D&D (2024) Should sorcerers and warlocks get their spell list from their subclass?

[Frozen_Heart]

I'm willing to bet that this new system (power source + school) is not going to make it into the final product. It's probably a quick-and-dirty way of generating customized class lists for the playtest.

I like the theory of the new system. In practice it's not working with just 3 power sources. Bards lose half their iconic spells, while gaining tons of wizard spells they shouldn't have.

And then they need a quick and dirty patch as a class feature to enable their healing spells again.

Need an occult spell list for bards.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm hoping we see "specialization" as a core wizard feature, so they're not just "Domains, but for Wizards", where you pick a school to specialize in and get a couple of perks, and then have the subclasses not be about the schools - Bladesinger, Scribes, War Mage, etc. Maybe some subclasses might require access or specialization in a particular school - i.e., Enchantment or Abjuration of Bladesinger, Evokation for War Mage.

I mean that'd be good, but I think people will riot if they get rid of Diviner entirely. Maybe they could have a more bulked-up version of it with an entirely different name though.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I like the theory of the new system. In practice it's not working with just 3 power sources. Bards lose half their iconic spells, while gaining tons of wizard spells they shouldn't have.

It's really a Rolemaster-y kind of approach, but it sorta-kinda works in Rolemaster because there are like 140 classes (apparently - I thought there were more like 40 but now apparently they just kept adding them), and a thus them having a bunch of spell lists which various classes share makes sense.

Whereas with 3 vs only 12 classes, I get where they're coming from, but it is quite a thing. The majority of classes don't really match the lists all that well.

 

[Mephista]

It's really a Rolemaster-y kind of approach, but it sorta-kinda works in Rolemaster because there are like 140 classes (apparently - I thought there were more like 40 but now apparently they just kept adding them), and a thus them having a bunch of spell lists which various classes share makes sense.

Whereas with 3 vs only 12 classes, I get where they're coming from, but it is quite a thing. The majority of classes don't really match the lists all that well.

To be absolutely fair, paladin and cleric do match really well, as do druid and ranger. Sorcerers once shared the wizard list in its entirty, and warlocks, well, other than their unique spells, really are a wizard subset with little from elsewhere. Bard really is the odd one out here.

 

[Dausuul]

I like the theory of the new system. In practice it's not working with just 3 power sources. Bards lose half their iconic spells, while gaining tons of wizard spells they shouldn't have.

Even in theory, it's much more fiddly than it needs to be. Have you tried actually building a character with it? It's a real pain to go down the list of Arcane spells cross-checking each one's school to be sure it's kosher for bards. If they do actually stick with this system, I'm quite sure they will "multiply it out" to generate spell lists by class.

I wouldn't mind an overhaul of the spell classification system, but the first step toward such an overhaul should be to junk the traditional eight schools. The problem with the schools is that they're defined as "spells that do X," which means they assume every spell in D&D does exactly one of those eight things. And that just ain't so. Look at healing magic. It was necromancy in AD&D, conjuration in 3E, evocation in 5E, and now apparently it's going to be abjuration? It's patently obvious that it doesn't belong in any of the eight, but every spell has to go somewhere, so it gets jammed in wherever the designer of the moment thinks it fits.

It's fine to preserve the traditional eight as wizard specialties, but the spells themselves should be categorized in an open-ended way which can accommodate the immense variety of spell effects in D&D.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Look at healing magic. It was necromancy in AD&D, conjuration in 3E, evocation in 5E, and now apparently it's going to be abjuration? It's patently obvious that it doesn't belong in any of the eight, but every spell has to go somewhere, so it gets jammed in wherever the designer of the moment thinks it fits.

If we aren't giving cure wounds or healing word to wizards (and no I don't think we should) then those don't need schools I would say giving wizard spells key words called schools is fine, but don't pigeon hole every spell in the game that way.

It's fine to preserve the traditional eight as wizard specialties, but the spells themselves should be categorized in an open-ended way which can accommodate the immense variety of spell effects in D&D.

exactly

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Even in theory, it's much more fiddly than it needs to be. Have you tried actually building a character with it? It's a real pain to go down the list of Arcane spells cross-checking each one's school to be sure it's kosher for bards. If they do actually stick with this system, I'm quite sure they will "multiply it out" to generate spell lists by class.

I wouldn't mind an overhaul of the spell classification system, but the first step toward such an overhaul should be to junk the traditional eight schools. The problem with the schools is that they're defined as "spells that do X," which means they assume every spell in D&D does exactly one of those eight things. And that just ain't so. Look at healing magic. It was necromancy in AD&D, conjuration in 3E, evocation in 5E, and now apparently it's going to be abjuration? It's patently obvious that it doesn't belong in any of the eight, but every spell has to go somewhere, so it gets jammed in wherever the designer of the moment thinks it fits.

It's fine to preserve the traditional eight as wizard specialties, but the spells themselves should be categorized in an open-ended way which can accommodate the immense variety of spell effects in D&D.

To be fair, I cheat a bit and use DnD beyond. Just set filters to the spell schools and done. But yeah anyone not using it has to go through manually.

 

[cbwjm]

It's doesn't take that much more effort to check which school a spell is, I'm sure the 2024 PHB will have the school next to the spell in the spell lists, they've been doing that for a while now.

 

[Gorck]

Even in theory, it's much more fiddly than it needs to be. Have you tried actually building a character with it? It's a real pain to go down the list of Arcane spells cross-checking each one's school to be sure it's kosher for bards. If they do actually stick with this system, I'm quite sure they will "multiply it out" to generate spell lists by class.

Back in 3.x, the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list was sorted by level, then by school. If they went back to that method, it would be a lot easier for the classes that are restricted to certain schools to figure out which ones qualify for them.

 

[Blue]

The description of the mage class group specifies that they are Arcane casters, so this won’t happen.

Not necessarily. They could have minor access to the Arcane list - some spells known in the same way that the EK and AT have some "pick from any" choices, and the rest are thematically links to subclass.