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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 7966277" data-attributes="member: 1465">The &quot;know all spells&quot; vs &quot;have to learn spells&quot; differentiation is theoretically cr4p. This was a big mistake in 3e because it soon skyrocketed the list of spells available to Clerics by default thanks to lots of splatbooks. Fortunately, in 5e it matters little because the PHB Cleric/Druid spell list is fairly short, many Clerical spells are samey, and there are only a few supplements, so it doesn't bother me at all. But I still think it's cr4p in principle, it would be just fine if every class had a limited number of spells known.Instead of looking at a mechanical differentiation, or maybe thinking about that as an afterthought, I would focus of the why different classes are capable of casting spells i.e. what is the source of their magic. Clerics have their source in faith, and might be required to uphold their faith by actions; in fact, an old way to differentiate them has always been to require a Cleric to act according to their faith or temporarily lose the ability to cast spells. It's not nice to use it as a punishment however (like the DM saying &quot;ha! you just did something opposite to your dogma, you lose all your spells!&quot;), instead it should be the player's initiative to roleplay her Cleric PC properly, not pick e.g. the Life domain because it's powerful and then roleplay a murderhobo. By converse, Wizards have their source in study, therefore their actions after they learned their spells don't matter at all, but perhaps some explanations before learning new spells might be required (it could be as simple as narrating where new spells are learnt from, or how downtime is spent in such activity). Normally the game handwaves this completely for spells gained at level up, and obviously some players are going to be completely uninterested in adding details, but at least the PHB enforces some time and cost for additional spells scribed into the spellbook.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 7966277, member: 1465"] The "know all spells" vs "have to learn spells" differentiation is theoretically cr4p. This was a big mistake in 3e because it soon skyrocketed the list of spells available to Clerics by default thanks to lots of splatbooks. Fortunately, in 5e it matters little because the PHB Cleric/Druid spell list is fairly short, many Clerical spells are samey, and there are only a few supplements, so it doesn't bother me at all. But I still think it's cr4p in principle, it would be just fine if every class had a limited number of spells known. Instead of looking at a mechanical differentiation, or maybe thinking about that as an afterthought, I would focus of the [I]why[/I] different classes are capable of casting spells i.e. what is the [I]source[/I] of their magic. Clerics have their source in faith, and might be required to uphold their faith by actions; in fact, an old way to differentiate them has always been to require a Cleric to [B]act according to their faith[/B] or temporarily lose the ability to cast spells. It's not nice to use it as a punishment however (like the DM saying "ha! you just did something opposite to your dogma, you lose all your spells!"), instead it should be the player's initiative to roleplay her Cleric PC properly, not pick e.g. the Life domain because it's powerful and then roleplay a murderhobo. By converse, Wizards have their source in study, therefore their actions [I]after[/I] they learned their spells don't matter at all, but perhaps some explanations [I]before[/I] learning new spells might be required (it could be as simple as narrating where new spells are learnt from, or how downtime is spent in such activity). Normally the game handwaves this completely for spells gained at level up, and obviously some players are going to be completely uninterested in adding details, but at least the PHB enforces some time and cost for additional spells scribed into the spellbook. [/QUOTE]

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