D&D General why do we not have an arcane half caster?

[doctorbadwolf]

one thing doesn't exclude the others.

You can give wizards and clerics a lot of spells AND throw other spellcasters more spells.
You'd have to in order to make a decent AHC.

A decent AHC doesn’t need any more unique spells than the ranger has, IMO.

Which is wholly unrelated to the other issue, of who comes up with the spells in-world.

I mean, who says an Arcane Trickster didn’t invent Shadowblade?

 

[Mind of tempest]

have lots of decent unique spells would help it stand out and make it more Iconic.

 

[Undrave]

The biggest pitfall is that D&D still mostly makes all its magic for wizards and clerics and just hands the other classes wizard and cleric spells.

There is so little "I'm creating a spell for bards/druid/paladins/rangers/sorcerers/warlocks" going on in the WOTC offices.
Heck, few of the 4e powers were converted to 5e spells.
It's easy money sitting on the WOTC bookshelves.

Oh man that's true! Is there any new spell post-PHB that aren't accessible to either Wizards or Clerics??

 

[Chaosmancer]

Oh man that's true! Is there any new spell post-PHB that aren't accessible to either Wizards or Clerics??

Chaos Bolt
Zephyr Strike
Find Greater Steed

And I think that is it. No Bard exclusives I can remember, actually there are quite a few Druid exclusives. The Grove, Primal Guardian, Wrath of Nature. Some of those were given to rangers too

 

[Mind of tempest]

Chaos Bolt
Zephyr Strike
Find Greater Steed

And I think that is it. No Bard exclusives I can remember, actually there are quite a few Druid exclusives. The Grove, Primal Guardian, Wrath of Nature. Some of those were given to rangers too

wotc is far to pro wizard and cleric it is honestly terrible.

 

[Minigiant]

A decent AHC doesn’t need any more unique spells than the ranger has, IMO.

Which is wholly unrelated to the other issue, of who comes up with the spells in-world.

I mean, who says an Arcane Trickster didn’t invent Shadowblade?

It's the whole "game mechanics and system doesn't match the game lore and story" thing.

If WOTC creates few arcane spells for nonwizards, it pushes a narrative that only wizards design spells and only design them for themselves.

It's like firearms. If firearms are not in the default rules, it's hard to say fighters can and did design firearms or paid gunsmiths too.

AHCs, EKs, and ATs should have as many spells tailored to them as the ranger. The ranger has too few though (1 spell in 2 books)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's the whole "game mechanics and system doesn't match the game lore and story" thing.

If WOTC creates few arcane spells for nonwizards, it pushes a narrative that only wizards design spells and only design them for themselves.

No, it doesn’t. It’s just as easy to interpret the fact that wizards can know most arcane spells as wizards being good at reverse engineering the spells others come up with.

It's like firearms. If firearms are not in the default rules, it's hard to say fighters can and did design firearms or paid gunsmiths too.

It is? Why? I don’t find it hard at all. It would never have occurred to me in a thousand years that it might present a difficulty for anyone, had you not said it was hard.

Also do “fighters”, as a group, exist in the world? Wouldn’t it be that “The Imperial Dragoons of the last century invented firearms, and have been at the front of developing them ever since”, not “fighters invented firearms”?

AHCs, EKs, and ATs should have as many spells tailored to them as the ranger. The ranger has too few though (1 spell in 2 books)

Sure I guess. I don’t personally care what spells are exclusive to a class or not.

 

[tetrasodium]

There's nothing historically or mechanically to suggest that fighters would invent firearms, especially not to keep up with mages. Doing that requires a great deal of metallurgy & chemistry along with slow iterative trial & error. Those crafters chemists & metallurgists might be employed by militaries, but there's no reason to think that those militaries would not also be funding arcane research to advance the already developed & mature magic spells & items. Firearms did not suddenly spring into existence in a hollywood screen mature state in our world & if we had magic like d&d might never have bothered developing them as more than a curiosity

 

[doctorbadwolf]

There's nothing historically or mechanically to suggest that fighters would invent firearms, especially not to keep up with mages. Doing that requires a great deal of metallurgy & chemistry along with slow iterative trial & error. Those crafters chemists & metallurgists might be employed by militaries, but there's no reason to think that those militaries would not also be funding arcane research to advance the already developed & mature magic spells & items. Firearms did not suddenly spring into existence in a hollywood screen mature state in our world & if we had magic like d&d might never have bothered developing them as more than a curiosity

Magic makes firearms more likely, not less.

 

[Minigiant]

No, it doesn’t. It’s just as easy to interpret the fact that wizards can know most arcane spells as wizards being good at reverse engineering the spells others come up with.

Your logic is backwards.

Wizards having a lot of thematic spells does not effect other classes getting few new spells unless page space is an issue in books.
Again the discussion shifted this way because WOC does not makethe class mechanics and spells of some classes match the lore they set up.

So no matter how they makean arcane half caster, WOTC would have to break their habit and both

1. Curate a spell list that matches the class' fantasy concept
2. Add spells that help define the class' fantasy concept if those spell do not exist