D&D (2024) Memorize Spell is one of the most obnoxious abilities I've ever seen, despite being perfectly on-theme (Packet 7)

[mamba]

Two things come to mind with all of this, including some BG3 derived rules in the playtest:

1) I don’t see why WOTC doesn’t just do away with the whole prepared spell thing for all casters, I mean, it’s moving that way anyway, just drop it. (And I say that as a player who prefers hard limits on stuff like magic); and
2) I think we‘re crossing a rubicon with the success of BG3, and how the things that players were able to do in that game will now become (for better or worse), things that are baked into DND. It would be a really bad look for the new BG3 players who then move to DND to try to do something they did in the game, and then be told ‘it’s not in the rules’.

I am all for 1) if you reduce the slots accordingly, I do not need 2) as a reason for it however. Not even sure it is a rubicon that many people cross

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I may be wrong since it's been a while since I read Dying Earth but I remember people memorizing like 4 spells at a time in Vance.

You're not wrong, I was kind of surprised when I read Vance that that was the ase. Worlds Without Number, which an excellent OSR TT RPG that's actually very forward-looking design-wise, includes casters with Vancian in the actual sense, so they're memorizing single-digit numbers of spells/day.

 

[mamba]

What’s funny about this is that an extremely popular video game, Baldur’s Gate 3, did implement it. It works great.

Define 'works great', sounds like 'makes things really easy for a wizard, and the one player that is playing the entire BG3 party'

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

I am all for 1) if you reduce the slots accordingly, I do not need 2) as a reason for it however. Not even sure it is a rubicon that many people cross

Reduce slots and reduce versatility of utility spells that a single Wizard can take and I think it would work for me.

So combat stuff + one of the following groupings of utility spells:

1) travel/mobility
2) social / mind control
3) divination
4) stealth/infiltration
5) any others?

 

[Umbran]

...WotC's currently lily-livered crew don't have the brass balls ...

Mod Note:
And, if someone talked about YOU that way around here?

I understand you don't like 'em. But you can say that without insulting them personally.

You're getting reported a lot right now. Might want to go review the Golden Rule, and adjust accordingly.

 

[Umbran]

Just for your reference going forward, your posting style throughout this thread has been so toxic that this will be the last time I ever respond to you. I just wanted to make sure you know why you are being ignored.

Mod Note:
Just for your reference going forward - we give you the ignore function for a reason. That reason is NOT to allow you to take a potshot without then having to worry about repercussions.

By all mean, use the ignore function - but don't make a public thing of it.

 

[Yaarel]

Reduce slots and reduce versatility of utility spells that a single Wizard can take and I think it would work for me.

So combat stuff + one of the following groupings of utility spells:

1) travel/mobility
2) social / mind control
3) divination
4) stealth/infiltration
5) any others?

The following are sometimes dual-use for combat too:
• mobility/immobility (for example Fly, Misty Step, various walls, Slow, etcetera)
• stealth/detection
• summoning autonomous creatures/effects
• mind magic

The stuff that is truly noncombat should become rituals that any one can use an ability check to try perform.

 

[Kalmi]

This feels like a feature where its evaluation is very sensitive to table variation.

Wizards are the only caster class where their spell repertoire is primarily a function of the table's magic item and gold distribution. I know in several of the games I'm involved with as a player that scroll availability and overall gold availability is quite low, such that a wizard's 2 spells per level are really the bulk of the spells they'll have available.

In those kind of games, Memorize Spell is a useful utility but wizards don't have the Batman utility belt of spells in the spellbook to really leverage this ability to its fullest extent. Whereas in more treasure-rich games, a wizard might easily have 30+ spells in his spellbook already by level 5, and the wizard does become the one-stop non-combat solution shop.

And this is just another reason the Wizard is a very poorly designed class, a class's power should not exponentially scale with how liberal your GM is with gold (to say nothing of how poor of a design it is to allow one class to trivialize all OOC challenges).

 

[Fifth Element]

Was, in fact, once a standard rule -- AD&D Unearthed Arcana, p.80.

AD&D UA <> standard rules.

 

[Fifth Element]

I'd refer to you the wealth of material published around Dragonlance.

Cool. Make sure to ask Raistlin whether he finds using magic fatiguing. Since you couldn't come up with any examples.