Maxwell's Silver Hammer: On Spells, Design, and the feeling of Sameyness in 5e

[Salthorae]

Are attack cantrips more, or less, boring than a crossbow?

Not really. Nor more or less boring than a sword or anything else in combat that is repetitious. Why should the fighter be the only one who gets to be bored in combat because their only thing to do is swing a sword?

The choice is almost never meaningful.

I mean... maybe for combat cantrips? But not for the non-combat cantrips. Even with combat though, the distinction between damage types, attack or save and rider effects to me don't make them meaningless decision points for something you only ever get 4-6 of over your whole career depending on class and level.

I mean shocking grasp is to me meaningfully different from fire bolt and also something like frostbite.

One, they are all different damage types. That can be very meaningful depending on the combat. Two, they are different scenarios entirely. Shocking grasp is up-close and personal, Firebolt is something to be done from range, Frostbite is somewhere between the two. Shocking grasp eliminates the target's reactions, Frostbite gives them disadvantage.

I don't know, those seem like non-trivial differences to me.

That is before you start talking about the utility cantrips. Gust can shove a creature 5' away, etc.

 

[Gadget]

A few points in response to the excellent and well reasoned OP:

• Overall, I like the unified direction some of the design has taken in smoothing some things out and eliminating some weird design anomalies; there was some pretty weird things back in the AD&D days that I'm glad we have left behind. Over 40 years of game design experience does count for some things. Combining all the Cure X spells into one spell that covers all of them by scaling based on slot level; Concentration to avoid the mass domination of magic layering that dominated 3.x games, etc. It's nice having spells be the same level, not level X for clerics and level Y for wizards.
• Having said that, the overly shared spell lists--along with the ease of raiding other classes spell lists (feat, bardic secrets, multi-classing, domains, invocations, etc.) does tend to take much of the distinctiveness away from the spell casting classes. They try to make up for it with class features, but aside from perhaps the Warlock, I don't think they succeeded as well. I miss the days when your spell list defined a large part of what you could do and differentiated you from the other caster(s). Of course, clerics were pretty decent fighters and had only seven levels of spells back then, which was pretty different. Now they might as well be white mages for all the difference they have. Druids were pseudo-elementalists that got blast spells a little earlier but not quite as good in combat and healing. So I can definitely agree here.
• I like the fact that the half casters get unique spells of their own to define them, rather than just a subset of the cleric/druid list. It gives them their own story and feel, rather than tacted on. I was rather disappointed coming from 4e that they went back to just plain spell casting and this helped make up for it a little.
• The "every (or most) class or subclass is a caster or partial caster" syndrome is a partial result of age old arguments about what is 'realistic' and such for certain characters to accomplish. It came to a head in 4e, where the common criticism was that "everyone is a wizard," due to the sharing of the at-will, per encounter, and daily resource structure shared by classes in that system. I suppose the designers realized that they could, where they feel they could get away with it, embrace and disarm that criticism by actually giving classes spells for special abilities. It is discrete bundles of abilities and game mechanics that can be measured out to classes through a well established resource system in the game. No one can argue about realism when it is in fact magic.
• Personally, I think the spells as whole could have used another pass to make them worthwhile, as there are a lot of stinkers in there, even if we discount some of the world building utility spells. Spells like Leomand's Tiny Hut and Banishment became very good, while many others too numerous to name...not so much.
• Cantrips can be tricky. It was difficult to become used to, but I kind of like the utility side, and have learned to tolerate the pew, pew, pew side. I could see removing the pew, pew, pew; or restricting it to an ability gained at higher levels. The Arch mage being able to pew, pew, pew is less of a problem and can fit the fiction better, imho.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I think that damage dealing cantrips are LESS samey than the melee weapons that actually see the light of day and are WAY LESS samey than armor that sees the light of day.

I think the sorcerer needs to be completely reworked but the other spellcasting classes don't step on each others toes.

I think one of the subclasses for the bard, paladin, and ranger should have been non-spellcasting (to make an easier to play version similar to the Fighter Champion).

I think there should be magic items to add damage and "effects" to cantrips much the same way that magic weapons add to martial attacks.

I think the warlock should have been able to add their invocation powers to one chosen attack cantrips so you don't ONLY see eldritch blast being used.

Ultimately I blame most sameyness in 5e on its lack of player and GM crunch content. It's been 5 years and there are barely any new spells, magic items, feats applicable to spells, etc.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think that damage dealing cantrips are LESS samey than the melee weapons that actually see the light of day and are WAY LESS samey than armor that sees the light of day.

I think the sorcerer needs to be completely reworked but the other spellcasting classes don't step on each others toes.

I think one of the subclasses for the bard, paladin, and ranger should have been non-spellcasting (to make an easier to play version similar to the Fighter Champion).

I think there should be magic items to add damage and "effects" to cantrips much the same way that magic weapons add to martial attacks.

I think the warlock should have been able to add their invocation powers to one chosen attack cantrips so you don't ONLY see eldritch blast being used.

Ultimately I blame most sameyness in 5e on its lack of player and GM crunch content. It's been 5 years and there are barely any new spells, magic items, feats applicable to spells, etc.

While I agree that they are less samey, a big part of that is how weapons were overly streamlined to be little more than pick if you need light or heavy, ranged or melee, then decide what die you want. But the discussion has reminded me of the problems with cantrips & the massive overlap can be blamed there. Sure people might have picked & used various attack cantrips before they knew better, but how often have you gone around the table only to have three or four players say "I cast firebolt too". They scale with character level rather than equipment or something you can't throw out say a reallly magic light crossbow and get some discussion on the pros & cons of who gets it.... It results in weapons falling into categories of either "better than what Alice or Bob is using right now" or "meh, maybe we can sell it"

 

[Tonguez]

While I agree that they are less samey, a big part of that is how weapons were overly streamlined to be little more than pick if you need light or heavy, ranged or melee, then decide what die you want. But the discussion has reminded me of the problems with cantrips & the massive overlap can be blamed there. Sure people might have picked & used various attack cantrips before they knew better, but how often have you gone around the table only to have three or four players say "I cast firebolt too". They scale with character level rather than equipment or something you can't throw out say a reallly magic light crossbow and get some discussion on the pros & cons of who gets it.... It results in weapons falling into categories of either "better than what Alice or Bob is using right now" or "meh, maybe we can sell it"

Yeah it seems the same approach to spells also spilt over to weapons but to be fair weapons dont break vessimilitude in the same way simply because the players understand that they are external tools that 1. a fighter can loose and 2. When you pick it up its expected that you will be chopping and banging things.

Magic should be different, more exotic than just banging away at things until they fall over.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Sure people might have picked & used various attack cantrips before they knew better, but how often have you gone around the table only to have three or four players say "I cast firebolt too".

In 5 years at my table firebolt was only the primary attack cantrip for one character, a wizard.

My Storm Sorcerer used Shocking Grasp (theme), the other sorcerer was fond of the cold damage spell that reduced movent, the cleric liked the cannot heal cantrip, and both warlocks used Eldritch Blast because of the invocations.

No character has ever taken the feat to get a cantrip from another class.

Different tables. We don't min-max.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah it seems the same approach to spells also spilt over to weapons but to be fair weapons dont break vessimilitude int eh same way simply because the players understand that they are external tools that 1. a fighter can loose and 2. When you pick it up its expected that you will be chopping and banging things.

Magic should be different, more exotic than just banging away at things until the fall over.

a weapon needs to be drawn & you can't exactly hide a battleaxe either but a cantrip from an orb, wand, rod, & staff all work exactly the same

 

[Bawylie]

Yeah they’re samey. Real samey. Wasn’t that the point? Hammer that nostalgia and don’t do anything too new because that’s not what people want. They want D&D.

So we got hotdogs cooked in hot dog water. Very hotdoggy.

Feels like a corporate edict-as-design.

 

[Minigiant]

Now that I'm not at work and had a nap. Let me tackle this.

1. Overlapping spell lists. Okay, so maybe the ye olde 1e PHB was a little overboard, by having each caster have its spells in its own section .... but maybe not! Meaningful differentiation doesn't mean, "Most spells are the same, but hey, you get a few different ribbons!" To me it means that each full caster class gets a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LIST OF SPELLS, with minimal overlap (a few utilities that they might have in common, like a fly spell- and honestly, they each could have their own).

I'd say 50% of the problems with class flavor in 5e is due to the lack of unique spells. Of the complained about casters, the ranger and sorcerer are there because they lack enough unique spells. The sorcerer is missing the spells that display its raw manipulation of mana/weave/winds. The ranger is woefully missing wilderness knacks that rangers,, hunters, trackers, and survivalists had in fantasy media.

And there is no surprise that the two classes with the best representations in 5e is the paladin who has the most unique spells and the bard who can steal any spell.

2. Too mix-n-match. Ritual spellcasting. Cantrips. Everything is available easily through either multi-class, subclass, or feat. To the extent that there is meaningful class differentiation (there isn't), you can easily get whatever you want from any other class.

On the spell side, that's because a lot of classes are just too front loaded and lack unique spells.

3. What does it even mean, Basil? What, Wizards are "versatile" and "prepared" and sorcerers are "spontaneous" and "natural." I mean, sure. Whatever. Now that we've moved to neo-Vancian spell casting, they are pretty much the same thing, with a different stat. If you ask me, here's the difference. Want to multiclass with a charisma class? Sorcerer. Don't? Wizard.

I don't want to say it is long standing community class favoritism at work.
But it is long standing community class favoritism at work.
Sorcerer isn't a beloved class. And the work just wasn't done.

5. Cantrips are terribly boring. Pew pew pew. You can look at them, and refluff 'em as you want. But it both makes cantrips terrible, and has the additional added effect of making higher-level damage spells terrible as well.

That was a design choice. The issue with D&D casters that were heavily based on slots was that they wouldneed to have a lot of slots. Veteran players could use those extra slots and steady flow of gamebooks to warp the game. This put a strain on DMs.

So the designers made casters more reliant on cantrips and made damage spells for novas and mob killing. Not for general use. So the number of slots could stay down.

4. All effects are measured by spells. Magic items. other class abilities, almost everything is expressed in terms of spells. So ... okay. There's a lot of it.

That's D&D, baby.

1. The Combat rules
2. The Stealth rules
3. The Spells

Those are the hard crunch. Anything that needed precise ruling on the player part refered back to these three. The rest is freeform or optional between players and DMS. This is what you get wen peopledon't what lockpicking, tracking, research, and crafting as hard core rules...

Everything that isn't "roll to pass or fail" becomes a spell.

6. Lack of mechanical differentiation. The Warlock? Short rest + invocation ... that's different. Everyone else? It's the same. Overlapping spells, overlapping casting abilities, overlapping mechanics.

Like the rest. Tradition. 5e really isn't that big on new ideas. It's just an old edition with a few fixes. And in the old editions, everything and everyone used the same 3-6 systems.

Does 5e's magic feel same-y to you? The spellcasters?

Yes.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Yea, I'd appreciate seeing yours when you're done. Do a compare and contrast on some of the more difficult choices.

So, the good news is about 3 in 4 spells we agree on. I think that isn't a bad place to start really. I thought it would be best to handle the class lists as they are and see how we absorbed them into the "big three" as I will call it.

Paladin Spells - of all the Paladin spells, most of them we both absorbed into the Cleric List so they would be available to the Paladin after we're done. Here are the exceptions:

Purify Food and Drink (Cleric/Druid*) (C,D,P)
I left it with Cleric, you moved it to Druid. I totally get why (food, drink, nature... of course), but since this spell is about purifying them, and currently it is a Cleric and Paladin spell now, but otherwise only Druid, I left it with Cleric.

Locate Object (Cleric*/Wizard*) (B,C,D,P,R,W)
This was a tough one and I could see going either way. I went with Cleric just to give them more spells and try to keep the lists a bit more even. Did you have any special rationale for going Wizard here?

Magic Weapon (both to Wizard) (P,W)
One of those we both moved into another list, Wizard in this case. Since this is only normally a Paladin and Wizard spell, IMO Wizard trumps priority and gets it. I am guessing your thinking was the same?

Protection from Poison (both to Druid) (C,P,D,R)
A tough one, but we both moved it to Druid, which makes more sense to me, especially since I see the Ranger class getting more use of this (as well as a Paladin can remove poison via Lay on Hands).

Create Food and Water (Cleric/Druid*) (C,P)
I get why you moved it to Druid (like with Purify above), but currently this belongs to Cleric and Paladin only (surprising, huh?) so I left it with Cleric.

Daylight (both to Druid) (C,P,D,R,S)
Another tough one as Druid and Ranger (along with Sorcerer) normally have this one. Since it is supposed to be actual sunlight, I felt giving it to Druid made more sense (again, we both moved it so I suppose you felt the same).

Dispel Magic (both to Wizard) (B,C,D,P,S,War,W)
While I hate taking this away from the other lists, it has to be the providence of Wizards IMO. We both put it there so that is good I think.

Elemental Weapon (both to Druid) (P)
This surprised me. We both moved it to Druid, but oddly it is normally only a Paladin spell! Still, there are enough smites, etc. that I felt good moving it to Druid and you did as well so also good IMO.

Locate Creature (Druid*/Wizard*) (B,C,D,P,R,W)
Another hard one and we split it, LOL! Given the creature-aspect, I felt better moving it to Druid. Was there a specific reason you wanted it in Wizard?

Next will be the Ranger List and what we did to it. I just wanted to start with Paladin to annoy @lowkey13 .

P.S. I also didn't see Zone of Truth in your list but maybe I missed it. I kept it with Cleric, of course.