D&D 5E Arcane and Divine Magic

[Chaosmancer]

We were talking about spell casting, not classes right? I didn't read the OP so I may have jumped in wrong. From a casting standpoint, there's essentially no differentiation outside of prep and rituals, which aren't enough to make things feel any different. My own taste would be to have Divine casters actually feel different in the actual casting. Specifically, their god should matter, and it really doesn't. I completely get the design impetus there, I just don't like the same-y feel of it. The kind of spells, and specific spells, are indeed different, but I think that's a weak place to differentiate. Just a flavor thing for me, it doesn't prevent me playing and liking 5e at all.

Yeah, I just don't see how it is possible to pull off without making the game far more complex than it wants to be.

 

[Ashrym]

Ok, I thought you were criticising 5e specifically, but I think there has never been a big differentiation in the actual CASTING mechanism. Spontaneous casting (of healing spells in 3e) could be seen as such. Maybe there have been some minor differences in using components.

Previous editions stated the spells that arcane and divine casters could both cast were either an arcane version of the spell or a divine version of the spell based on who could cast it. That still didn't stop people from trying to claim bards were casting both divine and arcane spells in 3e in direct opposition to the rule but people are people.

There was a time when it mattered, however. Divine spell casters lost access to recovering spells if they lost access to the source of those spells such as by planar travel.

The potential for that type of scenario still exists in 5e if a DM chooses to apply it but based on the 5e mechanics I think I would just stop clerics, druids, or paladins from changing prepped spells like a wizard without a spell book.