There was a recent thread when the discussion of design principles in 5e was raised. I made the same comment that I had made over the past five years, which is basically that, IMO, there are too many spellcasting classes, and that the spells (especially the cantrips) had a very "same-y" feel, and that this was (IMO) largely attributable to the design principles of 5e.
Given that this opinion is linked to me in roughly the same way that Sir McStabsalot, the gnomish paladin that dual-wields rapiers, shall forever follow me, I didn't think much of it. But, to quote famous RPG Enthusiast and San Diego native, Ron Burgundy, "Boy, that escalated quickly... Brick killed a guy."
So after picking up the errant tridents, I thought I'd return to the issue of why 5e spellcasting feels same-y to me, and why this is a deliberate design decision. Let me start with my original analysis of six reason in
italics, then I can expand on it:
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).
To me, this is a big one. Yes, it saves a lot of time and designing to allow multiple classes to have the same spells. But .... looking at the core rules (PHB) ... the Bard has 3 unique spells. The Warlock has 6. The Sorcerer has .... wait for it ... ZERO UNIQUE SPELLS.
The Paladin (you knew this was coming up) has 17, meaning that the Paladin (a half-caster) has more unique spells than the three full casting classes and the Ranger ... COMBINED.
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.
Here's the thing- I have mentioned before that I am a fan on at least limited niche protection. But 5e, for better or worse, has almost none. Let's say that you're all into Bards, because of their unique vicious mockery cantrip. You know .... it does make up 33% of their unique spells!
But ... you don't want to play a bard. Okay, no problem! Just multiclass a level in Bard, and you get it. But maybe you really don't want to play a bard. Then take a magic initiate feat! And so on. 5e isn't a gestalt system, but it's flexibility (which is good!) also means that there is little differentiation between the multiple varieties and ways to build a spellcaster (which is bad- to me).
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.
This really ties into (6), but the difference (however slight) is that for this category, I'd say that there is a lack of integration between lore and mechanics. TPTB (the powers that be) have been pretty open that Paladins and Druids "have an especially strong dose of story in their design" which means, I suppose, that the other classes have less lore (story) baked into the design. But the lack of integration between lore and mechanics, while allowing for more creative builds, also ties into the lack of differentiation for spellcasters. If the lore doesn't matter, and the spell lists largely overlap, and the mechanics aren't that different, then what does it mean?
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.
I'm going to expand on this later, but when you have spells as the basic unit of currency for design then they begin to feel boring. Magic items ... they are spells. Barbarian abiltities? Spells. Racial abilities? Spells. If everything is a spell, why should I care about (you guessed it) spells? To paraphrase
The Incredibles, if everything is magic, nothing is.
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.
This is a matter of taste, I guess. Are attack cantrips more, or less, boring than a crossbow? Than darts? Than a dagger? But they all ... function ... in the exact same way. They are so tightly constrained by both the spell equivalency design, and by the desire to have them substitute in as attacks (so everyone has the same approximate, level-by-level, round-by-round, spotlight effect in combat), that there is no real differentiation. "Sure, I'll have a different damage and save type, thanks." The choice is almost never meaningful.
More importantly, by providing casters with the always-on, always damage cantrips, it effectively nerfed the utility of higher-level spell. I would much rather casters get a smaller number of much more interesting and bigger booms than the same attack cantrips over and over again.
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.
And this is the big one, for me. I understand that some players put big stock in the whole, prepared or not prepared, etc. But now that we've moved to neo-Vancian, the casters almost all "feel" the same. Sure, the Wizard is a little more versatile, I guess. Kinda. But the Warlock is the only spellcaster that, to me, mechanically feels dramatically different (and, TBH, they overloaded EB so much that most players just play it as a glorified EB spammer).
Now the above list isn't meant to be exhaustive, or argumentative. People can, and do, feel differently, The question of what "feels" the same is very much a personal one. Back when all weapons did d6 damage, did they all feel the same because they did the same damage, or were they objectively different because they had different names, and therefore (by definition!) were different? I say that not to be snarky, but simply to point out that this is very much in the feelings; just like people can reasonably disagree about whether, say, niche protection is a good thing in D&D, so too can people disagree about whether design leads to sameyness, or differentiation.
But the design principle is clear ....
So I'm going to add a final note, which is the difference between 1e and 5e that I think helps illustrate what I'm thinking about. I don't have a pull quote for it handy, but I think that most people see the resource/design equivalency in 5e is largely designed around spells. That's why, for example, Rangers and Paladins are designed as half-casters, and why 1/2 of the original classes are full casters.
Fun fact- 75% of the base classes in D&D 5e are either full or half casters, and the only official new class, so far, is the artificer.
The reason for the title of this post is, of course, when all you have is a hammer, every problem seems like a nail. And when you design around spells, every design issue will be solved by ... spells equivalents.
But that's not all bad. Let's contrast 5e design with 1e design (or, um, lack thereof!).
1e has a lot of awesome sauce in it. I mean, say what you like about the rules of Gygaxian D&D, Dude, at least it's an ethos.
The casters feel ... well, very different. No one would confuse the Cleric and Magic User lists. Even subclasses (like the Illusionist) are very different than the main class in terms of spellcasting.
Abilities, magic items, monster abilities- they are rarely expressed in terms of spells. Instead, they just ... are. The great advantage of this is that it is cool, differentiated, and that when it works (because the rules and abilities and items and so on grew out play and rulings more often than not) it has an organic, bespoke quality that feels right.
The disadvantage, of course, is that these various subsystems often don't work together, are incoherent, or in some cases (unarmed combat) just a confusing morass of contradictory rules that uses systems that make absolutely no sense in context with the rest of the game.
Contrast that with 5e. There may be predictability (samey-ness) but there's also ... predictability. The rules mostly fit together. The math ... mostly works.
And that's where I'm going to end this and throw it out for other people to comment on how wrong I am.
So-
Does 5e's magic feel same-y to you? The spellcasters?
And do you like the design principle (spell equivalent) of 5e?
