D&D 5E 3/4 Caster: Its Absence and Design Space in 5E

[Snarf Zagyg]

An open discussion question for polite musings.

Currently, 5e D&D has full casters (i.e., wizard, bard, druid, cleric, sorcerer), half-casters (i.e., artificer, paladin, ranger), and even 1/3 or one-third (e.g., Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster, etc.). Absent within this quarter-based schema is a 3/4 or three-quarters caster. Is there a reason that 5e either chose not to design a 3/4 caster and is there room in the game for such a progression? Furthermore, would any of the existing classes have been better off as 3/4 casters than their current spell progressions?

So here's how I approach the issue- we have 13 classes.

Of those, five (more than 1/3) of them are full casters. Wizard, Bard, Druid, Cleric, Sorcerer.
Another three are 1/2 casters. Artificer, Paladin, Ranger.
Another one uses a different mechanism, but is arguably a fully caster. Warlock.

So 9/13 classes (70%) are already brimming with spells.

The four remaining classes are Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, and Monk. Those already have two options for 1/3 casters. Maybe more depending on how you classify some of the Monk subclasses.

In short, the issue isn't the dearth of design space for casters; it's the absence of real non-caster options.

Now, let's put that aside. Assume you want more spellcasters and more variety of ... bewitching? Enspelling? Blasting? Anyway, this is the issue you come up with-

The design space between half-caster and full caster is already very limited. I would say that while there is sufficient differentiation between half-casting (in terms of spell slots and maximum spell level) to be worth it, the difference between a full and a 3/4 (or 2/3) caster just isn't there in 5e because there aren't enough tradeoffs elsewhere.

So, I would look at this in a slightly different way; in order to introduce differentiation, I would not have 3/4 casters. Instead, I would promote variety through one of two methods:

A. Completely differentiated spell lists. The primary issue of "samey-ness" between spellcasters is largely due to overlapping spell lists. If you want spellcaster to be different, you need to more strictly patrol the boundaries of their spell lists (but this is often unpopular with players).

B. Mechanics. The simplest way to make the spellcasters play differently is to change them up mechanically. The two best examples of this are the Paladin and the Warlock. The Paladin does this in the simplest way possible- by using spell slots to power a different ability (smite). For many players, Paladins seem more martial than half-castery because they are using their spellslots for a specified purpose, not to cast spells. The more involved method is to create classes like the Warlock, which have different underlying mechanics that allow for differentiation.

IMO, etc.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

D&D doesn't need more casters. D&D needs more non-casters. I'm talking about guards. I'm talking about scouts. I'm talking about knights. I'm talking about watchmen, assassins, thieves, trappers, archers, barbarians, berserkers, cavaliers, mercenaries, beastmasters, shieldmaidens, outriders, bounty hunters, corsairs, battle captains, warlords, zealots, foresters, pugilists, and all the rest.

3/4 casters? How about 3/4 martials? No, how about 5/4 martials. We need martial equality NOW.

 

[Steampunkette]

Ya... nope. I vehemently opposed to this idea. Otherwise spell level are completely meaningless and just add fiddliness and wordiness for no reason and no gain. Might as well just go back to 4e style powers that are unique to each class.

I would say that the "Gain" is that all of them have the ability to whip out the same magnitude of magic for game balancing purposes in a given encounter, while also differentiating the classes significantly through available spell slots. The Bard winds up with a lot less slots than the Wizard or even Cleric, so they must rely on other aspects of their class once their limited spells are expended.

It also hearkens back to AD&D's "Seven Circles" of Cleric spells.

If the phrasing is too much, call them Level for Arcane, Circle for Divine, Cycle for Primal, and Stanza for Bards.

In which case a 9th level spell is as powerful as a 7th circle spell or a 5th stanza spell.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In short, the issue isn't the dearth of design space for casters; it's the absence of real non-caster options.
[...]
If you want spellcaster to be different, you need to more strictly patrol the boundaries of their spell lists (but this is often unpopular with players).

I find the juxtaposition of these statements somewhat humorous.

The absence of real non-caster options is heavily driven by the fact that if you don't have magic, 5e doesn't have much design space for you to play in. And people heavily play the magic classes in part because having cool tools to use is popular, extremely so.

That is, there's a perfect mirror of the second sentence, but for non-casters: "If you want non-casters to be common, you need to more richly fill the design space of non-spell actions (but this is often unpopular with players.)"

People crapping on the Warlord and decrying how dumb and bad it is to have too many classes, among other popular (and vocal) stances, are directly responsible for generating the "oops, all casters" feel of 5e.

I would say that the "Gain" is that all of them have the ability to whip out the same magnitude of magic for game balancing purposes in a given encounter, while also differentiating the classes significantly through available spell slots. The Bard winds up with a lot less slots than the Wizard or even Cleric, so they must rely on other aspects of their class once their limited spells are expended.

It also hearkens back to AD&D's "Seven Circles" of Cleric spells.

If the phrasing is too much, call them Level for Arcane, Circle for Divine, Cycle for Primal, and Stanza for Bards.

In which case a 9th level spell is as powerful as a 7th circle spell or a 5th stanza spell.

I still don't really see the point of this myself. It sounds like repeatedly reinventing the wheel purely to make similar things different. It'll also lead to even more page space dedicated to spell-like stuff, since now no two classes (except perhaps Wizard and Sorcerer) share any part of their lists. I'm with Undrave on this one, not that that should surprise anyone. If you go to this extent, you've effectively reinvented 4e powers but with the awkward imposition of radically-different scaling factor, making it much more difficult to balance casters even with one another, let alone with non-casters.

Plus, it's not like 5e didn't try something like this. Remember the playtest Sorcerer and Warlock? Super neat ideas. Sorcerer used spell points exclusively rather than spell slots, and physically changed (gaining various bonuses, mostly passives); the example, Dragon Sorcerer, slowly became a beefy meleeist. Warlock had all sorts of boons obtained through some kind of sacrifice or exchange; the example, Archfey, got various effects related to charm and beauty and such.

And then people apparently hated on them SO MUCH in just the first survey that WotC scrapped them both entirely and never even attempted to show new versions until after the public playtest ended.

Again, you're gonna be fighting an uphill popularity battle. People complain that things are too samey, and then complain that they're too different if you change them.

 

[Steampunkette]

I still don't really see the point of this myself. It sounds like repeatedly reinventing the wheel purely to make similar things different. It'll also lead to even more page space dedicated to spell-like stuff, since now no two classes (except perhaps Wizard and Sorcerer) share any part of their lists. I'm with Undrave on this one, not that that should surprise anyone. If you go to this extent, you've effectively reinvented 4e powers but with the awkward imposition of radically-different scaling factor, making it much more difficult to balance casters even with one another, let alone with non-casters.

Plus, it's not like 5e didn't try something like this. Remember the playtest Sorcerer and Warlock? Super neat ideas. Sorcerer used spell points exclusively rather than spell slots, and physically changed (gaining various bonuses, mostly passives); the example, Dragon Sorcerer, slowly became a beefy meleeist. Warlock had all sorts of boons obtained through some kind of sacrifice or exchange; the example, Archfey, got various effects related to charm and beauty and such.

And then people apparently hated on them SO MUCH in just the first survey that WotC scrapped them both entirely and never even attempted to show new versions until after the public playtest ended.

Again, you're gonna be fighting an uphill popularity battle. People complain that things are too samey, and then complain that they're too different if you change them.

Did y'all just -not- play AD&D or 3e/3.5/Pathfinder?

You can have the same spell on multiple spell lists at different levels. Pre 4e that's largely how it was done. A spell would be 7th level for Wizards, 6th level for Clerics if it was something meant to show off Cleric magic prowess or fell into their wheelhouse more than other classes.

"Reinvent 4e powers" my beautiful backside. I'm reinventing AD&D 2e Cleric Circles. LITERALLY.

As far as the playtests for Sorcerer and Warlock: I didn't bother. And I have no clue what it's got to do with what I'm suggesting, here. Which is "Squish spell levels a bit for some classes to help them feel different while still having 'Full Caster' level power while also making room in their leveling progress for class abilities that aren't just gaining more spell levels and slots"

Like... what part of that is "Melee Sorcerer" or "Warlock with Feystuff"..?

 

[Minigiant]

What is the difference between these spells

• Chain Lightning
• Circle of Death
• Contingency
• Create Undead
• Create Homumonculus
• Disintegrate
• Eyebite
• Flesh to Stone
• Freezing Sphere
• Globe of Invulnerability

and these spells

• A D Horrid Wilting
• Antimagic Field
• Antipathy/Sympathy
• Clone
• Control Weather
• Demiplane
• Dominate Monster
• Feeblemind

If there is no consistent divide or difference between 6/7th and 8/9th level spells, there is no real point to a 3/4 or 2/3 caster.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think this is a good observation. Making a 3/4 caster implies that you would need to fill the remaining 1/4 with skills and martial abilities, and nobody can agree on what that would look like. Only light armor and shields? Simple weapons only, one martial weapon, all martial weapons? Medium armor but not shields? Two extra skills and a martial weapon, but no armor?

I don't see how this could produce anything but a Hexblade 2.0.

It also depends heavily on what spells make up the spell list

What is the difference between these spells

• Chain Lightning
• Circle of Death
• Contingency
• Create Undead
• Create Homumonculus
• Disintegrate
• Eyebite
• Flesh to Stone
• Freezing Sphere
• Globe of Invulnerability

and these spells

• A D Horrid Wilting
• Antimagic Field
• Antipathy/Sympathy
• Clone
• Control Weather
• Demiplane
• Dominate Monster
• Feeblemind

If there is no consistent divide or difference between 6/7th and 8/9th level spells, there is no real point to a 3/4 or 2/3 caster.

I did a quick job of this so may have misnumbered or wound up with things on the wrong line

The big problem us that in o5e casters continually slow their rate of slot progression until they basically stop scaling at nine or ten. Presumably when creating 2/3 & 3/4 casters they would unnerf 1/1 full caster slot progression

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Did y'all just -not- play AD&D

Not really. I mean, a tiny bit, but not really.

or 3e/3.5/Pathfinder?

Tons. Which is why I'm not at all keen on EVER going back to the ways it does things.

You can have the same spell on multiple spell lists at different levels. Pre 4e that's largely how it was done. A spell would be 7th level for Wizards, 6th level for Clerics if it was something meant to show off Cleric magic prowess or fell into their wheelhouse more than other classes.

I'm aware. I'm also aware of (a) the serious balance problems it created and (b) the very good reasons why 5e didn't replicate that. (One of the few design decisions in 5e that I unequivocally support, actually.)

"Reinvent 4e powers" my beautiful backside. I'm reinventing AD&D 2e Cleric Circles. LITERALLY.

That's what you said. But if it actually ends up balanced, I honestly don't see what the difference is between this and 4e powers with a funky schedule; they'll all be unique to each class, or so it was implied, since your proposed 5th level stanza Bard spell is meant to be the equivalent of a 9th level Wizard spell or a 7th circle Druid spell. And if it doesn't end up balanced, then yes, you would have reinvented the old way of doing things, which would cause a lot of problems. I had assumed you were not interested in intentionally making unbalanced mechanics. Are you meaning to disabuse me of that assumption?

As far as the playtests for Sorcerer and Warlock: I didn't bother. And I have no clue what it's got to do with what I'm suggesting, here. Which is "Squish spell levels a bit for some classes to help them feel different while still having 'Full Caster' level power while also making room in their leveling progress for class abilities that aren't just gaining more spell levels and slots"

Like... what part of that is "Melee Sorcerer" or "Warlock with Feystuff"..?

It's not those specific things, and it's a bit tedious that you are taking it as such, as I felt I was pretty clearly giving examples of the kind of thing that it sounded like you're talking about, not "it would be EXACTLY this SPECIFIC thing and NEVER anything else." Like...could you have at least a little charity in reading what I wrote? I was giving those as examples of classes with actually unique ways of doing things, that had class-specific abilities on entirely different schedules from one another (as in, not even commensurate the way 5e spells currently are). You specifically described it as "the same level of power"--rather than them actually being literally identical spells. Which, I mean, if you had meant they were literally the same spells, you could have just said, "a 5th-stanza Bard spell is a 9th-level Wizard spell" (though the practicalities of how that would work are...complicated at best, and I think you have an extremely rosy perception of how easy it is to design such things).

So it seemed pretty clear to me that you were inventing class-specific lists of opt-in actively-spent abilities, where the rate at which one gets them is radically different from one class to another. Which is quite easily read as "4e powers, but without the common resource schedule."

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Did y'all just -not- play AD&D or 3e/3.5/Pathfinder?

You can have the same spell on multiple spell lists at different levels. Pre 4e that's largely how it was done. A spell would be 7th level for Wizards, 6th level for Clerics if it was something meant to show off Cleric magic prowess or fell into their wheelhouse more than other classes.

Been there, experienced that, didn't much like it there, and double don't like trying to graft it into the 5e system of spell levels and upcasting.

 

[Aldarc]

Did y'all just -not- play AD&D or 3e/3.5/Pathfinder?

Mostly did, and I don't fancy going back to that system if I can. It was largely preserved in Pathfinder due to OGL and compatibility. But it's not exactly some mystery why the 3E spell system got dumped by 4E, 13th Age, 5E, PF2, or nearly any designer who worked on or touched 3E. It was a hot mess.