D&D 5E New D&D WotC survey! On classes.

[guachi]

The level of detail on this survey is bordering on something people should be paid for. It's practically a consultation.

I left the tab open on my screen and completed it over three days a little bit at a time. I can't imagine doing it at one sitting but maybe they figured that people would only say "yes, I've played that class/subclass" to only a few choices.

 

[Aldarc]

It seems to me the most effective way to organize spells is thematically. When players create character concepts and DMs create worlds, themes are the most salient consideration.

Many mage concepts do well to focus on two themes simultaneously, such as making cantrips and the highest spells available cohere to these two themes.

It's statements like this as well as your whole "four attributes" schtick that cause @TwoSix and I to repeatedly recommend Shadow of the Demon Lord to you.

 

[Yaarel]

It statements like this as well as your whole "four attributes" schtick that cause @TwoSix and I to repeatedly recommend Shadow of the Demon Lord to you.

I like Schwalb. Excellent designer.

I am hoping his new setting, Weird Wizard, will be lighter and more heroic mood. If so, I can use it for various settings. I will check it out when it arrives.



At the same time, D&D continues to evolve. Problematic aspects continue to update.

In earlier D&D, the Wizard was the "magic user". But today, there are various kinds of fullcasters. It is interesting to see how the Wizard fits in today in terms of thematic specialization.

 

[Mind of tempest]

If ones argument for a Necromancer being a full caster (or anything really) is "tradition" usually coined in the terms of that's how D&D has always done it, you are on a sinking ship. Past methods do not necessitate future methods and past methods are not always the best methods by virtue of being past methods. The Necromancer has enough theme and design room to make a full class, it has enough player and DM attraction to be worth the effort so I believe a separate and not necessarily a full caster Necromancer being something worth investigating.

To expand upon the above I believe "Tradition" all too often is used as argument for things existing as they are, existing at all or not existing. This stagnation can be harmful to the game. Please keep in mind I am not advocating change for change sake but if "Tradition" is the main defence and their are better ways let's feast on Hamburgers with sacred cow.

it is more I have never heard of necromancer as a half caster as what would the other half be?
when it can wield other weapons it can normally be put down to how magic works in setting or is something that is so minor to it that a feat would do the job just as well.

Yeah, the inconsistencies of the schools causes future mechanics that depend on them to convolute as well.



It seems to me the most effective way to organize spells is thematically. When players create character concepts and DMs create worlds, themes are the most salient consideration.

Many mage concepts do well to focus on two themes simultaneously, such as making cantrips and the highest spells available cohere to these two themes.



Re healing. Having organized every official spell for my own use, I find it most useful to treat healing as its own spell theme.

The "purpose" of healing is Abjuration, being part of protective defensive magic, generally. Abjuration is a decent keyword tag, even when organizing by theme.

The purposes look something like the following:

Offense / Defense
Mobility / Barrier
Detection / Stealth

And I consider summoning allies, pets, companions a seventh spell purpose.

But themes are something different. A spell of a specific theme might fulfill any of the above purposes.

There are different methods of healing: positive energy, shapeshifting, and morale. Each of these is a different theme: planar, body, and mind. While I treat the life energy of healing as its own theme, it pairs well with any of these three.

I see necromancy as a theme that focuses on death and undeath. I dont see it as relating to life (healing) per se. That said, a mage that focused on both life and death for the two main themes, could choose healing and necromancy for the central concepts.

depends on the thematics as some are so hyper specialised that the whole game would have to be rebuilt to make the useable like a pyromancer other or so broad to be just magic which is so general it is a class, not a subclass.
also for some of them, they would have to go back to scratch and that means they will eat up all the time in the world making wizards awesome again.

 

[Garthanos]

The Artificer class is awesome for a "New Age" crystal psionic, that treats the crystals as an external psionic technology. (It would merge with the UA "iphone" Artificer, if I recall correctly, the Archivist. They synthesize well, with the crystal magic being more fantasyflavor, and the iphone being a better conceptual mechanic.)

I think artificer I think clockwork devices like even early on davinci gliders and robotics and even later things like mechanical birds and such inspired by the Elric Saga.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

What portrayals?

Is this a joke? I listed some upthread, and if you can't come up with a bunch yourself it seems like a weird thing to argue with. Are you looking for me to provide you with a comprehensive list of necromancer portrayals lol? I probably can.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That is very much debatable.

It absolutely is not. There's no possible argument that you need Full Caster to do a necromancer. None. You haven't presented anything that remotely supports that claim. You've suggested a design that you think works that way - but given how incredibly terrible Wizard necromancers are with similar mechanics I'm super-skeptical that we'd see an improvement moving them to Sorcerer. Even if we take everything you've said as correct, that's merely presenting a viable option, not ruling out the possibility of a half-caster, warlock-style (or even non-caster) necromancer class.

The necromantic metamagic thing is a cute idea but a bit odd because it's perverse - the necromancer would eventually run out of spell points and have to stop being a necromancer lol. If anything it should be the other way around.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Is this a joke? I listed some upthread, and if you can't come up with a bunch yourself it seems like a weird thing to argue with. Are you looking for me to provide you with a comprehensive list of necromancer portrayals lol? I probably can.

I want to know what portrayals lead you to believe a necromancer not being a full time magician?

We cannot just compare things directly in fiction, we must also compare them to how things are presented in D&D. In D&D there tends to be much more magic than in a lot of other fiction and magicians tend to be very powerful. Someone who is not a full caster is not a proper magician in D&D, they're a dabbler, even though their spells might be impressive compared to Gandalf.

Your half-caster necromancer would literally be unable to learn create undead, which is a sixth level spell!

 

[Aldarc]

This conversation seems to validate the idea that players are better at spotting when things are wrong or off-putting about design (i.e., the Necromancer) than they are with actually fixing the design problem.

 

[Eubani]

There would be several ways to skin the Necromancer cat:

• Full caster with it's own spell list
• Half caster and renewable raising abilities
• Ritual caster that raises dead ahead of time when accessing a battlefield or grave yard.
• I saw an anime called Fate Apocrapha that had a Necromancer that was based of what D&D would call an Artificer.
• One of the Diablo series of games had a Gish type as a Necomancer who would fight and buff himself with Necromanting Buffs and some attack spelss and support himself with summons.
• Another Gish used undead grafts and a secondary in spells.

There are many ways to do Necromancers once you look past D&D's self referentialism