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

[Yaarel]

I disagree on...pretty much all points.

In a 5e context, the narrative of per day, how does it make sense to you?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I disagree on...pretty much all points.

I mean, why do you disagree though?

Because if we're talking fantasy fiction, he's flatly right that casters should be short rest. D&D's whole "spells come back on long rest" thing is really weird fantasy fiction wise.

 

[DavyGreenwind]

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.

That's fair. 5e design assumes an adventuring day that most tables do not use. I agree that needs to be fixed.

For my fix, I would rather get rid of spell prep altogether and reduce their spell slots. I think if you know a spell, you should be able to cast it when you need to. But it should be a weightier decision.

 

[Scribe]

In a 5e context, the narrative of per day, how does it make sense to you?

Wizards, prepare for the day. Thats it. Thats the narrative. This is not a 'short rest to refresh' concept. They prepare for the day, long rest. End.

Magic is fatiguing? There is no context for this within the modern game. Casting spells actually has zero cost to the caster.

Because if we're talking fantasy fiction, he's flatly right that casters should be short rest. D&D's whole "spells come back on long rest" thing is really weird fantasy fiction wise.

Why? How? The 'long rest' is the time to prepare, its the time to commit to memory. That is not 'short rest' territory to me.

Warlocks can function on a short rest, fine. They were design for it, but 'casters' being Bard/Cleric/Sorc/Druid/Wizard? None of that need be 'short rest' based.

As to the balance with non-casters, short rest has (2014 version) very little bearing on that as well.

Now they can certainly actually MAKE AN EFFORT at balancing around short rests, and bringing other casters into that philosophy, but there is no objective truth that its better balanced, or a better narrative, at all.

 

[DavyGreenwind]

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.

That's a good point, but I believe my logic holds true for other spells. The downside is that the Wizard has to blow a spell slot. No other downside necessary. (even though most enchantment spells have the downside of ticking people off when they fail or even when they succeed).
I would blow a 4th level spell slot on Arcane Eye only if literally no other person could scout, or if it was insanely dangerous. I think the same holds true for most other utility spells, except for perhaps level 1 spells.

 

[Yaarel]

Wizards, prepare for the day. Thats it. Thats the narrative.



The 'long rest' is the time to prepare, its the time to commit to memory. That is not 'short rest' territory to me.

That is an absence of a narrative - the absence of an explanation for a long rest.

And why would a "memorization" only last a day? Or require sleep to memorize something new? It makes no sense.

The long rest makes no sense for casters.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's a good point, but I believe my logic holds true for other spells. The downside is that the Wizard has to blow a spell slot. No other downside necessary. (even though most enchantment spells have the downside of ticking people off when they fail or even when they succeed).
I would blow a 4th level spell slot on Arcane Eye only if literally no other person could scout, or if it was insanely dangerous. I think the same holds true for most other utility spells, except for perhaps level 1 spells.

That's just not been my experience at all, and whilst obviously I've only seen what I've seen, most groups seem to be considerably more liberal with spell slots than you're describing, particularly when they're not the highest-level slot they have.

My experience is that a single spell slot is NOT enough of a downside/deterrent, when the Wizard gets to basically single-handedly bypass a major obstacle, and be a Big Damn Hero to the rest of the party.

Re: Charm spells, I've been avoiding mention social situations as examples because I do agree that because they have a narrative downside (again, unlike the majority of Wizard utility spells), they're more akin to Knock. Wizards do tend to "cede the floor" in social situations to a character with Persuasion or the like, precisely because their magic has a downside in addition to the cost.

What you're doing by mentioning them though, is reinforcing the point that counter to your assertion re: spell slots, they're not enough to dissuade people. But spell slot + narrative downside IS enough. Which is exactly what someone pointed out earlier.

 

[Scribe]

That is an absence of a narrative - the absence of an explanation.

And why would a "memorization" only last a day? Or require sleep to memorize something new? It makes no sense.

I'd refer to you the wealth of material published around Dragonlance.

Fluff it out however you like, there is no objective truth about it being better as short, vs long, vs slots vs spell points vs psion dice vs pact. It all makes as little or as much sense as you like.

Halfling Strongman, for example. Makes ZERO, sense. Some people are all about it, fine.

There are many different ways, but none of them are 'objectively' better, up to and until Wizards actually tightens up the game, and brings it closer to 4e.

Which is fine, as it was a tighter system, but do people WANT a tighter system? I dont know. PF2 is just over there if folks are looking for a tight system.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I really wish they dropped the "memorization" idea from the language of spells like they tried in the beginning of 3e. Where they made it clear that spells aren't things you forget about after casting them. But rather they are things that take a lot longer than 6 seconds to cast, and most of the "casting" is done as part of the Wizard's rest. The typical 3 to 6 seconds, is just completing the spell that was sitting there waiting to go off.

Though definitely more muddled in 5e since, as spell preparation works differently than it did in 3e.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

PF2 is just over there if folks are looking for a tight system.

PF2 is a clunker though. I mean, I like it in a lot of ways, but it's not just "a tight system". It's a setting-specific system that's genuinely painful to adapt to other settings (believe me, I've tried, there's basically no support for it, which is why PF2 has next-to-no 3PP settings). On top of that, it's chunkier and clunkier than 5E, and it didn't need to be in order to be "tight", that's just a design decision they made.

I like PF2 but I could never see myself swapping to it to run. At this point I'd sooner go back to 4E!

(I honestly think making PF setting specific is both responsible for a lot of their most loyal fandom, and ALSO responsible for PF never going bigger than it did, in any version. It gives them a very loyal base but also drives away people wanting to use it as a D&D alternative rules-set or to use for their homebrew setting).