Having a higher selection of spells makes it more likely that you have an optimal spell for any given situation. This is all the designer's need to know. And you contradict yourself there nicely. Having things like elemental adept that cost a precious ASI proves that such flexibility is assigned a value. Similar flexibility can be gained via a wide arsenal of spells. The logical conclusion of your line of reasoning is that a class that would have only one predetermined spell for each spell level would be no weaker than one that could freely choose to cast any spell in the game. You must see how totally bonkers that is?
Why is it always such a challenge to get across simple ideas, needing me to twist and turn and argue for weeks? Rhetorical question by the way.
Did you just ignore the part of my post where I said "there is consideration given after the fact", referencing that the class was built, balanced, and the spells assigned. Then they said "well, it is possible that the character might go with an elemental theme, limiting their effectiveness, so we will add a way to mitigate the negatives of that choice."
Does that contradict my point? Not even slightly, because it was done
AFTER the class was balanced. Meaning that the existance of that rule did not effect the balancing of the class.
And, since you want to go with "bonkers" claims, lets consider this. If I polled a dozen players with wizard characters, and listed out their spell lists, and find that many of them are different spell lists, are we to assume that those wizards are not fairly balanced against each other?
They have different spell lists, so according to your position some of them would be overpowered compared to the others, purely based on their spell choices.
Some of the more recent UAs have not yet gone trough their full review process. But the other class options form the UA featuring the spell versatility appeared in this book. Now sure, one can come up with some unlikely conspiracy theory why this one feature would be moved elsewhere, but Occam's Razor clearly points to the direction of the designers simply deeming the feature unsuitable for publication, at least in its current form.
Which is not what you claimed. You claimed they think it is a bad rule, not that they thought it wasn't ready to be published.
No. The rule is not in the book because the designers most likely though that it is a bad rule. I too happen think it is a bad rule, but that has nothing to do with it being in the book or not.
You need proof to back up that assertion. You have none.
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Happening to have the perfect spell selection for a situation vs happening to have a selection of spells that are of no use in that situation makes a much bigger difference than whether or not the fighter hits every time.
Which makes the question very simple: should the game make it easy to swap out spells (or to have all spells castable at all times), or should swapping require a certain amount of in-game time (a long-rest, a day, a week, the next downtime, whatever), or should swapping spells be impossible in any form.
Sure it makes a big difference to the player in that situation. But was the game balanced under the assumption that you never have the right spell for the job? Or was it balanced around the idea that you will generally have the right spell for the job?
I think it makes far more sense to balance under the assumption that the players will have the ideal spell list. And if the game was designed under that assumption, then you have not broken the game. You have made the player more capable of reaching the balance point that the game was designed around.
Suggestion, if done right, can hose someone over far worse than PF can. Sure it doesn't do any damage, but the 'Suggested' task could be something that keeps the target busy for a long time, and thus out of your hair.
As for PF and other illusions: I take the stance that if someone believes an illusion then that illusion can hurt or even kill the believer, if done right. If someone casts a five-sense illusion of the cave collapsing on your head and you fall for it, you're in a world o' trouble.
Sure, but that is adding to the spell.
Exactly, so the caster is using their abilities to manipulate someone, so a roll is appropriate.
Situationally dependent. If the illusion is subtle enough that there's no reason not to disbelieve it (e.g. very slowly moving the gang-plank of a ship three feet to the left such that the next person who tries walking on it goes splash) then it's auto-success.
That said, one thing I don't allow illusions to do is coherently speak. The best they can do is make mumbly sounds as if speaking a very foreign language, but Comprehend Language or Tongues will not translate this speech (which might be a clue that something fishy's going on...)
The one that has someone's deity showing up is interesting: yes the viewer can try to disbelieve...but from the viewer's side there's going to be that doubt: what if it really is my deity and I'm caught looking askance at it?
And this is my point. The situation Asisreo is proposed is the illusion speaking, and the illusion convincing the target of what the caster wants it to say automatically, because the target believes the illusion is real.
That is my objection.
I have no problem with the illusion working, but I am not going to let a player bypass persuasion or deception just because they got a convincing sock puppet illusion in the targets mind.
Given that this idea seems to have been in the pre-marketing and was then pulled, what other reasoning could there be?
I suppose there's a non-zero chance it was intentionally pulled from this release in order to include it in some future release where it fits better, or as a setting-specific rule, or because of practical issues e.g. page count/space; but all of these seem rather unlikely.
Sure, maybe the designers thought the rule thye created was a bad rule that would hurt the game, so they decided to bury it.
Or maybe they felt it wasn't quite finished being playtested and delayed an official printing
Or maybe something else.
But Crimson is stating it as an objective fact that the designers did not publish the rule because they felt it was a bad rule and would harm the game. There is no evidence of this, so him claiming it is wrong.
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That rule might have worked out for you, Max and many others, but it was disruptive enough for the majority that the designers had no choice but to class that rule as bad balance wise.
Proof.
Quote the designers. Let them tell us that they had no choice because the rule was broken balance-wise.
Without proof, you are leaping to conclusions.
