D&D 5E New class options in Tasha

[Crimson Longinus]

Ya know I get it... In the previous editions, especially in 3e and before, the Wizard was 'the Batman'. The guy who's always like "I got a spell for that!" if they prepare well enough, and that felt good. It felt gratifying to be the one guy with the solution... And now you're not the only one who can pull off the "I got a spell for that" and it feels like a betrayal.

Because the Wizard's identity began to rely on that single aspect too much it feels like if THAT part is taken away, even just partially, the Wizard's got nothing.

Yes! I don't even play wizards often, but when I do, that's what I want to do, and in my experience that's what people generally want when they choose to play the wizard. Similarly, when people choose to play the sorcerer, they specifically don't want to be doing that.

And I think this was a perfectly fine and clear differentiation between these two rather similar arcane caster classes, and this feature destroys that.

 

[Helldritch]

No, it cannot be ignored.

There have been attempts to debunk it, pointing to the Ritual Caster feat, and they have been, frankly, dishonest.
For one, they ignore the Metamagic Adept feat.
For two (and this is the really important part): They are lying about what Ritual Caster actually does.
Ritual Caster does not let you substitute for a wizard who has been adding ritual spells into their spellbook as they level. Ritual caster gives you two, 1st level rituals.

That is it.

You don't get additional ones as you level. The only way that you can add to it is by finding scrolls or spellbooks and copying spells into you book, at a cost of time and money. - This should sound a little familiar to you, since it is exactly like what the wizard does, except the wizard does it better. (Since they can actually scribe and cast from spell slots rather than just rituals.)
When comparing the wizard and sorceror, the wizard's ability to scribe additional spells isn't generally brought up, because it is DM fiat and so cannot be assumed.

So, to clarify for those people making the claim that a sorceror with the Ritual Caster feat is a fair comparison to a wizard without it:
Are you talking about comparing a sorceror with two 1st level rituals in their book to an nth-level wizard?
Or are you comparing a sorceror with an extensive collection of rituals through additional spells with a wizard that has also had access to lots of additional spells?

Pick. Your. Hill.

So the argument that the wizards can easily have as many spells as the sorcerer can't be taken to the other side? It goes only one way?
Sorry but I don't buy that. It was said that the wizard will have more than 44 spell known, (in fact the whole list) so adding necessary rituals for a sorcerer taking the feat is only fair game in my book. So should it in yours.

New players don't tend to perform an intricate cost/benefit analysis of classes, or have the knowledge about the game that allows them to do so. In the majority of games by new groups (often using official adventure paths), there is simply not going to be the downtime required to abuse this option, even if the players were able to find some telegraphing of future encounters.

I fully accept that your particular game, because of its several unusual factors, may suffer from this rule, and so it would be better not to use it in that case.
It is the rather hyperbolic insistence that it will break D&D as a whole that I find objectionable.

Ok, to you too I say, don't count the young player's intelligence for nothing. They learn fast and analyse even faster. You are right that in the beginning, they will not notice it. But after a few campaigns (and their campaigns will go way faster than ours. They don't work, will be able to play 12 to 16 hours for three days in a row in the weekends. That's what I was doing at 13...) Compare this to the old timers like us who plays about 4 hours per week (once or twice) and we're left in the dust man.

As for the hyperbolic instance... When we do the tests, no house rules are allowed. We play as close as the RAW as possible. Sometimes we might be in error, we're not perfect (unfortunately) but we do not take house rules. During our test, the sorcerer performed way better than the wizard.

 

[Vael]

1) You faiped to read the posts so I'll say it once again. Rituals can be obtained with a simple feat: "ritual caster". This line of thought of yours is useless.

• Animate Dead
• Antimagic Field
• Bestow Curse
• Bigby's Hand
• Clone
• Contingency
• Control Weather
• Evard's Black Tentacles
• Fabricate
• Forcecage
• Glyph of Warding
• Grease
• Legend Lore
• Locate Object
• Magic Circle
• Magic Jar
• Melf's Acid Arrow
• Mind Blank
• Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion
• Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum
• Nondetection
• Nystul's Magic Aura
• Otiluke's Resilient Sphere
• Planar Binding
• Prismatic Wall
• Programmed Illusion
• Ray of Enfeeblement
• Remove Curse
• Rope Trick
• Scrying
• Sending
• Shapechange
• Tasha's Hideous Laughter
• Telepathy
• Vampiric Touch
• Wall of Force

These are a selection PHB Wizard spells that are not rituals and not on the Sorcerer's Spell list.

But please, continue to tell me how a Sorcerer with ritual casting has rendered Wizards obsolete.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

So the argument that the wizards can easily have as many spells as the sorcerer can't be taken to the other side? It goes only one way?
Sorry but I don't buy that. It was said that the wizard will have more than 44 spell known, (in fact the whole list) so adding necessary rituals for a sorcerer taking the feat is only fair game in my book. So should it in yours.

I've never claimed that a wizard is guaranteed to have more than 44 spells known, much less their entire list. It is unquantifiable.
Myself and most of the people making similar arguments to me have not been including it because it cannot be assumed (it is completely under the DM's control) and so would be bad form unless already brought up. It would be like comparing classes in a game in which a DM tended to only have a couple of really hard encounters per day rather than the standard adventuring day format.

My argument about the number of spells each class gets was pointing out that the wizard gets so many more spells known compared to the sorceror, that they can already cover what the sorceror can in terms of utility. The wizard can already know most of the sorceror utility spells, plus the ones unique to wizards. They have a better chance to have them ready to use that day (more spells prepared than the sorceror knows + rituals). Even if they cannot cast the required spells that day, it still only takes them overnight to swap to the required loadout, compared to the sorceror taking a day for every spell needing changing.

As I said, if you want to make comparisons using a sorceror with Ritual Caster and a bunch of scrolls with a wizard with a bunch of scrolls, feel free.
But each scroll that you give them makes the wizard more powerful compared to the sorceror because the wizard can make better use out of them.

Thus the comparison that keeps the sorceror in the best position compared to the wizard is the position without giving extra spells. But that position does not allow you to claim that the sorceror just using a feat can do rituals like the wizard can.
Its like saying the wizard can use the two sorcery points from that feat to do metamagic like the sorceror can. - The feat is no substitute for the actual class feature.

 

[Undrave]

Yes! I don't even play wizards often, but when I do, that's what I want to do, and in my experience that's what people generally want when they choose to play the wizard. Similarly, when people choose to play the sorcerer, they specifically don't want to be doing that.

And I think this was a perfectly fine and clear differentiation between these two rather similar arcane caster classes, and this feature destroys that.

People who play Sorcerer because they don't want to deal with the whole prep thing the Wizad can do aren't going to be abusing this new rule. They'll just go "I never use spell X, maybe I should just change it to spell Y" and that'll be it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

People who play Sorcerer because they don't want to deal with the whole prep thing the Wizad can do aren't going to be abusing this new rule. They'll just go "I never use spell X, maybe I should just change it to spell Y" and that'll be it.

Yes, possibly, probably. Though some might feel that they're should use the feature at least somewhat effectively now that they have it and contribute to the party's success as well as they can.

But the thing is sorcerers actually needed a buff. And there was a lot of ways to buff them in a way that made them better at being sorcerers, good at the things for which people wanted to play the class in the first place. More metamagic and more sorcery points would have been obvious solutions. I don't know, it's like buffing rangers by giving them heavy armour proficiency or something. Definitely a buff, but makes them more similar to other classes and goes against why people probably wanted to play the class in the first place.

 

[Mistwell]

Also, maybe the Wizard just needs a feature where they can change their prepared spell list on a short rest? Like, just switch one prepared spell for another a number of times per day equal to proficiency bonus?

Now that is a fine idea right there.

 

[Mistwell]

People who play Sorcerer because they don't want to deal with the whole prep thing the Wizad can do aren't going to be abusing this new rule. They'll just go "I never use spell X, maybe I should just change it to spell Y" and that'll be it.

I can tell you right now the sorcerer suddenly looks a heck of a lot more attractive to me, as a wizard fan, than it did before. The sorc fans might not be into this, but be prepared for a bunch of wizard fans to start playing sorcerers and using them that way.

 

[Helldritch]

Lol, my players already told me they would use the feature ad nauseam when the book gets out. And if I don't buy it, they'll buy it to me as a gift and out veto me into using it.

I am doomed!!!!! But at least I'll get a free book...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That is arguing about an option, you might use or not. I see the Idea behind this feature, and in a game,where you don´t level up that often, helps to remedy wrong choices: sometimes spells don´t work out as you think.
Usually I prefer "speak to your DM" and find a way to change your spell. But as with all options, the DM can find something in between swapping after a long rest and swapping only on level up.

 

[Azzy]

They don't have the majority of the highly situational exploration and plan-enacting spells we're talking about on their spell list.

Neither do sorcerers.

People ARE seeing it.

Take that up with the poster I was responding to—they're the one that used the phsase "people aren't seeing it", hence my response.

There are more of us in this thread, and in other forums around the internet

That's a bold claim.

It's not hyperbole, no matter how many times you declare it is. It's not extreme.

When your argument is hinged upon a worst-case, theoretical situation that is entirely unrealistic, then yes, it is hyperbole. It's like saying that people are going to die from drinking water because drinking too much water can cause hyponatremia.

It is in fact one of the defining characteristics of the wizard class, and people who have played wizards a lot know that right away.

Sorcerers being able to swap one spell per long rest is not in danger of diluting the wizard.

You don't have to listen, but your disdain sure isn't persuading anyone. Particularly your "not how real people actually play D&D" nonsense, which just makes you sound like a snob who thinks his games are the way everyone must play.

Please think of the children before making these kind of claims. I'm a snob because I said that it's "not how real people actually play D&D" in regards to some theoretical player swapping out their entire spellls known after weeks of long rests for the lulz? How dastardly gatekeeping of me.

 

[Mistwell]

Neither do sorcerers.

Yes, they do. Second only to the Wizard, which has that limitation the sorcerers now do not have.

When your argument is hinged upon a worst-case, theoretical situation that is entirely unrealistic, then yes, it is hyperbole. It's like saying that people are going to die from drinking water because drinking too much water can cause hyponatremia.

This is you fiating arguments you don't want to address. You're making a blanket claim that it's unrealstic, with zero support for the claim. It looks like you're trying to substitute emotion for a thoughtful argument. Why is it unrealistic for a sorcerer player to do what wizard players have done since the 1970s in almost every edition of the game? Because...reasons? Where has anyone every made a claim which is comparable to "dying from drinking water"? Nowhere, but maybe if you make bolder and ruder allegations people won't notice it's not a comparable analogy to our arguments?

Sorcerers being able to swap one spell per long rest is not in danger of diluting the wizard.

It is. As a wizard fan, I am looking at a shadow or divine soul sorcerer build right now because of this change. I don't know why you think optimizers will suddenly not optimize with a new rule that is so ripe for abuse, but you look naive and foolish for dismissing it as some corner case when it isn't.

Please think of the children before making these kind of claims. I'm a snob because I said that it's "not how real people actually play D&D"

Yes. Would you prefer elitist? Narrow minded? Inexperienced? Lacking in imagination? Behaving like a jerk to your peers? You tell me, how would you have taken to that kind of comment directed at you when you were being sincere?

 

[Hohige]

And a Wizard can have Subtle Spell with the Metamagic feat that was in that recent UA...

UA is not official yet. Incredible as it may seem, the most benefited from this feat is the sorcerer himself. I hope it is not published, because that is Broken.
A sorcerer with Spell Versatility and metamagic adept feat is really versatile and broken.

 

[Mistwell]

UA is not official yet. Incredible as it may seem, the most benefited from this feat is the sorcerer himself. I hope it is not published, because that is Broken.
A sorcerer with Spell Versatility and metamagic adept feat is really versatile and broken.

I must be missing something. Isn't it just 2 extra sorc points?

 

[Azzy]

And yet here we are with the wizard. ZERO people have listed their actual spells known without obtaining magic items (scrolls and spell books from foes). All the conversation revolves around an assumption they have more than their actual spells known as listed in the Player's Handbook.

O RLY?

Though that failed to consider a wizard's Arcane Recovery and the sorcerer's Flexible Casting.

 

[Hohige]

I must be missing something. Isn't it just 2 extra sorc points?

And extra 2 metamagic choices...its insane.

 

[Weiley31]

Martial and Spell Versatility are completely optional. And there is still nothing wrong with Martial and Spell Versatility.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

And extra 2 metamagic choices...its insane.

So, of the 25-odd spells that a sorceror will be casting each day, they get to quicken an extra one? Or twin it if its 2nd level?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And extra 2 metamagic choices...its insane.

Is it though? They should have just given sorcerers that as a free boost instead of this versatility crap.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Martial and Spell Versatility are completely optional. And there is still nothing wrong with Martial and Spell Versatility.

Martial Versatility is perfectly fine.

And Spell Versatility would be OK if only the Ranger got it (though making the Ranger a prepared caster would've been better still).