D&D 5E Interest in a Spelless, Yet Magical, Bard, Paladin, and Ranger?

[doctorbadwolf]

Rangers never really needed spellcasting. Just give them Druidic ritual casting and that's enough.

Disagree on that being all they need, but there’s a middle ground to be had.

Paladin seems like an obvious one. Auto-scaling smites (possibly on a short rest recharge to prevent nova), move some healing power into Lay on Hands (maybe level x 3+Cha), rituals for Find Steed and Find Greater Steed. Pretty easy, since paladins don't use their spells as much for utility since they're hanging onto them for smites. Less smite nova potential and more utility powers.

Oddly, I'd like to see a mostly "spell-less" take on Warlock and Sorcerer. Cantrips, buffed and more plentiful invocations, and ritual casting would make a fun take on the "innate magic" trope, and provide more differentiation from Wizards.

Disagree on Paladins not using utility spells. IME, Paladins use those spells quite a bit.

 

[TwoSix]

Disagree on Paladins not using utility spells. IME, Paladins use those spells quite a bit.

Different experiences, I guess. Never saw much use outside of Lesser Restoration and the occasional subclass spell. I still think a lot of their non-combat utility could be powered by LoH points.

I would say a lot of the difficulty in converting paladin, specifically, would be how to handle their subclass granted spells; that's where a fair amount of the subclass power budget and thematic differentiation is present.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A lot of interesting takes so far.

I think what I’d want for each one is;

Bard. Ritual casting with a broader list, and a few spells usable as ritual that aren’t normally. Auras, group buffs and debuffs, more improved rest healing, group heal over time effects, all flavored as the result of the bard’s songs/speech. could also be done with new spells and a subclass that uses inspiration dice differently, but I’m still interested in this approach.

Ranger. Ritual Casting with expanded list. Animal Freindship, Beast Bond, Hunter’s Mark, Pass Without Trace, and a few others as class features. Compile all the UA “replacement” features and add them to the phb features they replace. Abilities to extend their passive feature to their allies at a resource cost.

Paladin. Ritual Casting. Add Magic Cicle, Find Steed, Find Greater Steed, and Hallow as rituals for the Paladin. Beef up and expand the Aura feature. Small group heal using Aura. Ability to spend Lay On Hands points to end a condition that resulted from a failed save. A new Smite feature that lets you choose from a short list of smites, balanced so the pure damage smite isn’t as often the best option.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Different experiences, I guess. Never saw much use outside of Lesser Restoration and the occasional subclass spell. I still think a lot of their non-combat utility could be powered by LoH points.

I would say a lot of the difficulty in converting paladin, specifically, would be how to handle their subclass granted spells; that's where a fair amount of the subclass power budget and thematic differentiation is present.

Well, I’d want to give them a monk style point system that comes back on a short rest, with a simpler set of options. The subclass spells could simply be cast at 1ki/spell level.

 

[jayoungr]

Bard. Ritual casting with a broader list, and a few spells usable as ritual that aren’t normally. Auras, group buffs and debuffs, more improved rest healing, group heal over time effects, all flavored as the result of the bard’s songs/speech. could also be done with new spells and a subclass that uses inspiration dice differently, but I’m still interested in this approach.

In this case, what would the bard be doing during combat? Just buffing but in ways that aren't explicitly spells?

Also, this seems to be bringing back one of the most widely-mocked aspects of the 3.X bard, which was the idea that the bard stood aside making music during a fight, while everyone else was doing actual fighting with weapons.

 

[Esker]

I ran a one-shot recently which was set in 1980s New York, where the party was a new wave rock band, all either straight bards or multiclassed bards, each with a different subclass. I didn't change any of the mechanics, so all had spell slots and such, but the flavor was very different, and because they were all bards, they all had to have thematically distinct sets of abilities.

The lead singer was a glamor bard, who had what I described as a "preternatural" charm; not quite supernatural, but more than a normal strong personality. Sort of a celebrity-based power to make people feel good and want to do what she said. The lore bard was the manager, flavored similarly, only preternaturally intimidating and/or able to insidiously undermine people's self-confidence, and used fear-based and psionic spells (with some things, like Haste, flavored as drugs). Basically a really skilled sociopath. Then there was a synth player who was a goth whispers bard (multiclassed with Arcane Trickster), who I flavored as a tech genius -- more or less the same type of flavoring as what @Umbran described for his artificer (but electronic). Used illusions flavored as holographic projections, some thunder stuff, some divination from little cameras, etc. The only one that was explicitly magical was the guitarist, who was a Swords bard with Hexblade levels, as a result of making a pact with his sentient "axe".

 

[TwoSix]

Well, I’d want to give them a monk style point system that comes back on a short rest, with a simpler set of options. The subclass spells could simply be cast at 1ki/spell level.

Sure. I think there's a broad power equivalence between a half-caster and a ki point caster with spell effects gated at levels 2, 5, 9, 13, and 17. Just not a ki point caster that uses ki to power a full "Spellcasting" feature.

 

[ART!]

I picked Ranger and Bard. Neither of those feel right to be as default spellcasters. Given some of the previous posts, I'm starting to feel the same way about Paladins.

I don't know bards real well. I've never played one, but we have players in our weekly group who have played them more than once, and I just feel like there's a lot of bard possibilities that get overlooked because of how the class is designed.


My go-to "ranger" in fiction is Aragorn, and Iike how in game terms there's no telling whether he's "casting a spell" or just uncannily skilled at something, so I like my rangers to not be spellcasters by default.

 

[TwoSix]

I ran a one-shot recently which was set in 1980s New York, where the party was a new wave rock band, all either straight bards or multiclassed bards, each with a different subclass. I didn't change any of the mechanics, so all had spell slots and such, but the flavor was very different, and because they were all bards, they all had to have thematically distinct sets of abilities.

The lead singer was a glamor bard, who had what I described as a "preternatural" charm; not quite supernatural, but more than a normal strong personality. Sort of a celebrity-based power to make people feel good and want to do what she said. The lore bard was the manager, flavored similarly, only preternaturally intimidating and/or able to insidiously undermine people's self-confidence, and used fear-based and psionic spells (with some things, like Haste, flavored as drugs). Basically a really skilled sociopath. Then there was a synth player who was a goth whispers bard (multiclassed with Arcane Trickster), who I flavored as a tech genius -- more or less the same type of flavoring as what @Umbran described for his artificer (but electronic). Used illusions flavored as holographic projections, some thunder stuff, some divination from little cameras, etc. The only one that was explicitly magical was the guitarist, who was a Swords bard with Hexblade levels, as a result of making a pact with his sentient "axe".

I think reskinning classes to express different narratives is super fun (and this is a fantastic example!) My own eladrin bard, as another example uses "bard spells" as just a way to express his fey heritage, they aren't so much spells as just his natural faerie powers.

I do think that reskinning mechanics to present a new narrative is a different need than the desire to represent the same narrative through a different mechanical representation, though.

 

[Esker]

I do think that reskinning mechanics to present a new narrative is a different need than the desire to represent the same narrative through a different mechanical representation, though.

That's fair!

I've always been of the school that says that classes are really just bundles of mechanics, and the fluff is whatever you want to superimpose on that. Whereas the sentence, "spellcasting can often muddy and obscure the actual story of these classes" suggests a more narrative concern. Though the rest of the OP doesn't necessarily seem to be about the story so much as the mechanics, which I agree, is a different concern.