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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shardstone" data-source="post: 9210826" data-attributes="member: 6807784">You're a 2nd level caster. Let's say Wizard, for funsies. Note that Wizard is my least favorite class in 5E.You play in a biweekly game. Sometimes its monthly due to schedules.You picked the Sorcerer because delving into magic and spell really entices you. One of your favorite spells is the simple but effective burning hands. Game night starts. You've been waiting for this for a while. It's time to get lost in some magic, combat, and RP.You go to cast burning hands but the CR 1/8 guard hits you with an interrupt attack. You lose the spell slot. You go to cast burning hands but the CR 1/8 kobold hits you with an interrupt attack. You lose the spell slot.You go to cast burning hands but there are three CR 1/4 goblin around you. Because there are three around you, you have to choose to either make a DC 15 Arcana check with disadvantage (because there's three goblins around you) or you provoke at least one, maybe 2-3 opportunity attacks that will interrupt you. So instead you disengage and its the second turn but they follow you because you're fighting a bunch of goblins and 5E (nor other versions of the game) has very limited "Stay off my friends!" features.All you want to do is cast burning hands to deal 3d6 fire damage. It isn't crazy. It isn't OP. It isn't wild. But because magic has to be super limited, you just can't do it. What fun this is. What amazing joy you're having as a wizard. You have some simple spells that you like but because apparently casting burning hands in melee is equivalent to jumping up and down and screaming like a fool, you just can't do it.Ok, you could use the environment more. You could play hide and seek, or knock things over to make cover. But even with those options, all you're doing is spending more turns to set up your very measely 3d6 burning hands. And if other players sacrifice their turns to help make you cover or whatever, all they're doing is buying time for you to deal maybe 11 fire damage (unless they save, in which cases its around 6 fire damage) in a cone. The juice isn't worth the squeeze. The main reason interrupts are gone is because the spells that need to be interrupted either take longer than 1 action to cast or have a concentration requirement. And when I look across Fantasy fiction, even Fantasy-adjacent fiction, or any media, or even video games, or even other TTRPGs, I just don't see this ever being a trope people wanted to keep. The whole point of class Fantasy is to give people an easily-bundled set of mechanics with rather interesting flavor. In contemporary 5E, all the magic classes are magic specifically because they cast spells. If there was a lot less weight in spells and more weight in other things, like Arcane tricks I could pull off with ability checks or runes I could reliably gain and invoke, it'd be whatever. But if my only thing is casting spells, and I can't cast those spells, then I waited two weeks to get into this game just to get walked on.It just doesn't make sense. Crawford said most people these days play just for a few months and either weekly or biweekly. A lot of players are also adults with jobs or in university. This specific nerf, the request to make spells interruptable, doesn't make the game any more enjoyable for the spellcaster. It doesn't make the game feel more tactical. It makes the game feel punishing, and it encourages me to play another cast.Not to mention that this completely erases the idea of the spellblade classes (Artificer/Paladin/Ranger/EK/Bladesinger/Sword Bard etc etc). If I can't cast a spell in melee without provoking opportunity attacks or taking other penalties, then why do I even have spells on a martial in the first place?This isn't to say that I think the game is perfect right now, nor do I think casters should be immune to nerfs. But mechanics for a game are only good if the mechanics increase the fun of the game, either directly or indirectly. And any nerf to spellcasting is going to lead to me wanting something else I can rely on other then cantrips. Most cantrips are not interesting. If I just wanted to focus on damage, I'd have no problem because I can fire bolt or Eldritch Blast or whatever. But if I want to do cool things, and if those cool things can't be reliable, then I need another cool thing that is reliable.Sorcerers in the Next Playtest solved this problem, even if it was walked backwards. The closer to empty they were, the more their class changed. This is how spellcasters should be. The Wizard who can't cast burning hands anymore should be able to open their spellbook or reach into their component pouch and do something else instead. Maybe my components have a separate usage die that I can decrease by throwing a handful of them at someone and rolling on the Wild Surge table. Maybe my Cleric, once out of spell slots, gains two additional uses of Channel Divinity. Maybe my Druid, once out of spell slots, gains an elemental buff to their wild shape. Not things that are out of this world crazy, but just opens that unlock once out of spell slots that let me do some more cool things.For what it's worth, I think most classes should be like this. Barbarians, when out of rage, should be able to hurt themselves (dealing real damage) to fly into a bonus rage. Fighters, once out of second wins or maneuver dice or action surges, should be able to exert HD (losing them) to push themselves beyond their limits. This paradigm rewards resource management by making it costly to do bonus things, but also doesn't punish you by removing your classes entire appeal because you're out of resources. And these are the things that would be necessary to prevent the 5MWD problem everyone is always talking about.</blockquote>

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