D&D 5E Sage Advice is back!

[doctorbadwolf]

Looks at my irregular adventure league players. And the modules. Oh they notice. And we flustered a DM and killed one part of module. Two flight base PCs at Tier 1 with huge arms can carry the two non flyers and skip over the mobs encounters.

I think you and I are talking about different things?

Like, I’m talking about noticing supposed contradictions between 2014 and 2024 rules. Things that don’t work together. I’m not sure what you’re talking about?

 

[Minigiant]

That's a bit of hyperbole there. A few spells at low level does not even begin to move 5e to becoming pseudo-classless. That's like saying that if you move the minimum wage up a dollar, income is moving towards everyone becoming millionaires.

My point is for the most part, many of the spellcasters are heavily defined by their low level magic.

 

[Parmandur]

I suspect that pure and total balance between characters made with the 2024 revised edition and those made with the 2014 Player's Handbook will not be worried too greatly when it comes to the design-- seeing as how there's already imbalance between different options within the 2014 Player's Handbook. The 2014 Four Elements Monk is already considered weak as-is... so any changes with the 2024 is going to throw off additional balance.

Besides... DMs are already expected to take the power disparity between different types of characters and options into account when designing their encounters... so if we get additional disparities from the 2024 options, then we aren't going to be doing anything we weren't already doing.

By WotC balance spreadsheets, the 4E Monk is perfectly in line with every other option...but it's not satisfying for a lot of players, in spite of actual balance being in place.

Balance is overrated a bit.

 

[Maxperson]

My point is for the most part, many of the spellcasters are heavily defined by their low level magic.

That's not even close to being true. Remove every single low level spell from wizards and replace them with something else and they're still wizards, not because of the spells, but rather because the conjurer has class abilities that define the class. The evoker has class abilities that define the class. You can give all the spells away and they'd still retain their definition.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't bother to play a class that was heavily defined by their low level magic. That class would be rather sad and pathetic, and not worth the investment of my time.

 

[Parmandur]

That's not even close to being true. Remove every single low level spell from wizards and replace them with something else and they're still wizards, not because of the spells, but rather because the conjurer has class abilities that define the class. The evoker has class abilities that define the class. You can give all the spells away and they'd still retain their definition.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't bother to play a class that was heavily defined by their low level magic. That class would be rather sad and pathetic, and not worth the investment of my time.

Low level Magic certainly helps define a theme: Wizards get Prestidigitstion, Clerics get Thaumaturgy, and Druids get Druidcraft as tropes to play to their fiction. The Strixhaven Feats play with this space by giving Wizards Druidcraft, or Clerics Prestidigitation, etc. Doesn't break a thing, but it alters themes, which is the point of having a divergent Setting.

Edit to noye: I actually don't know what you are responding to, so this might be random, sorry.

 

[Maxperson]

Low level Magic certainly helps define a theme: Wizards get Prestidigitstion, Clerics get Thaumaturgy, and Druids get Druidcraft as tropes to play to their fiction. The Strixhaven Feats play with this space by giving Wizards Druidcraft, or Clerics Prestidigitation, etc. Doesn't break a thing, but it alters themes, which is the point of having a divergent Setting.

Edit to noye: I actually don't know what you are responding to, so this might be random, sorry.

I'm responding to an argument that feats that give out a couple of low level spells to classes that don't ordinarily have them, ruins the classes that have those spells on their list. The argument is that those low level spells heavily define those classes, which is not true.

As you say those classes have a theme, but the theme is preserved whether or not other classes can borrow a few spells from their list. What defines those classes as classes are the class abilities, not the low level spells.

 

[Shardstone]

I don't agree. I don't believe the "average" customer wants anything. The "average" customer is probably playing D&D with a DM that owns a bunch of stuff and then when it comes time to make a character the "average" customer might look through a second book after the PHB but that's pretty much about it. But they certainly aren't buying their own copies of said products. If they use any bits, it's only cause the DM said a bit might work for them.

My tables through the life of 5E have included probably 20+ different players in all the various campaigns I've run, and if we're lucky, maybe half of them bought their own Player's Handbook. And that's it. The PHB. That's ALL half of the players own, the other half hasn't bought anything at all. And if any of them are using any character creation stuff from either those books it's only because they can use my D&D Beyond master subscription to see them and select them. But I'm the one who bought them and paid for them. Which means I'm the "engaged" customer, and the other 20 of them are the "average" ones.

So what does that mean? It means that ANY new products that WotC puts into the pipeline to create and produce WILL be for the most "engaged" customers (IE people like us), because we are the only ones who will actually buy the product when it comes out anyway. No "average" customers will do so. So those of us who answer the surveys ARE the ones WotC should be asking and taking cues from. They don't need to really think about how any new items will affect the "average" player, because that "average" player would only ever see it in practice if the "engaged" player decided to bring it into play at the table. And that "engaged" played would certainly know better than WotC would whether it was worth doing so.

I'm so glad you said this.

 

[Shardstone]

Nobody takes MtG settings seriously.

I do.

 

[Minigiant]

That's not even close to being true. Remove every single low level spell from wizards and replace them with something else and they're still wizards, not because of the spells, but rather because the conjurer has class abilities that define the class. The evoker has class abilities that define the class. You can give all the spells away and they'd still retain their definition.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't bother to play a class that was heavily defined by their low level magic. That class would be rather sad and pathetic, and not worth the investment of my time.

Welcome to the ranger, warlock, sorcerer, and cleric. Half of those classes was defined by their exclusive spells due to either the weakness of their class feature mechanics and/or the sheer power of their exclusive spells. The edges of the clases have started to meld into each other.

It really took Tasha's optional class feature variants/expansions and powered up subclasses to keep many of the classes from feeling the same. However it doesn't seem like preservation of class identity was focused on actively and more of an aftereffect of the search for interesting subclasses (subclasses the dip into the play styles of other classes themselves).

 

[Shardstone]

Welcome to the ranger, warlock, sorcerer, and cleric. Half of those classes was defined by their exclusive spells due to either the weakness of their class feature mechanics and/or the sheer power of their exclusive spells. The edges of the clases have started to meld into each other.

It really took Tasha's optional class feature variants/expansions and powered up subclasses to keep many of the classes from feeling the same. However it doesn't seem like preservation of class identity was focused on actively and more of an aftereffect of the search for interesting subclasses (subclasses the dip into the play styles of other classes themselves).

Warlock is my favorite class, and its spell list is the least notable feature for me. I much prefer the flavor, the subclasses, and the invocations, all of which make me feel more like a warlock then any spell list.