D&D (2024) Playing with Subclasses: how flexible is subclass design in the playtest so far?

[Neonchameleon]

Look at AD&D. No problems listing spells more than once... and then having them at different levels and with slightly different effects...

Exactly. Look at AD&D...

Maybe organize by level and school then?

I do not, in play, want to give a damn about what school is 90% of the time. It is just an abstract tag with no direct effect on play. It makes more sense to organise spells by saving throw than it does to organise them by school. Because my game is made meaningfully better if I can remember which saving throws are used for the given spell, but schools are of interest in play only to the subclass that specialises in that school - and in general the only class that cares in the slightest about spell schools is the wizard.

Seriously the less I have to memorize to play the game the better, and in order to be able to look up spells the assumption should be that I do not already know what they say.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Exactly. Look at AD&D...

I do not, in play, want to give a damn about what school is 90% of the time. It is just an abstract tag with no direct effect on play. It makes more sense to organise spells by saving throw than it does to organise them by school. Because my game is made meaningfully better if I can remember which saving throws are used for the given spell, but schools are of interest in play only to the subclass that specialises in that school - and in general the only class that cares in the slightest about spell schools is the wizard.

Seriously the less I have to memorize to play the game the better, and in order to be able to look up spells the assumption should be that I do not already know what they say.

I see the problems. But I have a soft spot in my heart for AD&D and the organization by name rubs me the wrong way for 23 years now.

I would not mind cass spell lists. But I do like overaching spell lists more. Although I would love more creativity. See bard and primal + arcane.

I also liked cleric spell organization by spheres.
LevelUP has minor schools (fire, ice, etc) also a good idea. But there you see the problem you speak of. Nowere is the fire school listed in its entirety. I see that as a problem too.

What Jeremy Crawford already told us is, that organizing by schools does not prevent them from also printing a class spell list that summarizes all available spells.

 

[Neonchameleon]

What Jeremy Crawford already told us is, that organizing by schools does not prevent them from also printing a class spell list that summarizes all available spells.

So what Jeremy Crawford is telling us is that there's no actual design benefit to almost entirely shared spell lists.

If Crawford were working on a "core and supplementary" model I might have some time for it. For example about 75 core arcane spells shared by all wizards, warlocks, bards, sorcerers, and artificers would be fine. But some spells (e.g. smites) should be kept within the paladin domain. Or the bard domain (bards absolutely should be able to cast heroism but there's no reason wizards should).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

So what Jeremy Crawford is telling us is that there's no actual design benefit to almost entirely shared spell lists.

If Crawford were working on a "core and supplementary" model I might have some time for it. For example about 75 core arcane spells shared by all wizards, warlocks, bards, sorcerers, and artificers would be fine. But some spells (e.g. smites) should be kept within the paladin domain. Or the bard domain (bards absolutely should be able to cast heroism but there's no reason wizards should).

There is a design benefit. It is future proofing. You seem to disagree, that is fine. I could see spells outside general lists. Today I wondered how I would handle smite spells to be honest. Making smite spells paladin features also seems wrong, so a PHB class based list might work. So having wizard (arcane), cleric (divine) and druid (primal) as the core lists and then having small class specific lists you could refer to could work.

So later classes could just refer to paladin lists or introduce a new one and later classes can also refer it. Only thing you need to make sure is that all new spells also get added to one of the base spellcasters at least.

The bard could still have access to certain schools from wizard and druid lists.
Yeah. Difficult. There seems no right way to do it. I see advantages in all approaches.

 

[Neonchameleon]

There is a design benefit. It is future proofing. You seem to disagree, that is fine.

It does not future proof anything at all. It merely makes doing some things in the future very slightly easier - while making things significantly worse in the here and now. This is not an investment. It is simply sheer laziness with the excuse that if we don't do more than paint an undercoat here and now it will make things easier to redecorate if we want to do so later. And if we put out half-assed spell lists now then anything else we do that's half-assed will not look as bad by comparison.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It does not future proof anything at all. It merely makes doing some things in the future very slightly easier - while making things significantly worse in the here and now. This is not an investment. It is simply sheer laziness with the excuse that if we don't do more than paint an undercoat here and now it will make things easier to redecorate if we want to do so later. And if we put out half-assed spell lists now then anything else we do that's half-assed will not look as bad by comparison.

This is your opinion. I have a different one. I don't attribute laziness to things I don't like or want to understand.

 

[Neonchameleon]

This is your opinion. I have a different one. I don't attribute laziness to things I don't like or want to understand.

I don't attribute laziness to things I don't understand. I attribute laziness to things that clearly and obviously make the current situation worse, make the current situation easier, and for which the excuse is that they will make the future situation easier. In other words I attribute it to laziness because I understand it because I have listened to the justifications and because I have looked into the consequences.

Now it's possible that it isn't laziness but bait. Seeing how much people actually care. But that's not in line with the excuses offered for an obviously poor set of design choices that undermine existing classes.

The other thing I don't do is assume that because I don't understand the downsides of something that it means that the designers are automatically doing something sensible.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I don't attribute laziness to things I don't understand. I attribute laziness to things that clearly and obviously make the current situation worse, make the current situation easier, and for which the excuse is that they will make the future situation easier. In other words I attribute it to laziness because I understand it because I have listened to the justifications and because I have looked into the consequences.

Now it's possible that it isn't laziness but bait. Seeing how much people actually care. But that's not in line with the excuses offered for an obviously poor set of design choices that undermine existing classes.

The other thing I don't do is assume that because I don't understand the downsides of something that it means that the designers are automatically doing something sensible.

I don't think that adressing laziness has any value. Lazy would be not trying out other designs and leaving things as they are.
Trying to consolidate rules is not lazy but ambitious.

I have seen people call design lazy often enough, to weaken the position of people argumenting for the design. It is not targeting the thing but the designers. Which is in my opinion against forum rules.

As you can read in my posts, I do see problems with that approach too.
But I think it is too early to throw it all away, because I like the idea behind it.
And I don't atteibute laziness to anyone, because I generally assume that there are underlying reasons.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't think that adressing laziness has any value. Lazy would be not trying out other designs and leaving things as they are.
Trying to consolidate rules is not lazy but ambitious.

On the other hand variety on the menu is precisely why a class system works. Even you must admit that this makes classes more similar.

As you can read in my posts, I do see problems with that approach too.
But I think it is too early to throw it all away, because I like the idea behind it.

On the other hand the implementation is obviously bad. And you suggested the approach of organizing the spells by school.

And I don't atteibute laziness to anyone, because I generally assume that there are underlying reasons.

They have said what the underlying reasons are. That it will make something that they might (or might not) do in the future very slightly easier. If Crawford hadn't said that it was to save effort in the future I would just have attributed it to a misguided desire for consistency. Crawford has, however, attributed his decision that clearly and obviously makes characters less interesting and thematic to the desire to make things easier.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

On the other hand variety on the menu is precisely why a class system works. Even you must admit that this makes classes more similar.

Emphasis mine.
I don't like the tone here. It might be that I read more into it than what was intended.
I think however that I made my stance clear and I am not willing to admit anything else.