Maxwell's Silver Hammer: On Spells, Design, and the feeling of Sameyness in 5e

[oriaxx77]

Spellcasting classes are mostly the same in different skin. Warlock is the exception.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Sign me up for the Save Space team.

If the DM is using the monster, he should at the very least know what all the spells in the adventure he has prepared do. How many threads here complain about players who don't know their characters?

"Sauce for the goose, Mr. Saavik"

And this basically means that the only DMs that should happen are railroad DMs.

When running it is entirely normal that my players are going to take a look at the situation and head off in a direction that I do not expect. In order to follow your guideline I would have to have memorized every ability of every monster both in the the hexcrawl sandbox and the three possible dungeons. I literally couldn't run a sandbox with spellcasting monsters the way you propose.

Also I have in the past two sessions revolutionised the experience of two of my new players by rewriting their character sheets. They look a lot uglier now - but by putting the actual spell rules onto the spell part of their character sheets they are no longer flicking between spell cards and getting confused about what their spells actually do. And no, I don't blame the players here - I blame the game and blame myself for not stepping in earlier.

That sauce you want to apply has been kept unsealed and unrefrigerated for weeks, and I don't want to risk food poisoning for anyone. Character sheets and monster statblocks alike should be written so you don't have to look things up in other sources.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Another thing I would think about is removing prepared spells from Paladin. That way, all the half-casters would use known spells?

I’d rather go the other way. Why make half-casters more samey amongst each other?

 

[akr71]

There's also Force damage...

That's what I get for thinking about D&D while I'm supposed to be doing work. Err, work that my employer pays me to do.

 

[Oofta]

1. Crossbows not scaling is a feature, not a bug.

2. Light crossbows are loading (no more than 1/round) and two-handed. Which makes it difficult to use a focus or material components.

Again, there are ways (feats, proficiencies, races you can choose) around this. But it's more about trying to restore a little bit of distinction.

If that's not what you're looking for, no worries! To each their own. Some people like gnome Paladins, and some people are useful members of society that aren't sociopaths that like to murder puppies in their sleep.

Ahh, but if they're evil puppies they're getting what they deserve!

I could see banning warlock multi-classing and limiting cantrips to specific classes. I could even see bringing back more restrictive spell selection lists. My evoker doesn't need those nambie-pambie illusion spells anyway.

But getting rid of cantrips altogether? Meh. I like my wizard to feel like a wizard, not a commoner.

 

[tetrasodium]

regarding the back & forth over SLAs vrs unique abilities. the 5e style has problems of it's own. As a GM it's more frustrating because I don't just tick some boxes for A B & C abilities or C but acid instead of fire. It also leads to this...

are there any monsters with "this feat"? if so, they are not in the monster manual, volo's, ggtr, or rising. It seems like this is the only feat/spell/class ablity/etc explicitly written for an odd case of pvp instead of just adding "on their turn" or "once per round" or something

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ahh, but if they're evil puppies they're getting what they deserve!

I could see banning warlock multi-classing and limiting cantrips to specific classes. I could even see bringing back more restrictive spell selection lists. My evoker doesn't need those nambie-pambie illusion spells anyway.

But getting rid of cantrips altogether? Meh. I like my wizard to feel like a wizard, not a commoner.

I think there is a difference of POV that just isn’t ever going to come together, and that’s fine.

Some folks feel that cantrips make wizards less magical, while others feel that At Will magic is what makes them magical. They’re incompatible POVs, but that’s great! That just means that you and I don’t need the proposed variant system, and can just keep an eye out for bits of it we do like, while it enhances the game of those who look at their wizard and feel a great meh build within them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

regarding the back & forth over SLAs vrs unique abilities. the 5e style has problems of it's own. As a GM it's more frustrating because I don't just tick some boxes for A B & C abilities or C but acid instead of fire. It also leads to this...
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are there any monsters with "this feat"? if so, they are not in the monster manual, volo's, ggtr, or rising. It seems like this is the only feat/spell/class ablity/etc explicitly written for an odd case of pvp instead of just adding "on their turn" or "once per round" or something

This isn’t a case where pvp or monsters are the point.

The “target” is the creature that is being attacked by an enemy. It means you can’t use that ability if the enemy attacks an ally who also has Sentinel. Two sentinels cant stand next to each other and sentinel each other. Nothing to do with the attacker having any feat or not.