to find wands for sale.

All fairly consistent, really.

Let's not forget too, the wizard got that Craft Wand feat as a bonus feat as well. So, you crafted scrolls (who bothered with potions?) for 4 levels, and then wands after that. 375 gp for 50 charges? IIRC, a 7th level PC's was expected to have 16 000 gp in character wealth. We're talking a minor, minor expense, not even a 5% expense if the PC's were buying the wands at retail, just about 2% if they were crafting them. You got a wand for everyone and off you went.

It was very, very easy to do an end run around the Vancian limitations in 3e. Never minding later feats that gave you at-will spells, but, simply a couple of crafting feats and you were off to the races. You didn't put your combat spells in scrolls and wands - you put all that utility stuff there. Stuff that you weren't going to need all the time, but, so handy to have when you did. Water Breathing, Knock, Message, all that kind of stuff.

IIRC, a wizard could have about 8 scrolls of every level he could cast for about 10% of his character wealth. So a 2nd level wizard has 8 1st level scrolls, a 10th level wizard has 8 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th level scrolls. More than enough to get you through to the next level where you simply replaced whatever you used and move on. Blast away to your heart's content because you effectively can never really run out. You'll run out of bad guys long before you run out of spells.

And these things had just such a massive campaign shifting effect. I tried to run a naval based campaign - the PC's were merchant/pirates. Cool. The wizard player took two minutes to realise that an Extended Wand of Fireballs has a range far longer than any siege weapon and is ten times more effective. Combined with a Lyre of Building (making a structure immune to all damage for an hour) and a fairly minor expenditure of cash from the group's pooled money and they were basically immune to all incoming damage and had long range artillery. So, I had to start adding the same thing to all the enemies. Or trying to work around it constantly. Complete game changer. Two items, neither one was out of line for a 7th level party.

3e was brutal for this sort of thing.

 

[Hussar]

Because he is a follower of Girru, the Bringer of Flame?

But, that's my point though. If my cleric is blasting away with fire spells most of the time, is he really a cleric anymore? Why not just make him a sorcerer and be done with it? What is it about fireball and flaming sphere and burning hands that says, "Hey, I'm a cleric"?

Why not just save a heck of a lot of space in the PHB, combine all full casters into a single class and let the players choose a la carte? After all, this is how fighters work. Doesn't really matter what kind of fighter archetype we're working from, knight, samurai, English longbowman, Aztec warrior, stone age tribesman, all use the same class. Why not just roll up all the full casters in the same way?

 

[MerricB]

If my cleric has fireball, burning hands, flame strike, and various other things, how is he any different than a fire sorcerer or an evoker? Note, I've got no real complaint about the wizardly types firing away every round. That's fine. That's what they should be doing. But why is my cleric dropping fireballs several times per adventuring day?

Because the character is playing a cleric/wizard, but using domain features to attain that?

If you want to discuss how some types of clerics have moved more into taking a wizard's role, it's probably a good topic for a new thread. It doesn't match your concerns in your original post, and would focus the discussion more.

(To be clear, I think it's a worthy topic, but it only really applies to what has happened to clerics).

Cheers!

 

[Jabborwacky]

Right. The guidelines for whether an item was available were based on the cost of the item and the size of the community in which you were shopping...

5th level feat vs a 1st level feat, IIRC.

But the cost difference actually reflected that the potions were much easier to acquire. A potion of CLW was 50 gp, a wand of CLW 750 - so you had to be in a larger community to find wands for sale.

All fairly consistent, really.

I used to think the same thing, but it is inconsistent due to how magic items in 3.5e reach a critical threshold where they can only be found by adventuring. Yet that doesn't actually justify the gold price. If the largest communities in the game cannot muster the strength to produce even one instance of the item, the gold piece price is meaningless gobbledygook. The intent was clearly to rate where magic items were supposed to be in the progression of D&D. So a wand of cure light wounds would be a treasure item to expect at low levels. The whole magic item economy was likely accidental rather than intentional.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Why not just save a heck of a lot of space in the PHB, combine all full casters into a single class and let the players choose a la carte? After all, this is how fighters work. Doesn't really matter what kind of fighter archetype we're working from, knight, samurai, English longbowman, Aztec warrior, stone age tribesman, all use the same class. Why not just roll up all the full casters in the same way?

The combined number of tricks that a fighter can pull (bow, greatsword, shield, dual-wielding) is significantly more limited than the number of tricks that a cleric or wizard can pull. A single caster class, with access to all of the spell lists, would be too versatile compared to anyone else. Casters should be segregated much further than they are, in order to improve parity of options.

 

[SkidAce]

But, that's my point though. If my cleric is blasting away with fire spells most of the time, is he really a cleric anymore? Why not just make him a sorcerer and be done with it? What is it about fireball and flaming sphere and burning hands that says, "Hey, I'm a cleric"?

Why not just save a heck of a lot of space in the PHB, combine all full casters into a single class and let the players choose a la carte? After all, this is how fighters work. Doesn't really matter what kind of fighter archetype we're working from, knight, samurai, English longbowman, Aztec warrior, stone age tribesman, all use the same class. Why not just roll up all the full casters in the same way?

I understand your thoughts on mechanics, and think your concerns are valid, but my answer doesn't change much.

The cleric is a cleric, spreader of the faith, endowed with the flame of endor, etc etc. He's not like the other clerics that perhaps focus on principles and causes.

"What is it about fireball and flaming sphere and burning hands that says, "Hey, I'm a cleric"?"

Nothing. Being a cleric says I'm a cleric. The cleric of Kuan Yin, healing and mercy, isn't tossing fireballs (theoretically ).

You could look at other classes the same way you know. "What is it about a battle hammer and shield that screams cleric" since fighters can use them?

Just my opinion, like I said, I understand your point.

 

[Hussar]

Because the character is playing a cleric/wizard, but using domain features to attain that?

If you want to discuss how some types of clerics have moved more into taking a wizard's role, it's probably a good topic for a new thread. It doesn't match your concerns in your original post, and would focus the discussion more.

(To be clear, I think it's a worthy topic, but it only really applies to what has happened to clerics).

Cheers!

Not really. Not when you have paladin's teleporting and casting Haste and so on and so forth.

Personally, I think it's all tied together. All the caster classes have gotten a large number of direct combat spells, at every level. Utility magic that used to be mostly the domain of the wizard has been spread across a number of classes. As has the utility magic of clerics. The niche's between the casters have been more and more blurred as time has moved on. Additionally, we have casters that can cast a LOT more per day than previously.

As I said way upthread, a cleric was never really a full caster, at least, not until high levels. Most of his spells were pretty niche and, outside of healing, you weren't dropping spells every encounter. Certainly not every round of every encounter. But now, in 5e, it's pretty much the best option for most classes. Drop multiple spells per encounter. We've gone from a system where you might see a couple of spells per encounter, to seeing multiple spells being cast every round of every encounter.

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

Another thing I like about having domains having a general split between melee and spellcasting is that I never really got the idea of a priest running around in heavy armour. I always saw them running around in robes, probably due to whatever media I watched when I was growing up. It was always warrior types in armour, priests and wizards in robes. I get the basis for the cleric, but never really felt that it quite fit.

This kinda reminds me of the Warcraft 1 Clerics and Conjurers split. Both were old men in robes and beards, but clerics were diviners and healers, while conjurers were blasters and summoners. And i kinda liked that. Always bothered me when they merged the cleric and the knight in WC2. Another thing i liked about WC1 and that makes to this day my favorite Warcraft is that there was quite a bit of genuine dungeon crawling there, with all those no reinforcement missions deep inside caves and dungeons...... forgive an old man his rant!

 

[CapnZapp]

It wasn't much fun for me, because I was playing the healer, and I used to have a lot of fun with deciding who should get the biggest cure spells and who could probably survive until tomorrow. (I used it as a manner of positive/negative reinforcement, to teach reckless characters to stop being so reckless because we didn't have the resources to clean up after unnecessary damage; it turns out, nobody will learn anything when they have a bundle of twenty wands that can solve all of their problems.)

I find this way of playing reprehensible, so I can't say you're strengthening your argument.