D&D 5E (2024) Mearls has some Interesting Ideals about how to fix high level wizards.

[CreamCloud0]

i feel like you're focusing too much on the acid sorcerer idea in this conversation, it's not about THE acid sorcerer, it's about any thematically specific caster subclass having a reasonably deep and versatile pool of spells to be able to fulfil their concept and still have flexibility in execution.

i posted too soon. @Zardnaar

 

[Yaarel]

Because of the limitations of spell selection, elemental concepts work best if choosing any two elements out of the four.

Currently I am treating damage types as paraelemental.

lightning-thunder (Air, Water)
radiant-fire (Air, Fire)
acid (Fire, Earth)
cold-bludgeon-pierce-slash (Earth, Water)

So the Fire elementalist accesses radiant, fire, and acid.


Additional elements:

psychic-force (Ether the quintessence)
poison-necrotic (Plant)

Ether is the proto element of the Big Bang and includes conscious soul and fundamental forces like gravity. Ether is both immaterial yet physical. The four elements of matter are made out of ethereal fundamental forces.

Plant is a kind of living element, that emerges from the entangling of the five elements. The Plant element also includes the fabrication of complex objects, that weave together metal, cotton, leather, etcetera, and spells like Mend. Fungus as an aspect of Plant especially corresponds necrotic damage.

Void

Void is the nothingness of the vacuum of empty outer space. It relates to teleportation across spacetime, remote presence, and prescience.

So far, there are seven elements:

Four states of matter (Earth, Water, Air, Fire)
Immaterial physical protomatter (Ether)
Living matter (Plant)
Space (Void)

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I agree that 5e has a fundamental rules bloat problem, but people choose Wizard because they want to mess around with a large number of spells, and because the idea of playing a massive spell nerd appeals to them. Trying to streamline spells for a high level wizard actually just kills the class for the people it has most spoken to. I play a Wizard specifically because I dream of filling my spellbook with 100 spells I'll rarely use but which will be perfect for some occasion. The idea of paring that down specifically at high levels that I have fought long and hard to get to is particularly galling.

Furthermore this logic as presented is only really apt to someone rolling up a new character at high level, which is just not what most people are doing most of the time. If you got to high level Wizard over a year of play you are unlikely to find remembering how Shield or Magic Missile worked to be difficult. One advantage of getting few high level spell slots is that you really don't need to have that many high level spells (ie: the ones you haven't had forever) prepped.

The classes that suffer more on this front in my mind in 5e D&D are the Cleric and Druid, who, to be played to their maximum potential have to know basically all the spells for their class since any of them are accessible on a long rest, and which are chosen less on the desire to be big magic nerd. Druids in particular a fair number of players choose mainly for the Wildshaping, and then suddenly they're juggling a massive spell list.

In any case I'm generally all for simplifying and streamlining, but high level wizard is the last place I'd do it. It's one of the rare places where deep complexity and bloat feels more like a feature than a bug.

 

[Yaarel]

I agree that 5e has a fundamental rules bloat problem, but people choose Wizard because they want to mess around with a large number of spells, and because the idea of playing a massive spell nerd appeals to them. Trying to streamline spells for a high level wizard actually just kills the class for the people it has most spoken to. I play a Wizard specifically because I dream of filling my spellbook with 100 spells I'll rarely use but which will be perfect for some occasion.

Because the Wizard can swap in spells from the spellbook, to simplify the number of spells that the class can use at any particular time still allows for many spells.

 

[A_Carrington]

How many spells are just different variations of deal elemental damage to one or more targets?

How many spells are the same effect but scaled for a higher level?

So many of d&d's problems are eliminated if you simply just get rid of levels and the idea that you need unique mechanical widgets to represent every conceivable effect, and the idea that some classes have to have arbitrary limits on how often they get to do fun things, and the idea that classes are necessary.

 

[Zardnaar]

How many spells are just different variations of deal elemental damage to one or more targets?

How many spells are the same effect but scaled for a higher level?

So many of d&d's problems are eliminated if you simply just get rid of levels and the idea that you need unique mechanical widgets to represent every conceivable effect, and the idea that some classes have to have arbitrary limits on how often they get to do fun things, and the idea that classes are necessary.

Theres sme D&Disms/sacred cows you cant mess with otherwise you get "not D&D".

 

[A_Carrington]

D&D is whatever you call D&D.

If it stops being D&D because you get rid of the bad design decisions, then it should stop being D&D.

 

[Zardnaar]

D&D is whatever you call D&D.

If it stops being D&D because you get rid of the bad design decisions, then it should stop being D&D.

Technically true. Whether or not people buy it matters however.

Theres vearious sacred cows I think the designers identified as core to D&D.

Since D&D us four or 5 times the size of everything else put togather what makes D&D well D&D seems important.

 

[A_Carrington]

Its popularity is largely down to being first, having the most marketing, and sheer inertia. Its rules have almost nothing to do with it. Most of its users don't even know what the rules say.

 

[Zardnaar]

Its popularity is largely down to being first, having the most marketing, and sheer inertia. Its rules have almost nothing to do with it. Most of its users don't even know what the rules say.

Theres also things like lore edpocially FR.

BG3 for example references stuff going back to 90s metaplot and Gygaxian fluff from 1980/81.

Cant really burn that down and expect to do well