D&D 5E New D&D WotC survey! On classes.

[Amrûnril]

Wizards have always had most of the spells. The problem is, they used to have to roll to see if they could learn a spell (1e and 2e, when most of those spells were made). If they failed the roll, they couldn't try again until the next level.

It wouldn't be hard to create such a rule again (DC equal to 10 + spell's level or something like that). But would people in general be OK with such a rule?

This seems like it could tie in well with the desire to limit specialist wizards' use of spells from other schools. A wizard could succeed automatically at learning spells within their school, but need to roll for others.

 

[Faolyn]

This seems like it could tie in well with the desire to limit specialist wizards' use of spells from other schools. A wizard could succeed automatically at learning spells within their school, but need to roll for others.

That would definitely work well. You could even bring back the notion of opposing schools (either set by the school itself, or the player's choice) and the DC is higher for those schools.

Your own school: automatic learn.
Not your school: DC 10 or 12 + spell's level.
Opposing school: DC 13 or 15 + spell's level.

It would still be possible to learn every spell you come across--especially if you can get the cleric to cast guidance on you and the bard to give you an inspiration die--but it isn't automatic.

I'd also say that you can choose to use a spell from a captured spellbook as a scroll (I don't think you can, by RAW). So you get to choose: do you wait a level to try to learn this spell again, or do you burn the spell as scroll because you need it now?

 

[Yaarel]

Because we are talking about the aggregate, it is obvious which options are overperforming (for example, Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master) and which options are underperforming (Linguist).

The options dont need to be symmetrically balanced, they can be different mechanics doing different things. But they need to be useful, at least several times during a gaming session, and to be good at what they do. The options need to be comparable and equally desirable in the aggregate.

D&D is largely a combat game, and many gamers pay careful attention to the combat aspects. It is the most well understood aspect of the game. Combat options are the easiest aspect of the game to balance.

It is also possible to silo all combat options, so they dont compete with mechanical options for social and exploratory encounters. Dual-use mechanics such as mobility, useful for both combat and exploration, default to the combat silo. It helps the game to contain combat options and to keep each option extremely balanced alongside comparable options.

The other two pillars of the game, social and explorative, are less well understood. The social mechanics are making baby steps. The hesitancy is to ensure the mechanics dont override player agency to roleplay out a social scene. But social mechanics exist, and can be siloed and compared to each other to ensure they are equally useful and appealing.

The exploratory silo is mainly various kinds of searching and finding, including searching the unknown. This too has mechanical options that can be siloed and compared to each other to ensure the options are comparably useful and appealing.

Mechanically the central pillar of the game is combat. It is the most distracting, but is the easiest to silo and balance.





The ballpark is enough. The designers tend to be good about nerfing powerful options, but sometimes hit too hard, and are extremely negligent about powering up underpowered options.

Correcting and calibrating in BOTH directions, up and down, is necessary to ensure "choices" are actually choices. When options are equally powerful, they become able to serve the needs of both mechanical prowess and narrative prowess.

Earlier in the above post, I called out the Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master feats as "overperforming" compared to other feats. That is true. However.

These two are among the Players Handbook feats that the optimization style is even willing to sacrifice an ability score improvement for. In other works, these feats are balanced with an improvement and are the correct amount of design space for a feat.

All the other feats are underpowered and need to be written to be more powerful to be more worth sacrificing an ability score improvement for them.

Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master are the benchmark to measure other feats. Depending on the feat, the others need to improve by a tweak or substantially to become comparable to an ability score improvement. Many feats actually become viable after the features of two separafe feats are combined together.

When an element of the gaming system imbalances, whether too powerful or not powerful enough, it turns choices into false choices, and disrupts the wellbeing of the gaming experience.

 

[Yaarel]

Regarding the arcane spell schools, they are inconsistent kinds of categories, and less useful for organizing spells. No other gaming mechanics should depend on them. Anything that depends on the schools will likewise become an inconsistent mess.

Consider the schools Abjuration, Transmutation, and Necromancy. One category is a purpose, an other is a process, and an other is a theme. Any spell could show up in any category. The schools organize spell lists less well than other organizational systems, such as psionic disciplines and divine domais that are both mainly thematic and can be used to organize all spells coherently by theme.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Absolutely agree with this as well (just noticed it properly), and I pulled up Necromancer for the same thing.

Necromancer is an extremely well-established fantasy archetype, across games, books (including the amazing recent Gideon the Ninth), even movies and so on. It's a person who can raise and control undead (corpses, spirits, etc.) to do their bidding - and usually they can raise quite a few of them quite quickly.

At this point, whilst I think Wizard should retain their necromancy spells and so on, I think Necromancer should actually be its own class. Worlds With Number, which is OSR-based, does this, and provides an extremely competent and well-designed Necromancer who absolutely feels like fantasy fiction Necromancer, not a crummy Wizard with slightly more death-themed spells than usual.

I can't agree that a Necromancer class would fit the way 5e does things. Largely because it's almost perfect both thematically and mechanically for a sorcerer subclass, especially if necromancers get their own metamagic options thrown in both to optionally necromancy-theme spells like mage armour for a bonus, and to tweak the undead they summon way past the realms of animate dead. The big wizard gimmick is breadth.

 

[Yaarel]

the same eldritch blast cantrip

Regarding Eldritch Blast, consider that it deals force damage, and can be and normally is invisible. As such, it lends itself to various flavors of visualizations.

For various reasons, I arrive at the following viewpoint.



Force is the fifth element. Where the other elements (earth, water, air, and fire) are states of matter (solid, liquid, gas, and the plasma of sun and lightning), force itself lacks matter and is immaterial. Despite lacking matter, force is physical and affects the elemental matter of the physical world.

Force especially includes gravity. (It also includes magnetism but for thematic reasons I let this be part of plasma and lightning.) Flight and telekinesis are physical manipulations of the force of gravity, pure force.

The fabric of space-time, whence the tapestry of fate, is made out of force. Thus force damage can result from warping fate and making timelines dissonant.

As the fifth element, force and ether are the same thing. The ethereal plane is made out of immaterial forces, normally gentle and sometimes passing thru matter but sometimes a force is strong enough to push, fly, and manipulate material objects. Hence if the mind of a ghost is strong enough, the ethereal ghost can manifest noticeably by means of the force that its mind is made out of. The ethereal plane is actually a normal part of the material plane, but its activities normally go unnoticed by human senses.

The fey and shadow are frequencies of ether, namely positive and negative repectively, and like the rest of the ether, are also aspects of the material plane that largely go unnoticed. The fey and shadow ethers can view the material world that they are part of, but their frequencies distort the perception of it.

Within the ether, ethereal creatures perceive and interact with each other normally. Their virtual bodies made out of force often look and behave similarly to material bodies.



The seat of consciousness is an aspect of force, not matter. Thus in a sense, the "soul" or the presence of a mind is made out of force. This mindful ether is often called "spirit" in the sense of the stuff that souls are made out of. A ghost is the etheral presence of a mind, made out of force, thus some times called a spirit. In other words, the ethereal plane is the spiritual world, and is part of the material plane.

The body made out of matter is somehow able to entangle the ethereal forces of consciousness, thus able to become a conscious material creature, such as a human. Some humans whose force of mind is strong enough can project their mind outofbody. Normally this disembodied mind manifests a virtual body made out of force, to travel ethereally, and is defacto like a ghost except typically neither the fey nor shadow frequencies.

The mind can telekinese material objects because its seat is itself made out of force. A strong mind can influence and manipulate heavy objects, distort space-time, and telepathically engage other minds.

Because of this nexus between consciousness and matter via force - a mind willing reality into existence - the force, ether, mind, spirit, existence, are also the same thing as the "Weave" of magic. Magical energy, force, telekinesis, ether, and so on, are all them same thing and a construct can be made out of it. A constuct made out of magical energy and a construct made out of force are the same thing. Creatures that are summoned physicalize as temporary constructs made out of force that serve as a kind of avatar for them.

Force is the GUT (Grand Unification Theory) of all D&D traditions!



Because force is itself a mysterious and wondrous aspect of D&D tradition, there are many different flavors available to describe force damage narratively, including:

fate warp, curse, temporal dissonance, telekinesis, spiritual attack, conjured apparition, planar warp, teleportative disruption, magic missiles, etcetera.

All can deal "force damage".

 

[Neonchameleon]

Now, let's see if somoene can make a fun, interesting, and effective Warlock that isn't a tortured edgelord of questionable sanity, with the same eldritch blast cantrip and its same associated invocations, always begging everyone else to slow down so he can take a(nother) nap.

I hate that trope.
I hate it so much.

Don't think I've ever played one of those despite it being my go-to class for one-shots because it's so flexible.

• The last warlock I played was a young genie who'd just moved out of their parents' home into their first fairly run down lamp. Technically their patron was their parents - with a 'phonecall' played for laughs.
• The one before that was in practical terms a type of wizard, trying to collect all the ritual spells they could so they could complete their dissertation
• The one before that was effectively the cleric of a demigod. They didn't even have Eldritch Blast, with their main combat cantrip being Greenflame Blade with an extra d8 damage from their patron.
• The one before that was more cracked than edgy, having connected to something man wasn't meant to know and being confused about reality while spamming illusions confusing everyone else. I don't think that one had Eldritch Blast either.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Two down, one to go! What say you, @Snarf Zagyg?

Honestly, once I had decided on 4th level, I didn't even look at class features beyond it. Valor would be the more optimal choice for a purely melee warrior, but...meh. Optimization is overrated.

Don't forget that @Faolyn wanted in on this action (link).


Well that's what Animal Handling is for, right? I wouldn't try to drive one of those things without being able to handle it properly, maybe have a few words with it via Speak With Animals. An out-of-control elephant sounds like loads of fun for DM and player alike, so I wouldn't even try to fight the DM over it.

I don't know about Halflings, but in my headcannon Thunderstep is trained to hunt gnomes. Stomp the ground to flush them out of their burrows, run them down across open ground...

I had a completely serious Bard who wasn’t at all the stereotype, and fought with a falcata (reflavored scimitar IIRC) songblade that had holes and grooves that made it whistle like a mournful wind when in motion. He was a Shadar-kai, and his songs were flavored as flyting (real world Viking ritual insult contest) and crowing (bragging contest described in dragon as a shadarkai tradition).

In 5e he’d definitely have vicious mockery, and I reject any accusation of silliness in that cantrip, even when it lands the killing blow.

Spoiler: rant

Words are what makes magic do anything. The idea that it’s out of order to have a magic/lore/words master of the like of Taliesen and Merlin speak words of doom or contempt to someone and it completely dismantle their ability to function, even causing physical harm, up to and including death, is just…bonkers.

Of course you can magic-talk at someone and cause them actual real harm that could potentially cause them to fall down unconscious or dead. I have trouble imagining a world where dragons are real and priest have access to real miracles and the above isn’t possible.

A falcata being a very strong cutting sword that is very much one-handed, I’d probably work with my DM to make a slashing rapier. It doing less damage than a longsword does one-handed is just silly, to me.

Probably College of Whispers, grab spells like Dissonant Whispers, possibly MC fighter eventually, maybe just grab Magic Initiate to get Booming Blade.

My gnome Bard that I’d like to play soon is somewhere between the Irish fili and an Irish fennid, who has the classic lyre, and fights with shield and spear. There isn’t a perfect subclass for her, and I’ve thought about ditching Bard and going Fey Wanderer Ranger and/or Swashbuckler Rogue instead, but a big part of the concept is that her words/voice and lyre are magical, and can do things like calm emotions, befriend beasts, heal and inspire her allies, and make the weak amongst her enemies quail.

The forest outlaw warrior band’s Bard should be at home in the woods, be a skilled warrior but not a specialist in any given weapon, and have some serious misdirection and tactics chops, and be able to sing a rampaging bear to sleep, turn a crowd against their lord with a few words, and fascinate with song and tale.

I guess a rangery subclass of bard would work for that?

 

[Garthanos]

I had a completely serious Bard who wasn’t at all the stereotype, and fought with a falcata (reflavored scimitar IIRC) songblade that had holes and grooves that made it whistle like a mournful wind when in motion. He was a Shadar-kai, and his songs were flavored as flyting (real world Viking ritual insult contest) and crowing (bragging contest described in dragon as a shadarkai tradition).

In 5e he’d definitely have vicious mockery, and I reject any accusation of silliness in that cantrip, even when it lands the killing blow.

Spoiler: rant

Words are what makes magic do anything. The idea that it’s out of order to have a magic/lore/words master of the like of Taliesen and Merlin speak words of doom or contempt to someone and it completely dismantle their ability to function, even causing physical harm, up to and including death, is just…bonkers.

Of course you can magic-talk at someone and cause them actual real harm that could potentially cause them to fall down unconscious or dead. I have trouble imagining a world where dragons are real and priest have access to real miracles and the above isn’t possible.

Retaliatory curses being very very authentic to legends never ever harm the bard.

 

[Garthanos]

He plays the LAP HARP?

Is phrasing still a thing? C'mon, "lap harp" barely qualifies as a single entendre.

well atleast it wasnt a flute...