D&D 5E [+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap

[Micah Sweet]

Its a popular archetype that, if doing it, people will ask for it immediately. The thing to remember when we're at this whole magical argument is that D&D is a high fantasy, high magic game where crashed space-ships, ancient ruins a plenty, time travel, space travel, planer travel, the works

I get people like the low magic, but, D&D has never really given itself to low magic at all and its going to lead a clash with simply how D&D is presented. Even Greyhawk, the one people try to present as the grittier, low-magic setting, is still the setting with the aformentioned crashed alien spacecraft. Trying to limit to 'this is just medieval-ish Europe (except with plate armor)' is a fraught game when Egyptian and Greek sphinges co-exist with Indian naga, Japanese tengu (which kenku are based on), Icelandic trolls and German kobolds


The problem is, druid shapeshifting is the archetype's Thing. The archetype is much wider and due to 'popular enough that D&D felt a massive pinch in its heyday' Warcraft, the shapeshfiter nature caster is the druid archetype. When people pick 'druid' they want "I will turn into a bear or werewolf and maul a dude", they don't want "You're wearing mail armor"

Clerics are, by their design, evocative of Chrstian knights going around and crusder-ing. They're the very people who wiped out the druids. They're what a druid would fight.

Warcraft's priest is a cloth-wearer who uses holy magic. Think White Mages from Final Fantasy (which sort of derive from the white robes from Dragonlance but went all in on healing and also harvesting your allies wounds for power to unleash the Blood Lily). D&D is really unusual in its healer class is heavily armored, and if redoing D&D today, Cleric would easily be the first on the chopping block simply due to the archetype not being a thing outside of D&D


The other problem of course comes from 'are we adding too much into sub-classes', which in turn makes sub-classes hard to design. Trying to merge Druid and Cleric into one class is a mess because the two classes want such different things in how they're presented that its going to mangle one or the other, or give them things that are useless to the class ideal.

I do understand merging, but over-merging can easily dilute what makes people drawn to particular archetypes. I'd argue that's the wizard's problem, being too over-merged into 'the spellcaster' in the past, which in turn is why warlocks and sorcerers have such popularity despite a bit of mechanical jank on the sorcerer's part. They're allowing the fictional archetype to shine brighter

Splitting stuff, making it more compartmentalised so they have a specific list of things they can do, could also benefit the gap by limiting what any individual caster can do, rather than the current 'wizards can do anything' casting at the moment

I doubt @mamba is planning to take this idea to WotC.

 

[Lanefan]

The problem is, druid shapeshifting is the archetype's Thing. The archetype is much wider and due to 'popular enough that D&D felt a massive pinch in its heyday' Warcraft, the shapeshfiter nature caster is the druid archetype. When people pick 'druid' they want "I will turn into a bear or werewolf and maul a dude", they don't want "You're wearing mail armor"

Yeah, the shapeshifting thing is cool but has become far too focal to the Druid class. Probably counts as blasphemy to suggest toning it down some, but meh - I'll take that hit.

Personally, I'd rather see Druids subsumed into Cleric as a Nature Cleric subclass with a bespoke spell list. At the same time, move "Normal" Clerics away from their Christian-crusader roots, because...

Clerics are, by their design, evocative of Chrstian knights going around and crusder-ing.

...what you describe here - "knights going around and crusader-ing" - are Paladins, not Clerics. Further, the game doesn't really have anything that strikes me as a Christian-adjacent deity (though I suppose Greyhawk's St. Cuthbert might be in the same general neighbourhood) but does have lots of what appear to be Pagan-adjacent deities, starting but not ending with the entire Norse pantheon.

They're the very people who wiped out the druids. They're what a druid would fight.

Ideally, some deities would support both Normal and Nature Clerics alike.

 

[Aldarc]

...what you describe here - "knights going around and crusader-ing" - are Paladins, not Clerics.

Actually, it's both. Many designers in the past have been pretty forthright about how these classes pulled their inspiration from the same source: i.e., crusading holy warriors. (Even if the cleric initially started as a Van Helsing vampire-hunter.)

 

[Mecheon]

I doubt @mamba is planning to take this idea to WotC.

Yeah, but its an open discussion on closing the gap. Which can be closed either way

I still think the easiest way is just "Level 5 is the maximum normal humans ever reach" to just give the 'This is the stage you are absolutely hitting everything is supernatural levels', but, other things to discuss.

Yeah, the shapeshifting thing is cool but has become far too focal to the Druid class. Probably counts as blasphemy to suggest toning it down some, but meh - I'll take that hit.

Personally, I'd rather see Druids subsumed into Cleric as a Nature Cleric subclass with a bespoke spell list. At the same time, move "Normal" Clerics away from their Christian-crusader roots, because...

If we're going to try and merge both I'd honestly kill both of them at the start. The Cleric is a bit of a D&D thing, the wider healer idea is the clothie healer. The priest, as it were. If we gotta merge it into anything I'd say they'd be sub-factions of that, the cleric losing some of the healing for its armor stuff and its anti-undead, and the druid going down the nature path route. Because 'nature priest' fits druid, but 'nature cleric' I'd argue doesn't. Because...

...what you describe here - "knights going around and crusader-ing" - are Paladins, not Clerics. Further, the game doesn't really have anything that strikes me as a Christian-adjacent deity (though I suppose Greyhawk's St. Cuthbert might be in the same general neighbourhood) but does have lots of what appear to be Pagan-adjacent deities, starting but not ending with the entire Norse pantheon.

The problem is the image people have of the cleric, the chainmail clad holy warrior delivering healing? Its still that crusader-ing feel, even with paladins. That whole thing is just a Christian-adjacent Look of holy people, its not something other religions had anything close to. If we're going full on for it, I could see that afor-mentioned Priest thing working, but that'd have to strip so much of the D&D cleric away simply because, the Cleric has those connotations even with the paladin around.

Ideally, some deities would support both Normal and Nature Clerics alike.

The Cleric's Look gives it to a certain type of religion that works in very civilised area (Chainmail pretty much requires a heavy blacksmithing industry, its not an easy thing to make) which pretty much limits you to city-associated ones. It doesn't give itself to really... Any other religion out there except a pseudo-Christianity approach. I know D&D's kind of crammed its Clerics into other religions but its never really been a good fit in those cases. Despite it being a completely allowed thing per D&D rules, there are no clerics of Amaterasu who wear chainmail and use that to banish undead with a mace. Their entire vibe has the exact same problem as the monk does but in opposite, its too stuck on a very specific theme

 

[mamba]

If we're going to try and merge both I'd honestly kill both of them at the start. The Cleric is a bit of a D&D thing, the wider healer idea is the clothie healer. The priest, as it were. If we gotta merge it into anything I'd say they'd be sub-factions of that, the cleric losing some of the healing for its armor stuff and its anti-undead, and the druid going down the nature path route. Because 'nature priest' fits druid, but 'nature cleric' I'd argue doesn't. Because...

you are too hung up on the name, I left it Cleric because everyone knows what that is, same with Fighter.

As to priest being more the healer type vs cleric or paladin being more holy warriors, that suits me just fine. They are more warriors than ordinary priests, that is why they do what they do instead of chanting sermons in a temple, and I am not interested in a dedicated support class either

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Actually, it's both. Many designers in the past have been pretty forthright about how these classes pulled their inspiration from the same source: i.e., crusading holy warriors. (Even if the cleric initially started as a Van Helsing vampire-hunter.)

Yeah, that has always bugged me, they overlap too much.

 

[mamba]

Yeah, but its an open discussion on closing the gap. Which can be closed either way

sure, I chose my direction, feel free to take the other one

I do this for me, not to replace D&D for everyone, so it will lean towards my preferences. Feedback is always welcome, but I am not expecting everyone to like it, and I will ignore a lot of it because it won’t match the goals.

If your feedback is ‘but high magic, you need to support that’, it will essentially be ignored. If it is ‘but shapehifting is essential’ or things like that it has a much better chance of influencing the design.

I still think the easiest way is just "Level 5 is the maximum normal humans ever reach"

it may be the easiest, but it does not get me far enough. Most WotC adventures go to level 12, give or take one, so that is my internal cut off, I might drop all higher levels altogether, or I keep them in their scaled down version, not sure yet.

If I stick to the half-caster baseline, they can stay, if spell progression moves past that, I cut off at level 12. In either case the max spell level will remain the same in my progression, only the number of spells per level will vary.

As a first draft I will use the half-caster, will see what happens after that

It’s funny, I was looking forward to the 2024 version, and now I’d rather roll my own take than go down its path.

 

[TwoSix]

Yeah, the shapeshifting thing is cool but has become far too focal to the Druid class. Probably counts as blasphemy to suggest toning it down some, but meh - I'll take that hit.

Personally, I'd rather see Druids subsumed into Cleric as a Nature Cleric subclass with a bespoke spell list. At the same time, move "Normal" Clerics away from their Christian-crusader roots, because...

If we're going to get into the "rebuild the class list around the most popular tropes" game, then Cleric is the class that really needs to be chopped up, and have its concepts spread among Paladins, Druids, and some combination of Warlocks and Sorcerers.

 

[Gammadoodler]

My favorite thing about the 5e paladin is that it gets maybe the most power from maybe the flimsiest source. They swear an oath.

Maybe it's to some powerful being, but for 5e, it could just be to "the cause of justice itself"

Like..they get spellcasting and a bunch of supernatural stuff from being just like super conscientious.

When you really get down to it, they're closer to being psychic warriors manifesting the power of their convictions rather than holy warriors rewarded with power for their faith.

Edit: and to be clear I'm not opposed to this exactly. Just find it funny how easily the paladin gets let off the narrative justification hook.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My favorite thing about the 5e paladin is that it gets maybe the most power from maybe the flimsiest source. They swear an oath.

Maybe it's to some powerful being, but for 5e, it could just be to "the cause of justice itself"

Like..they get spellcasting and a bunch of supernatural stuff from being just like super conscientious.

When you really get down to it, they're closer to being psychic warriors manifesting the power of their convictions rather than holy warriors rewarded with power for their faith.

5e has a lot of flimsy excuses for power, because they don't care. Player entitlement is the theme of their character creation system, and it's just gotten worse.