D&D (2024) Memorize Spell is one of the most obnoxious abilities I've ever seen, despite being perfectly on-theme (Packet 7)

[Umbran]

You're just shooting yourself in the foot with this sort of utter shenanigans. I've got huge real-world experience, and what I'm seeing online backs up that, by and large, by real-world experiences lines up pretty well with how people under 40 play the game, for the most part.

Mod Note:
This looks like either sarcasm, or a really lousy appeal to authority. Neither is particularly constructive.

Plus you seem to be bad faith arguing - you're arguing a position you don't actually believe, in which case, there's literally no point arguing with you

Then, by all means, stop. You probably should have stopped just before posting in this aggressive posture. Failing that, now is probably a good time to stop.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This feels like a feature where its evaluation is very sensitive to table variation.

Wizards are the only caster class where their spell repertoire is primarily a function of the table's magic item and gold distribution. I know in several of the games I'm involved with as a player that scroll availability and overall gold availability is quite low, such that a wizard's 2 spells per level are really the bulk of the spells they'll have available.

In those kind of games, Memorize Spell is a useful utility but wizards don't have the Batman utility belt of spells in the spellbook to really leverage this ability to its fullest extent. Whereas in more treasure-rich games, a wizard might easily have 30+ spells in his spellbook already by level 5, and the wizard does become the one-stop non-combat solution shop.

Yes and this is definitely fair and true, and illustrates a major problem with 5E, which is that the guidelines for how much gold etc. to hand out basically don't exist, solely with the apparent aim of not angering grogs. Bizarre because de facto all previous editions did a lot more on that front than 5E. WotC loves to pretend this has no impact but it has a huge impact, as you're illustrating.

Also we see fewer Wizard-classed enemies who can be killed and their spellbooks taken and copied, which was an absolute mainstay of 1E/2E/3E.

 

[DavyGreenwind]

I think that the primary limitation on Wizards are their spell slots. (Not that it is a very harsh limitation). It's true that Knock is an auto-succeed lockpick; but they have to use a spell slot. Rogues have to roll to pick the lock, but they can attempt to pick how ever many locks a day they want.

I do think Wizards are a tad OP, but they don't replace skilled party members, because no Wizard-player I know wants to blow all their spell slots on skill checks.

Generally, I've seen Wizard players resort to casting Knock only when the Rogues' lockpick check fails, or the Barb fails to break down the door or smash the chest (assuming stealth not necessary for latter scenario). And this spell slot is usually expended begrudgingly.

 

[Yaarel]

Switching all casters to per-short-rest can probably deal with these kinds of issues more easily, because there are fewer slots for novaing and more frequent refreshes which could be used to swap in a new utility spell as well.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

I think that the primary limitation on Wizards are their spell slots. (Not that it is a very harsh limitation). It's true that Knock is an auto-succeed lockpick; but they have to use a spell slot. Rogues have to roll to pick the lock, but they can attempt to pick how ever many locks a day they want.

I do think Wizards are a tad OP, but they don't replace skilled party members, because no Wizard-player I know wants to blow all their spell slots on skill checks.

Generally, I've seen Wizard players resort to casting Knock only when the Rogues' lockpick check fails, or the Barb fails to break down the door or smash the chest (assuming stealth not necessary for latter scenario). And this spell slot is usually expended begrudgingly.

The time is ripe for a car analogy. We want to design a racing game featuring two different cars that both need to feel different. So we design car Red and car Blue.

We design the Red car to be the fastest, and then we design the Blue car to be slower. This sounds unfair, right? To compensate for this problem we give the Blue car infinite gasoline.

The problem is that in this game we quickly discover that the Red car never runs out of gas, because every race is shorter than the capacity of the tank. As such: The size of the tank does not matter and the difference between the Red and Blue cars is that one of them sucks and the other doesn't.

I would think you would find if you had the ability to survey it, that you could design a rogue with a number of lock-picking attempts limited to a 1x per day or something, and nobody would notice. This is the problem with having some classes with endless uses of an ability, and some with limited uses. If the limit does not matter, there is no downside to having it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think that the primary limitation on Wizards are their spell slots. (Not that it is a very harsh limitation). It's true that Knock is an auto-succeed lockpick; but they have to use a spell slot. Rogues have to roll to pick the lock, but they can attempt to pick how ever many locks a day they want.

I do think Wizards are a tad OP, but they don't replace skilled party members, because no Wizard-player I know wants to blow all their spell slots on skill checks.

Generally, I've seen Wizard players resort to casting Knock only when the Rogues' lockpick check fails, or the Barb fails to break down the door or smash the chest (assuming stealth not necessary for latter scenario). And this spell slot is usually expended begrudgingly.

That's absolutely true of Knock. It usually only comes out when the lockpicking attempts have failed. But the only reason that's true is because of the extremely loud noise it makes.

It is not true of most other Wizard utility spells. If all Wizard utility spells had a sizeable downside, as was pointed out earlier in this thread, then they likewise would be used more sparingly.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The problem is that in this game we quickly discover that the Red car never runs out of gas, because every race is shorter than the capacity of the tank. As such: The size of the tank does not matter and the difference between the Red and Blue cars is that one of them sucks and the other doesn't.

It's even worse than that.

Whenever the red car even gets kind of low on fuel, it and the blue voluntarily agree to stop the race and start over when it's been refuelled!

 

[Scribe]

Switching all casters to per-short-rest can probably deal with these kinds of issues more easily, because there are fewer slots for novaing and more frequent refreshes which could be used to swap in a new utility spell as well.

Lets just carry on then, abilities that could say, be used per encounter? Hmm...

(No thanks.)

 

[Yaarel]

Lets just carry on then, abilities that could say, be used per encounter? Hmm...

(No thanks.)

The flavor of short rests make more sense for casters - magic is fatiguing to cast. A rest can refresh.

The flavor of per long rest actually makes no sense.

Importantly, the short rest caster balances better, by far, and balances better with noncasters.

 

[Scribe]

The flavor of short rests make more sense for casters - magic is fatiguing to cast. A rest can refresh.

The flavor of per long rest actually makes no sense.

Importantly, the short rest caster balances better, by far, and balances better with noncasters.

I disagree on...pretty much all points.