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

[prabe]

Yep, I agree there should be a generalist. Along with beefing up the specialists a bit to compensate for the lack of flexibility.

I just think it's an easier solution than a custom spell list. Since it would also limit cantrips, it seems like a simple answer.

Fair enough. It's not a bad idea, to be clear; I just wanted to point out the obvious-to-me objection (which is easily solved, once seen).

As for me, I don't see much of a way to make the spellcasting classes different from each other that wouldn't make the mechanics more complicated. Since much of what I like about 5E is the way it's streamlined, it's not a thing that seems worth the doing to me; obviously, people will have different preferences.

 

[prabe]

War Mage is the closest right now to a generalist concept. Part offense, part defense, no tie to a specific school, but still no quite there.

I've got one somewhere that I wrote up because that was my biggest dissatisfaction with the Wizard in the PHB when it was published, but I don't know where exactly.

If I were playing a wizard, and the DM insisted that I use something from the published books, I'd probably go with War Mage, because (alert! incoming tautology!) it's more of a generalist than the specialist subclasses. Of course, the one kicking around in the Character Chage in my brain is more of a Fog of War Mage focused on illusions and divinations, but ... I'm a little odd, sometimes.

 

[houser2112]

And have a boring setup where there aren't many people with odd abilities you haven't memorised.

And there's that phrase "reasonably be expected to" - I have some pretty creative groups. In my third session DMing as an adult their plans involved throwing a horse blanket over a dragon wyrmling they'd turned, stealing a cart and disguising it as a plague cart, and crossing town with it. This wouldn't even have been possible without a natural 20 on a diplomacy check.

Does this sound like anything that could have been prepared for within reasonable expectations? Especially by a then-new DM. Because it's not even close to reasonable to me - and the game is much more fun from all sides because of it.

Throwing a horse blanket over a wyrmling grants them random SLAs now? I didn't know that, forgive me.

Perhaps you couldn't have foreseen they'd do something like that, but that's beside the point. They didn't do something that required you to look up spells you weren't prepared to use.

Not rewriting spell blocks everywhere is a waste of everyone's time and effort - something which is more valuable than space and paper. Not rewriting and tweaking the spells so that your monsters don't all appear to be fighters and wizards with prosthetic foreheads makes your world significantly blander. And a bad workman blames his tools - but a good workman knows the value of investing in good tools.

Agree to disagree, I guess. It only makes sense to repeat if there's something different about the monster-in-question's implementation of the spell, and even in that case, I'd say it's better to say something like "As magic missile, except the missiles each deal 8d8 poison damage".

 

[tetrasodium]

I think that what twosix and dnd4vr are working on is removing the attack cantrips but keeping the other cantrips while differentiating the spell lists etc.

And then, of course, there's the possible later project to make magic ... um ... oh boy. Make it okay to boom again.

#BOOMBIGGEN
#OKBOOMER!

That would be an improvement. Attack cantrips could still act like the old wand of $LowLevelSpell thing and even come in overtuned versions like acid splash+1. As it is, the same wand that any butler might use to prestidigitate the tablecloth clean & water cold is also the same wand that an assassin uses to instantly murder the ambassador & his entire staff with a fireball before the guards can even react.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Perhaps you couldn't have foreseen they'd do something like that, but that's beside the point. They didn't do something that required you to look up spells you weren't prepared to use.

My PCs won't do what I expect or can prepare for reasonably and in detail and I like it that way. Preparing for everything is impossible.

I've never needed to look up spells I wasn't prepared to use as DM because back when I used published modules, if the module half-assed things by not writing out the spells that the monsters (including the mages) had) I would go and put in the legwork myself by rewriting the stat blocks as part of my game preparation.

Agree to disagree, I guess. It only makes sense to repeat if there's something different about the monster-in-question's implementation of the spell, and even in that case, I'd say it's better to say something like "As magic missile, except the missiles each deal 8d8 poison damage".

On the contrary. The only point of "agree to disagree" is that we can agree that what you consider expected for DMs is something I would consider myself to have failed miserably as a DM if I ever needed to do - and am consequently am unimpressed when a DM does to me (as has happened twice in the past ten years, and that I can remember both events tells you how impressed I wasn't) because I'm used to the other side of the table. We can agree that our standards are different I suppose - but I'm saying that mine are objectively higher.

All this in the name of saving paper and ink (or pixels on a tablet which is where my notes generally are). If I were that worried about paper and ink I'd choose much smaller games than D&D that didn't have multiple 200 page hardbacks for the basic rules.

 

[akr71]

...

On the other hand, a really simple way to make wizards feel more unique would be to have them really specialize like they used to do. Ban entire schools in opposition to their chosen school(s). Easy to implement, no custom list needed. Limit bards to illusion/enchantment schools. Give them divine evocation so they can be a backup healer.

Yes please, let's have choosing a school of magic mean something. I like hard choices in my character design.

 

[Nebulous]

Yes please, let's have choosing a school of magic mean something. I like hard choices in my character design.

Ah, yes, I forgot opposed schools couldn't be cast in earlier editions. Sucks they cut that out. Or am I misremembering older editions?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yes please, let's have choosing a school of magic mean something. I like hard choices in my character design.

I genuinely can't tell if this is sarcastic or not. And know people who could say this either because they mean it or because they are being highly sarcastic.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[akr71]

@Neonchameleon 100% genuine, though I can see how it could easily be taken the other way. When there is a consequence to a character choice, the resulting character feels more unique to me.