Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ashrym" data-source="post: 9417224" data-attributes="member: 6750235">What theory crafting?  Tossing out a word like that is meaningless when the advantages wizards have are seen in practice when it comes to rituals and spell swapping.In practice the divine soul doesn't have the best spell selection.  The divine soul has a broad spell selection that disappears as each of those spells is selected.  That "best spell selection" is a shrodinger argument, which stems from theoretical spell choices that don't exist in practice.This is what the spell layout for a divine soul might look like at 5th level (a level that's come up a lot as it favors the sorcerer spells known)...Cantrips:  A sorcerer has 5 of these at 5th level.  The subclass starts at 3rd level so the ability to swap one at 3rd, 4th, and 5th level; and can choose a cleric cantrip at the 4th level as well.  As long as one cantrip is from the sorcerer list this gives a good selection within the choice structure.  Guidance, mage hand, minor illusion, firebolt, and word of radiance makes a decent example of what we might see for "good" cantrips although the new bladeward might replace word of radiance or shocking grasp.Spells:  Again, the spells learned aren't available from the cleric list until 3rd level with the subclass but the spells gained plus spells swapped can total the 9 prepared spells allotted to the sorcerer at that time.  Something like:1st level:  mage armor, shield, sleep, cure wounds2nd level:  scorching ray, prayer of healing, lesser restoration3rd level:  fireball, aura of vitality, revivifySeveral of those are spells commonly commented on in this thread  (particularly defensive spells), some offensive damage spells are required for the arguments being made in this thread, and healing spells are required to take advantage of the empowered healing metamagic that the subclass opens up at 6th level.  That obviously doesn't leave a lot for rituals but a person could arguably swap a couple of those spells around.That sorcerer will have empower spell and careful spell, and empowered healing soon.  Right now there are 5 sorc points to use and up to half that recovered on the first short rest.  This divine soul has options available the wizard does not but those and those options are of the same power level (3rd level spells) the wizard has.  The sorcerer has a bit of shine time spending sorc points for better fireballs or doing some healing.The subclass also granted favored by the gods as a short rest recharge ability.We want to compare a subclass to a subclass build o a subclass build so abjurer seems likes the closest fit to the divine soul off the top of my head.Cantrips:  mage hand, minor illusion, firebolt, bladewardThe wizard has 1 fewer cantrip and no access to the cleric list.  However, the wizard can change a cantrip every long rest so they have relatively easy access to these additional cantrips:  acid splash, booming blade, chill touch, control flame, create bonfire, dancing lights, friends, frostbite, green-flame blade, gust, infestation, light, lightning lure, mending, message, mind sliver, mold earth, poison spray, prestidigitation, ray of frost, shape water, shocking grasp, sword burst, thunderclap, toll the dead, true strike, and possibly more. Many of those might be pointless to change at times, but they can easily become relevant in a town environment vs a dungeon environment, or as a swap in against monsters in a certain area.  Changing attack cantrips to avoid resistance / immunity or take advantage of vulnerability.  This does require some foreknowledge to prep or time and that often occurs during the roleplay process leading up to the encounter.  Encounters are not all random or surprises.  Unless you're theory crafting.  ;-P1st level:  mage armor, shield, sleep, Tasha's hideous laughter2nd level:  scorching ray, suggestion, levitate3rd level:  fireball, hypnotic patternAgain, common spells that are "good" or "useful".  What I'd like to point out is just because the divine soul had the option to take cleric spells that only meant the divine soul was giving up the option to take more sorcerer spells while the wizard just took more wizard spells.  The divine soul can cast spells the abjurer cannot but the reverse is also true because of the opportunity cost in sorcerer spell selection.The abjurer has an alternative to healing in the arcane ward, soon to be projected.The abjurer's spell book contains a minimum of 17 spells the abjurer knows.  6 at 1st level, 2 per level up, 3 for each spell level of abjuration spells.  These break down to a minimum of 9 1st level spells and a maximum of 3 3rd level spells based on the level of the abjurer learning those spells, and one of each spell level must be an abjuration.  There's no shrodinger in my argument.  ;-)Spell book:  alarm, detect magic, find familiar, identify, mage armor, shield, sleep, Tasha's hideous laughter, unseen servant; arcane lock, knock, levitate, scorching ray, suggestion; fireball, glyph of warding, hypnotic patternThat encompasses all the spells prepped, includes several rituals that the sorcerer does not have available, and has situational spells that can be swapped in (like knock) on a short rest or downtime spells like arcane lock or glyph of warding.  As the classes level up the number of rituals has diminishing returns but the the number of spells that can be swappable increases.We can play around with the spells selected by each but the same thing will always be true:  The wizard will have better spell access through the spell book with rituals and swapping because the spell chosen for the spell book increase at a rate faster than the spell preparation tables.I'm well familiar with "in practice" having played these classes in various editions for a long time, including 5e.  That's my my wizard examples aren't all tricked out with more spells or resources than they should have either.  ;-)This statement makes no sense.Wizards aren't limited by their prepared spells because of the ritual adept feature and memorize spell feature.  The sorcerer in your example doesn't have a significant number of prepared spells per day over any wizard. The use of those prepared spells can be limited by spell slots for either class, however, limiting the effectiveness of having more (leveled) spells prepared outside of rituals, which remain available.  In that case, the sorcerer who sacrifices their sorcery points to creating spell slots (as long as the conversion hasn't changed) can have a slight advantage over arcane renewal but the rituals and potential cantrip changes still give the wizard the edge in that regard.I expect it to be a hell of a lot better than needing to level up to swap out a spell when you don't have the right magic.   "Not having the right magic" applies both ways.Sure.  I just did that for an example.</blockquote>

Verification