D&D 5E New class options in Tasha

[Crimson Longinus]

I would imagine because the number of "situation specific but encounter winning" spells in 5e is vanishingly small. This isn't 3e.

There thankfully is less than in 3E, but I wouldn't say that there is 'vanishingly small' amount. And of course that depends a lot of player ingenuity. But an easy access to a ton of utility spells, movement spells, teleportation spells, Illusions and charms, communication and information gathering spells is a pretty big deal.

 

[Aldarc]

It means after a nap sorcerer can has access to any spell they could theoretically have. This makes them significantly better magic-based problem solver than the wizard, whose thing this used to be. To me this seems like a colossal shift. Going from having access to handful of spells to, what, over a hundred? I have super hard time understanding how people can't see what a massive change that is.

Maybe if the problem can be solved over the course of a nap.

 

[Helldritch]

The big issue as I see it in this respect is access.

A wizard has access to 6 spells to begin with from 36 (or so) first level spells. And in the end game has access to 44 spells (or more, but DM fiat as to how, when, and what you find--after you pay to add them to your spell book) of the roughly 300 spells.

A sorcerer (now) has access to 2 spells of the 24 (or so) first level spells. But, within 2 days, they can pick ANY of them. In the end game, they have 15 spells of the 185-ish spells they can cast. At no cost, and within roughly two weeks they can replace them ALL.

Wizards are limited by what they have in their spell book at any time. And GODS forbid they lose it, it gets stolen, or destroyed! Yikes, that will cost a lot of gold to replace and now their learned spells are just the ones they have prepared--the rest are lost.

Personally, I am not opposed to the idea, except how quickly it can be done. It should be (IMO) a downtime rule, maybe a workweek to swap out a spell or something simple. shrug

And I fully agree with you. As I said, I am mainly (exclusively) a DM. Whenever a new rule, a class, subclass or whatever us officially proposed, I immediately go and check how my players will abuse it. And my players even help me out as they find it fun to see up to where it can go.

Without even working the on how to abuse that rule they immediately saw all the trouble with this rule. Then we went about abusing it. All tests, we did only four, showed that the sorcerer was more versatile than the wizard and when one player suggested to take the ritual caster feat... no need of a wizard anymore.

And again, all solutions presented so far rely on DM's Fiat. So this official rule is to correct a DM's fiat (too slow leveling). If this fiat was corrected with the expected play, we would not have this rule in the first place and a better more appropriate correction would have been found for the sorcerer. This rule seems to be a big improvisation where the repercussions have not been thought through.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Until Xanathars it was very very hard to have a sorcerer that did anything else.


They didn't have to do anything, the wizard/mage/mu was always a magic bookworm. WotC just gave us an option to not play as one if you wanted a spellcaster. And now they are just finally getting that nothing in the wizard/mage/mu was ever generic. A huge part of the community has yet to come to terms with that fact. This is half the reason they have a hard time coming with new subclasses for wizard. there's only so many variants of "magic bookworm" they can come with. The other half, is that wizard is a pretty strong class, there's not much room to give them new mechanics without overpowering them or having to admit they dropped the ball with the sorcerer.

Druid and paladin are pretty strong classes. No one seems to have trouble giving them new mechanics.

 

[TwoSix]

There thankfully is less than in 3E, but I wouldn't say that there is 'vanishingly small' amount. And of course that depends a lot of player ingenuity. But an easy access to a ton of utility spells, movement spells, teleportation spells, Illusions and charms, communication and information gathering spells is a pretty big deal.

I guess I just don't see it, which is why I feel it might be campaign specific. I think the more sandbox-y game your game and the more downtime that's built into the game structure, the more this option will appeal to you.

 

[Dausuul]

So, if a wizard's defining strength is versatility of spell selection, how come the cleric and druid haven't already eaten the wizard's lunch? The divine casters can swap out their entire spell selection, every day, for any spell on their list. No spellbook, no spells known, no nothing. What good is a wizard in a world with clerics?

The answer, of course, is that the cleric and druid are limited by their spell lists, which offer far less flexibility than the wizard list. And the same is true for sorcerers. The sorcerer spell list is a pale shadow of the wizard's.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So this official rule is to correct a DM's fiat (too slow leveling). If this fiat was corrected with the expected play, we would not have this rule in the first place and a better more appropriate correction would have been found for the sorcerer. This rule seems to be a big improvisation where the repercussions have not been thought through.

Yep. This is like making a game rule of giving everyone advantage on attack rolls because some groups like to add +5 to ACs across the board.

The only groups who should even remotely consider adopting Spell Versatility are the ones who enjoy playing with slow advancement and find the need to swap out spells more frequently than once per level.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Druid and paladin are pretty strong classes. No one seems to have trouble giving them new mechanics.

What new mechanics? Cantrip Versatility? pfft whatever to that...

Otherwise they aren't really getting anything crazy.

 

[Dausuul]

Yep. This is like making a game rule of giving everyone advantage on attack rolls because some groups like to add +5 to ACs across the board.

Except for the part where it's not remotely like that.

I thought Flamestrike was being hyperbolic when saying this thread had more hyperbole than any thread in the history of the Internet, but it's starting to look like quiet understatement.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So, if a wizard's defining strength is versatility of spell selection, how come the cleric and druid haven't already eaten the wizard's lunch? The divine casters can swap out their entire spell selection, every day, for any spell on their list. No spellbook, no spells known, no nothing. What good is a wizard in a world with clerics?

A vast selection of different types of spells.

The answer, of course, is that the cleric and druid are limited by their spell lists, which offer far less flexibility than the wizard list. And the same is true for sorcerers. The sorcerer spell list is a pale shadow of the wizard's.

Yep, but sorcerers have metamagic. That is the balancing factor for their lack of spell selection (which, by FAR, is second ONLY to wizards...) Here is the breakdown:

So, in order of size of spell list:

Wizard - 295
Sorcerer - 185
Druid - 149
Bard - 132
Warlock - 114
Cleric - 113
Ranger - 55
Paladin - 48

So, the argument that Sorcerer's have a short spell list is crap. Sure, they have few known spells, but again the balance is metamagic. And the game already allows them to swap out bad spell choices when they level.