Comparing casting styles

[Glade Riven]

Something I could see happening with 5e is to have different styles of casting per class:

The Wizard
Vancian spellcasting returns for the bulk of the wizard's spells, with a handful of encounter-based spellcasting abilities.

The Sorcerer
5e keeps 4e style spellcasting.

The Psion
Know what? Let's reach outside the box a little bit. I always thought the way Star Wars Saga handled force powers worked better than how 3.5 handled psionics. It's going in a splat, anyways

Not sure where/how to slot divine spellcasters.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't know that I'm against this idea. Certainly, two different spellcasters should have the opportunity to have two different types of casting. I think I would prefer it be handled somewhat independently of class.

A wizard is a bookish weakling with incredibly powerful and broad-ranging magic capabilities. A sorcerer is a prodigy born with mysterious arcane power. A warlock is a character who gains his power from some sort of association with another entity, perhaps through a bargain, perhaphs through blood, but not through worship. I think these complications can be handled without dictating the magic system each character uses (although some archetypes are better suited to some styles than others).

To me the major options for spellcasting style are:

*Classic Vancian (spells per day, huge charts, memorization)
*Spontaneous (spells per day, huge charts, no memorization)
*Spell Points (like 3.5 psionics, but call it what it is: magic)
*Warlock Invocations (limited fun powers without all the slots/points)
*Words of Power/Elements of Magic (a more customized system of some sort, and perhaps the building block for the others)

To me, that's too many styles to associate each one with a class. I'd rather have a base magic bonus (or the like), pick my spellcasting style (or have it determined by the DM) and then look to see what I can do.

Psionics is a separate thing.

 

[Keldryn]

I'd almost like to see this issue handled as more of a world-building topic than as one of character options.

In most fantasy fiction (literature or film), magic tends to work one specific way. You don't tend to see one character who spends long years studying how to cast spells, another who just has an inborn talent for shooting magical rays, and yet another who gains his powers through a pact with a demon. Never mind the whole arcane/divine/primal/psionic/shadow/elemental split.

D&D has always had the Magic-User and Cleric as different types of spell-casters, and it is a game after all and not a novel or film so some concessions need to be made to allow players some choice in character creation. Obviously, opinions will differ greatly on the subject, but I think that the internal consistency of the game world suffers when everything is included by default. Sure, individual DMs are free to decide that they don't want something in the game, but D&D has "evolved" to the point where it seems that every published option is available by default.

Given that one of the primary goals of D&D Next is to unify the fragmented player base, the basic core rules should use the traditional Vancian-style wizards -- this represents the "common experience" across the majority of D&D players.

Alternate styles of spellcasting can be included as optional "modules," with brief descriptions as to how they can be used in parallel with the default spellcasting, or as a replacement for the default spellcasting. A D&D world where all practitioners of arcane magic obtained their spells through fiendish pacts would have a very different flavor than one where "Warlock" is another character option for arcane casters, along with "Wizard" and "Sorcerer."

At least one alternative spellcasting system, probably the equivalent of the Sorcerer, should appear as an option either in the core rules or very early in the edition's product cycle.