I guess I am just not getting your point (one of the many pitfalls of online communication!). How are the half-casters more samey than before? Unless you mean that by they fact they are getting access to more spells than they had before?
Ok, I see where you are going now. Thanks!
Damn that’s quite an expansion.I finished cantrips, first second & third level spells but not sure anyone is interested in adding new spells instead of just rearranging the existing deck chairs
I like the old arcane/divine split because it plays into so much other fluff better than $class Spell, so I'm going to use arcane divine & primal
arcane cantrips
Primal Cantrips
- Spellglobe Robe of patches, deck of many, so many other things dealing with arcane fit this motif and it explains why that pinch of dried flower & fernian dust for spells is not ruined when the party shipwrecks & washes up on shore. It also plays in with the "I've got a ritual for that" aspect of wizard's & some warlocks with their spellbook but with items.
- pen magically take a pot of ink & start writing?... this is deeply arcane
- Temporal Beat This neatly solves the tug of war over misty step, it felt more arcane by mucking with timeline manipulation magic though. That and I don't remember what was on the other side of the tug of war
- Action Image There's no question that this is arcane, also it can fit with lots of shady stuff that fits under AT/Bard/Etc.
- Dress/Undress You could say this belongs under bard, but if you look at wildshape mechanics this is just a cantrip level component of wildshape's ability to equip theselves as desired when they shift & revert form
- Hairstyle Might fit under bards, but it also explains why the lady of the forest has beautiful hair & fits with the dress/undress but for hair
- Lion's Maw Bite someone & deal some d8's? this is absolutely fitting under the primal tendwhere druid lay their head
Divine Cantrips
Arcane First Level
- Sweet Dreams The cleric blesses the worried refugees at night to soothe their soul & they sleep happily through the night without reliving the nightmares of the carnage they fled from!
- Mirror This was tough because thematically it fits arcane magic well, but mechanically the effect is to make someone else awesome & I wanted to include something to prevent healbotism being enforced.
Primal First Level
- Ironbinds Fits well with arcane tropes with it conjuring chains to bash & restrain someone
- Aerosphere A more interesting Chromatic orb that has some duration, definitely arcane
- Boomerang Sigil Two chances to connect with this works well for arcane types who aren't likely to have the kind of melee/ranged fallback options that primal & divine classes have.
- Snapstar Pretty much a flashbang that has con save or blind & some radiant damage, seems to fit well with acane casters.
Divine First Level
- Chips & salsa Yea it's a bit whimsical in tone, but it fits great with the trope of fey food & fey tended fruit being an irresistible thing that comes at a price.
- Belmont Smite Obviously the name is a bit problematic, but it fits well with the in your face stuff loading up in here.
- Mark the Spot Kinda fits well with the fey-type mind manipulation.
- Enchanting Gaze channel an aura into your eyes to incapacitate someone fits well with how divine casters keep the party up, there's nothing more demoralizing than knowing you & your buds can go all out & this caster could simply erase your work. Plus it meshes well with the make others awesome functionality of Mirror
- Doubleblade Sure this could be self target, but this nicely fits with the ake others awesome role I'm rolling with here so far.
- Medusa's Glare, This one hasn't been posted to reddit yet but swrdmeow said it was probably a mistake he'd fix later. Glare at a creature & it's petrified till the end of your next turn & it turns to stone if killed in that state. Fits well with making others awesome too.
- Pool of Fate lay out 5d6 & your allies can take a d6 on their attacks to help, continues thatmake others awesome theme & the "creatures you choose within range" gives the cleric who doesn't want to be a healbot from stupidity to withhold them from leroy jenkins when he charges in after being told no.
Arcane second Level
Primal second Level
- Transposition At first glance this might seem like a fit for the fey aspects of primal, but you can transpose creatures and objects, Move that rock in front of your squishy friend where the mageslayer barbarian is standing & tada the barbarian is destroying the exposed bbeg next round.
- Underside Second level spells aren't something to be careless bout on a whim as early as first it's not getting used "just because" but this is something that can really involve the arcane types in scouting and exploration in ways other than just waiting behind without stepping on toes & primal/divine already has a lot of ways to do so or exert serious leverage over it.
- Weapon's Kairos Divine types (often) have heavy armor, Primal have misty step, arcane types have blur & temporal beat, now they have this too. I would improve it by making it ritual next attack in # hours though as it short circuits some of the "well obvious arcane casters are always soft targets" while playing into their preparedness tropes
- Electric Nails While this fits with the make others awesome theme for divine types, they already have a lot going there & this is definitely more fitting with an artificer style infusion handed over than the more direct & short range enhancement type things of divines.
- Dark SphereLow powered necrotic fireball that keeps with the odd lack of ranged aoe's before fireball
- What's yours is mine
- What's mine is yours Both of these fit nicely with the idea of arcane casters being masters of manipulating the fine details of "magic" rather than just masters of arcane magic & unable to even grasp the fundamentals of other types
- Hide or reveal Entrance This fits with the kind of sneaky stuff you might stereotypically expect to see in a mad wizard's sanctum of power, change it to be ritual & you also improve the state of things there
- Freezing Feet I like things that force the battle to move sometimes & the method does a great job of fitting the arcane blasting theme while playing into the more ends justify means associated with black magic to impose restrained condition on a target who doesn't move
- Bareilles Armor I was torn on this one because it feels like it might be OP for heavy armor divine types who already have paladin's +cha to saves plus healing & such. it notablyconflicts with barkskin(which is a crap spell in 5e & should be changed) but the save bonus & better as you need it more aspects seems to fit well with the kind of magical manipulation arcane casters have going un fluff & spells ike yours is mine/mine is yours.
Divine Second Level
- Healing Smite Divine has cure wounds, beating the life into someone seems good
- nock nock I think this does not fit arcane because arcane should be more magical but it's a nice fitting twist for rangers & druids in need of a DD nuke with an interesting twist that makes it not just "scorching ray but nature".
- Voidhands Fits with the force multiplier make others awesome even if the flavor is maybe wrong
third level arcane spells
- Sunlight Strike Primal has daylight already & divine classes are known for using weapons so this fits well & gives them a unique way to invoke the sun's light.
- Fist of Justice a smitelike punch/slap that includes a knockback to let the party's healer/force multiplier make some space if someone is in their face. Plus justice fits with divine
third level primal spells
- Load the Smoking Gun I don't really like the "smoking gun" name since there are worlds where they don't exist & worlds where they wouldn't exist because of the role of magic... but this fits nicely with the kind of visibly charging up massive amounts of power into a spell & fits the ranged aoe inclusions already present. Plus it's not fire... tbh I hate the way fire dominates spells.
- Monkey See Plunder someone's mind for a spell & swap it into your spells known or scribe to spellbook fits nowhere else.
- Steps of a tower It's not especially powerful, but this sort of latent scrying fits perfectly with arcane types keeping an eye on things while away. The fact that it's ritual also does a nice job of adding to the poor selection of ritual spells in general.
- Freeze sort of a mix of to the divine caster's medusa's glare & arcane caster's Freezing Feet , but all those saves so I decided to go with the elemental.
- Bind No question this is an arcane spell & has the added benefit of giving the wizard a useful little niche ritual spell for a situation gm's always need to improvise on with skill checks. now a wizard can be front & center proactively ritual casting this even if just in case.
- Urie's Warped Space an improved & longer lasting spin on transposition, this is great for warping reality to help the group rather than just dealing damage & it seems like primal/divine got a lot of nukes this level
- Cosmic Vision I like this for arcane casters because it lines up well with the fantastically complex Draconic Prophecy from eberron that predicts.... everything... dragons spend their entire lives trying to understand one little piece of it only to figure it out just as it's about to happen at the end of their lives & getting a glimpse of that kind of thing is sure to break the minds of anyone unprepared while it's exactly the kind of thing an arcane caster would attempt to deliberately gaze into.
- Eyes of Life Have you ever wondered why arcane casters live so long? How else are they to calculate their theories undisturbed by the hassles of being a living breathing creature! Make it ritual & it just becomes an interesting if bizarre niche. It also means that you can't trust you are alone just because it's only you & the statues.
- Disenchant A limited version of mage's disjunction isn't going to be making any friends, but you never know, sometimes an item is just too awful.
- Double Lightning Helix Interesting take on lightningbolt shifting it from a line to a cone & much underused con save
third level divine spells
- Implant Phobia This goes nicely with the fey stuff that @TwoSix suggested here & helps involve the druid types in subtle ways when in places that might not really have much of anything in the toolbox beyond awkwardly being the party's third wheel in settings like FR where druids are tree hugging hermits & nothing else.
- Stunning Stomp While it might conflict with thunderstep, it also gives a different option for primal types where one might value step's ability to teleport away while another might prefer the utility of damage+maybe stun.
- Primal Might Kind of a druidic themed version of Bareilles Armor that fits nicely under primal
- Grappleground make the earty rise up against foes & grapple/damage them fits in with the nature aspects of primal magic.
- Cold Iron Strike This fits nicely with fey both the name & teleporting, it also uses a weapon so fits nice for rangers & such but an argument could be made for arcane too I'm sure since it does cold damage.
- snakemake In some ways this is a mix of find familiar & conjure animals with a neat vampiric component where the caster is healed for half of the damage it does. it could go arcane, but really this feels more like i leans into the darker blue & orange morality side of druidic sects though & the ambiguity even fits well with how at least one sect was taught by a dragon & may have learned to mix druidic/draconic/arcane magic
- Lesser Consumption Again this fits great with both primal magic as well
- Bow of the Huntress This fits exceptionally well under primal on many levels . I wanted to include it on arcane instead for the artificer-ish feel but decided here was better thinking it would get more use
- Avalanche An interesting druidic themed aoe with potential stun the shaking of the earth feels like it should go here more than divine & arcane doesn't really feel right either
- Royal Death Decree You could even make this ritual for an interesting twist. Fey have royalty.
- Entomb This was a tough one but in the end I decided that the ability to protect allies like that & religious ties to burials beat out the traditional arcane necromantic ties
- Saving Hand Not only is this a nice improvement on healing word, but it also lends weight to the divine caster/force multiplier's claim to shepherd & have their guidance be given significant weight among the party because it heals someone, stands them up in needed, & blasts the mob of baddies away some so escape is possible.
- Rose Gate This unquestionably fits into the force multiplier theme for divine casters.
- Heavenly Prayer Drop prone & pray for pretty much everything people pray for & call in some heavenly being to give you a bit of a blessing goes here no questions
- Occult Truths and Lies This fits nice with the force multiplier thing going on with divine so far.
- Vampiric allies This also fits nice with the force multiplier thing but in different ways.
- Prehistoric Hail Fits well with the force multiplier aspect but an argument could be made for arcanebecause it's pulling it from the past...
Third level spells I'm not sure where to stick
- Spiteful Swing not really sure, perhaps because it's an oddballbut maybe the fey reap what you sow aspects lean towards primal?
- Liliander's Hellspear A pierce/fire dd+10' pbaoe. I feel like divine is good for it because the spear is a little too prominent and divine could use a few more damage type options... But either could work.
- Beacon for the deluded I have no idea where to put this.
To my mind, the argument I drew from the OP in the original thread was about making magic distinct, and not having it be a catch-all system that would hold any supernatural or preternatural ability a class might use.
Out of curiosity, because it's a really compelling method, are you making each class a full caster, or are some high-level spells simply unavailable?
If I tried this, I would probably make each class a full caster and not allow any caster MC combinations (so no Paladin/Sorcerer, etc.).
Hmm. My gut feeling is that would be OK mechanically, but I can see wanting to restrict it thematically. You're giving each class a much stronger narrative presence in the setting.
See, this is a question I had in the back of my mind: would it break anything to allow all caster to access all spells from the book(s)? Does the casting class themselves are thematically and mechanically different enough that not differentiating them with spell lists would confuse things up? (lets say we changed cleric, paladin and druid to known spells for paladin and known/prepared for cleric and druid to prevent them having to chose from the whole list every day).
So, here’s my thing. I think the Artificer shoulda been a full caster, but I’m probably down with a half-caster Bard. Sorcerer and warlock, though...just feels completely wrong.
That might be really fun, though there is a danger that it would make the game more satisfying to read, but less fun to play. Would require testing to know tbh. Which ain’t a bad thing.This is what I am actually in preference of now, but really changes the dynamics for the established classes. It would be fun to try I think.
Otherwise, yes it was mostly about symmetry and finding a home for each class.
I don't think it would break anything (although I'm of the mind that 5e is actually pretty hard to "break".) It might cause some spell homogenization (everyone picks the strongest spells), but it might also allow some more variety within the class (if the other casters can handle casting the spell only my class used to get, now I can get something else).
Dont forget your ''song'' spells for the bard
