D&D General [+] For (hypothetical) 6e: Which arcane caster class should be the "simple" one?

[tetrasodium]

i don't think what they chose to do to warlock in 5e was a mistake, honestly i think they ought to of made more of the casters with 'weird progression' rather than having them all as standardized as they are, different progressions don't add as much complexity as people seem to think they would, and as i have mentioned previously in the thread, i don't think there ought to be any single assigned simple caster but rather subclasses throughout the casters that offer simpler playstyles.

"Weird progression"? I agree that there should have been more scaling rates than 5e gave us, but there's nothing "weird" about the 5e warlock's progression. Hexblade and EB don't have "weird" progression, they have identical progression to fighter extra attack but it's improved by shedding the multiclass triggered scaling slowdown fighter sees. Pact slot level bumps aren't "weird" either, they happen at levels identical to when wizard/cleric/sorcerer/druid with an easier recovery till they flip over from pact to being gained at identical levels with mystic arcanum. "Weird" progression is fine and 3.x even had some with various fractional casters but the5e warlock is trying to simultaneously spin every plate that any class spins at equal power level while still using "simple" reasoning to justify one more equal plate. It's no coincidence that so many of the silly OP builds rely on some flavor of warlock.

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Ah sure! Thats a good side discussion. What could we do in a sinole caster without ressources.


well "Cantrips" for me are "at will spells". So this can of course look different than 5e cantrips. It can be like the 13th ages auto scaling (like leveled spells) at will spells.

Of course you could also do something like taking normal spells, being able zo cast them an unlimited number of times but on a lower level, the only problem is that at low level like level 1 you would need to invent lower casting levels for these spells to work.


A simple spellcaster could also have "rituals". Which may be different than normal "at will spells" as they need to be cast outside combat and take a long while.


This could of course be non combat spells, but one could also do "armor of agathys" as a ritual or similar "limited buffs". Important here is that the number of rituals is limited else it becomes again complicated. (This could also include creating magical items, which only last a limited time (Wyrdwood wand the rpg allows that with some rituals))


another thing which could be used would be auras /aspects. Of which you only can have 1 active at a time. (This is something some simple 4e classes used).

5e paladin auras or 3.5 binder vestiges come to mind here. (Again not too many and not too complicated).

So like the 4e runepriest or the 4e vestige warlock. You have 2 states which give different aspects from which you can choose (and change from one into the other). Runepriest gave kind of an aura and vestiges warlock debuff on enemy you attack or selfbuff when an enemy dies.




Well magic does not necessarily mean that these exact spells need to be there. There are also less powerfull magic subsystems.


Also non combat spells like tiny hut can easily be rituals and with this in a different subsystem than spellcasting (like 4e did).


Also depending of the magic powerlevel the martial power level can be equal.

A legsweep can be a multi targeted attack (on a small scale) which can hinder enemy mobility (like web). On a bigger scale you could as a martial shatter the ground with your immense strength.

Hold person is literally just a grab. Or if you want a disabling effect: A punch to the solar plexus.

Debuffs could be holds which break arms or legs. (or just make them hurt a lot if its temporary).


So there is no reason to only make simple martials nor to make only complex casters.

You are feature creeping it pretty far beyond "simple" and broadening the scope of what the power budget should contain while holding hard to "power level can be equal", that's kinda why I brought up the need the narrow the question more than an impossibly broad "arcane caster" & why people keep bringing up stuff like the 3.5warlock & 5e arcane archer. By having things like extra attack & spell-like abilities rather than spells from some other class it allows the power budget for those spell like abilities to be pretty decent without being as restrictive as fractional caster leveled spell slots like 5e EK/AT/etc.

 

[Remathilis]

i don't think what they chose to do to warlock in 5e was a mistake, honestly i think they ought to of made more of the casters with 'weird progression' rather than having them all as standardized as they are, different progressions don't add as much complexity as people seem to think they would, and as i have mentioned previously in the thread, i don't think there ought to be any single assigned simple caster but rather subclasses throughout the casters that offer simpler playstyles.

My point was that the 3.5 warlock was a very simple arcane "caster" that didn't use spell slots that morphed in 5e into one of the most complex classes to build and level and is absolutely not new player friendly. It would have been nice if there was a simple subclass version of the warlock, but the complexity is right in the core class. There is no way to build a "simple" warlock, only a poorly-optimized one.

 

[Tigris]

"Weird progression"? I agree that there should have been more scaling rates than 5e gave us, but there's

You are feature creeping it pretty far beyond "simple" and broadening the scope of what the power budget should contain while holding hard to "power level can be equal", that's kinda why I brought up the need the narrow the question more than an impossibly broad "arcane caster" & why people keep bringing up stuff like the 3.5warlock & 5e arcane archer. By having things like extra attack & spell-like abilities rather than spells from some other class it allows the power budget for those spell like abilities to be pretty decent without being as restrictive as fractional caster leveled spell slots like 5e EK/AT/etc.

these were examples of things being possible not all things a simple class needs to have.

 

[CreamCloud0]

"Weird progression"? I agree that there should have been more scaling rates than 5e gave us, but there's nothing "weird" about the 5e warlock's progression. Hexblade and EB don't have "weird" progression, they have identical progression to fighter extra attack but it's improved by shedding the multiclass triggered scaling slowdown fighter sees. Pact slot level bumps aren't "weird" either, they happen at levels identical to when wizard/cleric/sorcerer/druid with an easier recovery till they flip over from pact to being gained at identical levels with mystic arcanum. "Weird" progression is fine and 3.x even had some with various fractional casters but the5e warlock is trying to simultaneously spin every plate that any class spins at equal power level while still using "simple" reasoning to justify one more equal plate. It's no coincidence that so many of the silly OP builds rely on some flavor of warlock.

i was only using the term after Remathilis used it first and i wasn't using it derogatorily either, but i believe they were using it in the sense that everything else follows the same couple of rough progressions of number/levels of slots, like how there's no caster who goes for quantity over quality on having a whole bunch of low level slots.

 

[SkidAce]

Simple Caster, nothing but cantrips, number known equal to prof, swap one on level up.

 

[Remathilis]

i was only using the term after Remathilis used it first and i wasn't using it derogatorily either, but i believe they were using it in the sense that everything else follows the same couple of rough progressions of number/levels of slots, like how there's no caster who goes for quantity over quality on having a whole bunch of low level slots.

Basically. Every other class uses the "traditional" spellcasting system (in various full, half, and one-third progressions) while one single class breaks the rules. I will refrain from giving my further feelings on pact magic, but I can speak from experience that for less-experienced players, the shift from the traditional slot system to PM can cause a lot of confusion. (A player who had started with a ranger wanted to try a warlock next, and she was absolutely confused how slots scaled automatically and why she had so few of them, or how she got 6th level and higher spells.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Basically. Every other class uses the "traditional" spellcasting system (in various full, half, and one-third progressions) while one single class breaks the rules. I will refrain from giving my further feelings on pact magic, but I can speak from experience that for less-experienced players, the shift from the traditional slot system to PM can cause a lot of confusion. (A player who had started with a ranger wanted to try a warlock next, and she was absolutely confused how slots scaled automatically and why she had so few of them, or how she got 6th level and higher spells.

it's absolutely true and fair that people can get confused by different systems and structures, but is the standard spell system really much less complicated? i just think it's far more of a loss than a gain for 5e and the players the level of standardization the casters get and think there should be more classes that play with the spell progression formula/structure not less.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But that's how you get 40 variants of fireball that are the same effect with just different numbers of dice. Is better to have fireblast, fireball, pyroclasm, delayed blast fireball, flame cylinder, comet strike, meteor blast and nuclear winter fireball which only differs in size and dice?

I dunno, I don't think filling the spell list with cure light wounds, cure moderate wounds, cure serious wounds and cure critical wounds is much better.

Its all just Fireball.

At level whatever you print out the level whatever version of fireball.

I prefer the model of spending more to upgrade, personally, but it isnt a bad way to go.