D&D 5E Simplified 5e, Maneuvers n' stuff

[Treebore]

Why not give vancian casters maneuvers? I dont see why every class shouldnt have maneuvers.

I bet there will be. Even if there isn't, if you want it, the fighter maneuvers give a good enough template to build a similar system for spell casters all on your own.

 

[Stormonu]

Why not give vancian casters maneuvers? I dont see why every class shouldnt have maneuvers.

If manuevers are options for hand-to-hand combat, I really don't see that vancian casters would gain any advantage from them. On top of that, spellcasters already have plenty of options via spells.

 

[steeldragons]

*casts Thread Necromancy I*

Well, seems the love is definitely lost from the 5e threads. Kinda sick of reading about "the pipedream" and the debate over on "too many cooks" so thought I'd conjure this back up to get us back onto talking about the creative/hypothetical/fun side of things...and respond to some things I didn't bother before, since others covered them for me.

1) As already noted, bards started out with Druid magic...how/why this was EVER changed, I do not know. Given that basis and the celtic lore from whence the class was spawned, I think bringing Bards back to "Nature magic" (as its thought in today's day and age, or "Primal" if you prefer) is not only justified but preferable. Slip in a few illusions and enchantments from the mage's spell lists, a few heals (which they'd be getting from the druid list anyway) and "buffs" from the cleric's lists to emphasize the whole "support" class thing and give them their own "Bardic magic flavor", but the bulk should/could be druidic.

2) The point of this little creative exercise was to try to work out the stated desires and design goals of allowing every class to have "it's own unique thing". People wanted the Fighter to have maneuvers. Great. Expertise Dice? Great. Wait, now rogues have them too. Now Paladins? Monks? I thought that was the Fighter's "thing."

So, giving vancian casters "maneuvers" just makes no sense...in this hypothetical framework. Vancian casters (which I take to mean "mages" or "wizards") have their own shtick already...using/casting arcane magic (via a memorized/prepared casting mechanic, if you want to be specific).

3) As for rogues and monks getting maneuvers under a different name...in a way, yeah. Every class is getting maneuvers under a different name. Some of them are magic, some of them are channeling and some of them are more skill-driven...They don't get the same "combat-specific" type maneuvers that Fighters would [and the secondary/tertiary warrior classes could] choose from. But, yeah, the framework is the same and one could say every class receives certain "maneuvers" (small "m"), but only Fighters receive "Maneuvers" (big "M").

The main idea, if it wasn't that clear, was also to sort things from a caster/non-caster standpoint as well as further categorizing within a 4e-ish "power source" way without being overt about class "Power Sources."

So the non-caster classes, kinda all go together...though I suppose you could make a case for a split of Warriors are "Martial" and Rogues are "Stealth" or "Skill/Expert" (of course then everyone gets up in arms that their character should be able to be an "Expert"...but let's just go with it for now).

Then it's a matter of how you define "magic." Divine, Arcane and, I'll add in Nature as a third option ("Primal" always struck me as an overly dramatic name for something relatively simple).

So, for Divine then, you have the caster of the Divine: Cleric, the channeler of the Divine: per my example, the Paladin (who could alternately be described as the warrior of the Divine), and then a non-caster (be it skill or combat focused, but still no magic!) of the Divine: who would be the Monk. Depending on the flavor you like, you could swap out the channeler and rogue as a channeler and warrior: making the Monk the Divine [spiritual] Channeler and the Paladin a non-magical but divinely-driven warrior (but I think anyone who likes paladins wants them to have magical abilities if not outright spells).

For Nature you have the caster: Druid, the channeler: Bard and the non-caster (in this case, a pretty even split between rogue and warrior): Ranger.

For Arcane you have the caster: Mage, the channeler: Warlock, and the non-caster:.???..this is where it gets a bit muddy. Because they're still supposed to fit into the arcane-ly fueled class category...so, my best guess, went with Sorcerer, as the armor/weapon using mage. The argument could be made/refluffed, I suppose, that a Sorcerer is a "non-caster"...in that the magic is innate and they just "do" with magic, without having to "cast." That's a stretch though. So a "Swordmage/Spellsword/guy with magic and weapons" probably goes best here.

For non-casting "Martial" (seems self-explanatory): Fighter, Barbarian, Warlord.

For non-casting "Stealth/Skill": Rogue/Thief, Assassin, uhhhh...whom'I forgetting...new class?

So, yeah, maybe trying to cram in some more symmetry than necessary. But it just all seemed so...neat (as in organized/everything in it's place kinda "neat") and simple.

Aight, well, I have to get food shopping and then dr's appt. So I'll just leave it there. Back in a few.

Cheers all.
--SD

 

[DEFCON 1]

The only thing I'd say at this point is that I think I'd prefer if we no longer even bothered to categorize "magic" into groups. IE no more Divine magic, Arcane magic, Nature magic etc. Instead, we just have the Cleric's miracles, the Wizard's spells, the Druid's nature magic, the Bard's musical incantations, the Warlock's pact magic, the Paladin and Ranger's respective magical abilities, etc. etc. Each class uses "Magic" individually, and never cut across each other.

Reason being... they've never really done a great job in actually distinguishing what any particular "source" of magic is. Clerics used "Divine" magic. Magic that is granted them from a higher being (in this case, the gods). But why aren't Warlocks then divine? They get their magic from a higher being-- and before you say "well, their higher beings aren't the gods"... in 4E the devil Asmodeus *is* a god. So you could have an Infernal Pact Warlock make a bargain with Asmodeus, but still... his magic gets called "Arcane" rather than "Divine"... just because Warlocks were arbitrarily put in the "Arcane" magic category. Same thing with the Bards. steeldragons, you make a good point about how Bards used to be Druid off-shoots and probably could/should go back there. But then they got lumped into the "Arcane" bin too.

And to go even further... what does "Arcane" magic even mean? It's NEVER really been adequately explained. And as a result... any magic that isn't from the gods specifically, or the nature spirits specifically, gets dumped into the Arcane bin. Magic borrowed from the Far Realm? Arcane. Magic that comes from storms? Arcane. Magic that you harness from learning special phrases and hand gestures? Arcane. Magic you get from playing a musical instrument? Arcane. Magic that powers little mechanical devices? Magic from the Underdark? Magic from dragons? Magic from your ancestors? All Arcane. There is absolutely no rhyme nor reason to what this eldritch stuff is... and more importantly why all these different ways of using it all fall under the nebulous category of "Arcane". And on top of that... why "Magic from the gods" and "Magic from the primal spirits" get their own special categories, when NONE OF THE OTHERS do. It makes absolutely no sense.

So I'd rather we just strip out the categories altogether... go back to using "Magic" as the ONE BROAD CATEGORY... and just say that every single class uses Magic in whatever goofy way they do. And leave ideas of "divine" or "arcane" as nothing more than just one adjective out of many to describe the cleric and wizard specifically. I think the whole Magic system would be a lot better off.

 

[steeldragons]

The only thing I'd say at this point is that I think I'd prefer if we no longer even bothered to categorize "magic" into groups. IE no more Divine magic, Arcane magic, Nature magic etc. Instead, we just have the Cleric's miracles, the Wizard's spells, the Druid's nature magic, the Bard's musical incantations, the Warlock's pact magic, the Paladin and Ranger's respective magical abilities, etc. etc. Each class uses "Magic" individually, and never cut across each other.

Ya know...I find this a really intriguing idea...and it is flush with the idea of a basic/simple/easy to learn and start to play core game. Your class uses magic or it doesn't. I kinda like it.

I'm just not sure if, after the passed 35 years, those snakes will go back in the peanut brittle can. *casts sticks to snakes* ["Would that be divine or natural sticks to snakes?" he wonders...] Nope, not even if they're sticks.

Even though there wasn't really a definition of terms like "divine" or "arcane" in the Way Back When, the concept that cleric's magic and mage's magic are two different things is just a little bit too..."in the DNA of DnD", as it were.

Reason being... they've never really done a great job in actually distinguishing what any particular "source" of magic is. Clerics used "Divine" magic. Magic that is granted them from a higher being (in this case, the gods). But why aren't Warlocks then divine?

This is where the idea of the Warlock as a "channeling" class came from, for me...in a way. Well, this and the fact that they insisted on calling their powers "invocations", which I take as a decidedly religious-insinuating term. They gain their powers from a higher being but that being is...to my mind, giving the Warlock a jar of energy and saying, "here ya go, use it up." Whereas I would say, the god is taking the lid off of THEIR jar of energy and saying to the cleric "here ya go. You'e been good. Take a cookie. Keep being good and you can come back for another cookie."

Maybe a bit too slight of a distinction, but it's always made sense to me.

To your original point, I concur. No, D&D has not traditionally done that good a job defining or differentiating the types of magic. It was the kind of thing, I think, was on purpose...so you could make it however you wanted it in your games. I defined them for my campaign world eons ago and, so, I have a pretty clear view of what the different kinds of magic are/mean. I am inclined to presume that if 5e tried to do this, LOTS of people would be up in arms about WotC trying to tell them how to play their game.

They get their magic from a higher being-- and before you say "well, their higher beings aren't the gods"...

But...but they're not. 0

in 4E the devil Asmodeus *is* a god. So you could have an Infernal Pact Warlock make a bargain with Asmodeus, but still...

Well, that's a flaw in the fluff then...imho. It should have been stipulated that a warlock could not make a Pact with Asmodeus...which kinda makes all kindsa sense to me. Think Asmodeus needs to be bothered with entertaining a mortal's paltry conceits for power? There are scores of levels of hierarchy of devils beneath him to handle that kind of nonsense.

his magic gets called "Arcane" rather than "Divine"... just because Warlocks were arbitrarily put in the "Arcane" magic category.

I concur, again. It does seem a bit arbitrary. But at the same time, since the archetype of the Warlock was, likely, being based off of a combination of the Charmed tv show and the traditional lore of a "warlock" being a term akin to a "witch"...the archetype seems to lean to D&D's concept of the "arcane." [as I can't imagine D&D EVER having the guts to treat a witch as a divine magic-user. But that's a whole nuthuh can of peanut brittle.]

Same thing with the Bards. steeldragons, you make a good point about how Bards used to be Druid off-shoots and probably could/should go back there. But then they got lumped into the "Arcane" bin too

Thank you. And yes, they did [get lumped in, that is]. I still cannot fathom why.

And to go even further... -snip- And on top of that... why "Magic from the gods" and "Magic from the primal spirits" get their own special categories, when NONE OF THE OTHERS do. It makes absolutely no sense.

I get what you're saying. See above re: having my own definitions and whether or not WotC should be doing that defining for us.

So I'd rather we just strip out the categories altogether... go back to using "Magic" as the ONE BROAD CATEGORY... and just say that every single class uses Magic in whatever goofy way they do. And leave ideas of "divine" or "arcane" as nothing more than just one adjective out of many to describe the cleric and wizard specifically. I think the whole Magic system would be a lot better off.

Again, very possibly correct...and intriguing idea. I mean, I have the definitions for them in my campaign world. Those are not likely to change. But for a "core/basic/simple/starter" game, I see no reason this couldn't be the case...and then the "Advanced/Complete/Next Stage of Next" game hardbacks could (but wouldn't have to) go into separating them out.

--SD

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

Here's my take on the arcane/divine distinction, spoilered for length:[sblock]
Flavor-wise, the difference between divine and arcane is that divine magic is done at the whims of some higher being or power, where arcane magic is merely the manipulation of energy. A cleric or paladin has to obey his or her god to retain power, and a druid or ranger has to revere nature, and so forth. Wizards manipulate magic as if it were a science, and sorcerers use their own inherent energies. When bards changed from actually being druids and using druid spells to having the stronger music focus, they changed from divine to arcane and now no longer depend on nature for their power. Warlocks in 3e made a pact in their backstory to gain the ability to use magic, but once it was granted they could use it however they wanted without being subject to the whims of their patron, hence why they're arcane rather than divine; think of it like buying a million minutes and a terabyte of data for your smartphone ahead of time, instead of relying on a monthly deal that can be altered or canceled at any time. That changed in 4e, but the people who made warlocks directly dependent on their patron while using arcane magic are the same people who made Asmodeus a god, so that was also obviously a mistake on their part.

The same holds for other classes in 3e and 4e. Beguiler, dread necromancer, wu jen, warmage, swordmage, artificer? All gain their power from study and inherent power. Spirit shaman, shugenja, favored soul, seeker, avenger? All have a patron they have to please to retain their powers, whether it's a god, the spirits, nature, or whatever. I didn't particularly like the introduction of the Primal power source in 4e because, entirely aside from the fact that introducing yet another magical source meant making the martial classes even more of a minority, in my view there's no need for a third option: either Primal classes worship nature or the spirits and draw on their power, in which case they're divine, or they draw upon nature as a concept or instinctively without needing to worship it and are Arcane. Adding more power sources opens the door for Shadow, Elements, etc. when having broad groupings is more beneficial--and yes, that means that I think Psionics should just be part of Arcane if they're just going to make it "like magic, but with power points" instead of the actually-different psionics systems in AD&D.


Mechanically, arcane and divine magic are split for the same reason the fighter and rogue are split despite most archetypal heroes being both fighter-y and rogue-y: both types of caster are "magic guys," but each of the classic four approach things in different ways. The lines between them have been blurred quite a bit in 3e and 4e as the designers inflated all of the spell lists, but if you look back at AD&D you can see the splits there:

• The fighter and cleric were both "combat" classes while the thief and magic-user were "noncombat" classes: the fighter is obviously combat centric and the cleric has armor and weapon proficiencies, healing and buffing spells, and other combat-relevant stuff, while thieves were really fragile in combat and magic-users wanted to stay far from the front lines with the AD&D spell disruption rules. It's not a complete split, obviously (the cleric had utility spells, the fighter got secondary skills/NWPs, magic-users had iconic offensive spells, and thieves had backstab), but that's where they're comfortable.
• The fighter and magic-user were both "proactive" classes while the cleric and thief were "reactive" classes: fighters and magic-users had strong motivations to seek out confrontation (fighters wanted the magic arms and armor the monsters were wearing and magic-users wanted scrolls and spellbooks to add to their power), had proactive capabilities (fighters killed things, wizards targeted weak spots), and did well on their own (fighters could go all day with some healing and magic-users had a large toolbox of spells), while thieves and clerics had strong motivations to avoid confrontations (thieves would rather sneak around than fight and clerics could only out-fight the fighter a few times a day), had reactive capabilities (thieves dealt with existing traps and clerics cured existing maladies), and didn't do too well on their own (thieves kinda got squished if they couldn't kill something in the first round and clerics were better force-multipliers than solo adventurers).

And, obviously, fighters and thieves had no magic while magic-users and clerics had plenty. Those differences between the classes are what set up the iconic four roles: in combat, you had fighters and clerics on the front lines while the wizard and thief stayed in back or on the sides, and out of combat the thief scouted around and the cleric patched people up while the fighter kept an eye out for monsters and the wizard got the party past obstacles.

Nowadays, of course, the cleric has lots of good blasting and debuffing spells, the thief (now the rogue) is a "striker" who's perfectly comfortable in combat, the wizard is much more resilient and can pump up his combat spells to incredible heights, and the fighter...well, he isn't amazing out of combat, but he has some noncombat mechanics. Does that mean we should get rid of the distinction between the two mechanically? I don't think so, and in fact I'd rather see classes go back to having more defined magical niches instead of giving all classes a bit of everything but with slightly different spins.

Even if 5e only preserves the distinction in a few shared features and otherwise blurs the lines a lot, the classes have fairly defined powersets traditionally; even if you didn't call them divine and arcane it's part of their identity that the cleric heals, the druid does weather stuff, etc. and the arcane classes do different things. Even the areas where they overlap (necromancy, summoning, and blasting, generally) they do things differently: arcane necromancy is more about debuffs, arcane summoning is more about a few big summons, and arcane blasting is highly versatile, while divine necromancy is better at animation, divine summoning is better at lots of minions, and divine blasting favors typeless damage and avoids friendly-fire.

If you were to entirely divorce classes such that they shared no effects in common, that would make it less necessary to have a divine group and an arcane group, but I can't imagine that the designers are going to make one healing class, one summoning class, etc., and as long as there's some overlap the theming from shared power sources helps, I think. It actually helps newbies, since you don't have to learn separate rules for the two types of magic but similar effects, playstyles, etc. carry over between classes, making branching out from your first character or narrowing down your choice of initial character easier, and as mentioned it's familiar to returning players and gives them a frame of reference.[/sblock]

TL;DR: Arcane vs. divine isn't a big deal in 3e or more so 4e but it used to matter, it's good that they're drawing on AD&D (where it did matter) for designing the 5e classes, and I think the benefits of keeping the distinction outweigh the questionably benefits of removing it.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Originally, bards did use druidic magic, but this was an extension of the way the druid was a Celtic kludge in the first place. They wanted to fudge the arcane/divine distinction to get "nature magic" for the druid, but it was a subclass of the cleric. Then having established "nature magic" but also representing Celtic magic, they hooked the bard onto for the Celtic bit and the ranger onto it for the nature bit.

So within the intent of this topic, what I'd look at is separating the class "magic caster" bits just a tiny bit from the underlying magic systems themselves. Namely, I'd do a series of "Lore" abilities (not skills, or at least not only skills). Given sufficient "Lore", you can do a certain kind of magic. This happens to work really well for wizards, bards, and druids in the original mythic sense of what are essentially different flavors of lore masters. But it also solves some stacking issues.

For example:

Mage: Yada, yada, you're a mage. You get Arcane Lore.
Arcane Lore gives you access to this, that, and another thing kind of magic, though not necessarily all of them, such as the traditional wizard where you can cast Magic Missile, Shield, Sleep.
As a mage with arcane lore you also get access to specialized abilities that aren't part of a magic system.

Then clerics get Divine Lore. The wizard and cleric versions, as befitting the central classes and following D&D traditions are rather general purpose. Then druids get Nature Lore, while Bards get Bardic Lore. But here's the thing. Because each lore is giving access to a variety of magic systems and non-magic systems, there will be overlap. So now Bardic Lore can give a touch of some of the same things that Nature Lore and Arcane Lore do, but also some music magic. And now music magic isn't tied one-to-one with Bardic Lore, so that it can also be used in some other appropriate class, if necessary.

Presumbably "Expertise" would then be the analog to Lore, with different kinds, such as "Martial Expertise" and so forth. That's not necessary, though, if the non-magic part needs to break down differently.

It's possible that a Ranger would get enough "Nature Lore" to find it easier to get magic if it was otherwise unlocked, but wouldn't necessarily get much of it staying a ranger, with that class being focused more on the non-magic system part of "Nature Lore".

 

[DEFCON 1]

TL;DR: Arcane vs. divine isn't a big deal in 3e or more so 4e but it used to matter, it's good that they're drawing on AD&D (where it did matter) for designing the 5e classes, and I think the benefits of keeping the distinction outweigh the questionably benefits of removing it.

Whereas I don't see any real benefits, especially considering the reasons for putting classes into each of the categories seems awfully arbitrary.

What happens if in 5E they go through with the idea that Paladins now gain their abilities through an ideal rather than a god? Are they still "divine"? Are we to assume that a Paladin of Justice is actually getting his magical auras and smiting abilities from the God of Justice, even though he's not actually a Paladin for the God of Justice? Or is just his faith in the ideal of justice enough to manifest magical ability? And if that's the case... isn't that much more the methodology for how arcane wizards gain theirs?

It seems like it boils down to "Divine spellcasters are given their magical ability from another being... Arcane spellcasters are everybody else." And I have to question why exactly THAT distinction matters in the slightest? What difference does it make? What is gained by putting some classes into the "granted ability" bin, and all the others in the other one? Mayyyyyyybe if you actually got MORE power for being in the "granted ability" bin (because you had the chance to have that ability stripped from you) it might mean something... but we all know that Clerics/Paladins/Druids etc. AREN'T more powerful than their Arcane counterparts and that the number of them who have EVER had their power stripped out by the DM for violating their patron's tenets I'm willing to bet has been infinitesimally small. So there's no actual PRACTICAL reason for splitting all the spellcasting classes up into two arbitrary bins except for history's sake.

And in that case... I'd much rather see the designations of "divine" and "arcane" become merely descriptors and adjectives for some of the classes in their fluff and Story, rather than actual Game Terminology. Because that Terminology is gaining us nothing.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

What happens if in 5E they go through with the idea that Paladins now gain their abilities through an ideal rather than a god? Are they still "divine"? Are we to assume that a Paladin of Justice is actually getting his magical auras and smiting abilities from the God of Justice, even though he's not actually a Paladin for the God of Justice? Or is just his faith in the ideal of justice enough to manifest magical ability? And if that's the case... isn't that much more the methodology for how arcane wizards gain theirs?

Paladins have traditionally gotten their powers from Good rather than serving a god--paladins of a god were only a thing in Forgotten Realms and then became standard in 4e--and clerics traditionally gained their lower-level (1st-3rd) spells via faith alone. So yes, the paladin is still divine, and faith alone will suffice.

Wizards don't have "faith" in their magic, unless you consider knowing that gravity exists means you have "faith" that you won't suddenly fly off the surface of the earth tomorrow. If a good wizard casts an evil spell, tortures someone with his magic, kills a bunch of people, and so forth, the only thing that happens is that he hopefully feels a twinge of conscience, whereas if a good cleric or paladin does the same they've pissed off the source of their magic and it either is weakened or it goes away.

Mayyyyyyybe if you actually got MORE power for being in the "granted ability" bin (because you had the chance to have that ability stripped from you) it might mean something... but we all know that Clerics/Paladins/Druids etc. AREN'T more powerful than their Arcane counterparts and that the number of them who have EVER had their power stripped out by the DM for violating their patron's tenets I'm willing to bet has been infinitesimally small. So there's no actual PRACTICAL reason for splitting all the spellcasting classes up into two arbitrary bins except for history's sake.

Again, back in the day divine classes were better. Do you know what the penalty for a paladin or ranger was for changing to a non-good alignment? They became fighters, which I remind you in AD&D was a class actually worth taking. That's right, paladins and rangers were strictly superior to fighters (until UA and 2e threw the fighter a bone) in exchange for having a code of conduct they had to follow to keep those extra powers. As for clerics (and the subclass druids) vs. magic-users, I'd say clerics have a good argument for being better. In an edition where magic-users had a cap on spells known, had to seek out new spells to learn them instead of learning a bunch automatically, only had a random chance to learn spells, and started off with random spells known at 1st level, the cleric knowing his entire list automatically was a huge deal, and in an edition where a single point of damage disrupted spellcasting automatically and you could kill most things with two fireballs to the face even at high levels, having armor proficiency and a d8 instead of a d4 for hit die was again a huge deal. The comparison only became clearer in 2e with specialty priests, where you could build yourself a blaster cleric or a necromancer cleric to compete with your blaster mage or necromancer mage and so forth.

And if you think falling was rare, apparently you've managed to avoid all of the interminable alignment debates with clerics, the "Will X make a paladin fall?" threads, and all the rest, for which I heartily congratulate you. One of the reasons clerics of a cause were so popular when 3e first came out, aside from the ability to pick any two domains which is nice but not necessary for every pair, was that since you're not serving a deity (with all the associated rules, regulations, hierarchy, etc.) but just a cause (which is much more tolerant) your chances of falling were much reduced.

And in that case... I'd much rather see the designations of "divine" and "arcane" become merely descriptors and adjectives for some of the classes in their fluff and Story, rather than actual Game Terminology. Because that Terminology is gaining us nothing.

Like I said, even if you attach no other mechanics to the terms themselves, it's useful to be able to "hang" things on them, like arcane-only feats and specialties and such, because the wizard, sorcerer, warlock, etc. are close enough thematically that they might often want to share themes with each other but not with the divine classes; it's much easier to say "all arcane" than to list everything out and have to errata things when new classes come out.

But even in 4e, where power source meant somewhere between zilch and nothing and Lawful Good clerics and paladins of the God of Fluffy Bunnies could go ahead and raze forests without losing their powers, all divine classes shared Channel Divinity and had a thing for radiant/necrotic damage, all arcane classes had a wider choice of implements and had a thing for elemental damage, and a bunch of feats and path/destiny features work with only arcane or only divine powers. I'd certainly consider god-based CD powers and arcane wands (among other things) to be "something" that the distinction is gaining us.

 

[Texicles]

I appreciate the thought you've put into this, and I agree with your distaste for the "pipedream" variety of thread, because I remain excited for 5e. As for my notes, let me preface by saying that I like 4e (not to the exclusion of other editions), and that undoubtedly colors my views. I also use "cool" as a simplistic way of saying powerful, damaging, interesting, etc.

I have no problem with giving Fighters "Maneuvers" and other non-casters "maneuvers." If casters are going to have access to At-Will spells (good imo), but keep their cool stuff Vancian, then non-casters should get cool, limited stuff too. Everyone wants their class to be at least a little interesting and balanced in the combat pillar. If you give casters, through at-wills, the magical equivalent to poking someone with a sword, while retaining their ability to do more impressive damage and/or feats (in the classic sense, not the RPG mechanic) with limited resource spells, then you have to compensate the Fighter or Rogue, who have always been able to poke someone with a sword. Big M, little m, as long as non-caster classes have a suitable list of things to choose from, call it whatever you like.

I'm not a fan, however, of things like stealth and defuse device making your list for Rogues. This isn't a case of x or y should/shouldn't get z, as much as the kind of z that x or y gets. Vancian magic, as a game balance paradigm is applicable outside of comat. The Rogue's ability to stealth around, pick locks, disarm traps, etc., or the Fighter's ability to batter down doors with his face, are non-combat equivalents to poking someone with a sword. While the casters get cool toys like Telekinesis or Commune, a pure Rogue or Fighter will never get to do those sorts of things, so their less cool toys should have less limited use.

I also have reservations about creating a dichotomy between spells and EDs because of the hybridy-type classes. Let's look at the Paladin as an example. Ostensibly, the Paladin will have some spells/channels/whatevers and a weapon with which to wade into the fray. The importance of each of these distinct aspects of the class can vary, but I don't think anyone would argue that Paladins get to do a little of both reasonably well. I think things like Glancing Blow (not unreasonable for a Paladin to have) and Lay on Hands are disparate enough concepts that the mechanics by which we allow/limit them should be different.

I'll also weigh in on the power sources thing. I think DEFCON 1 has the right of things insofar as things (especially the term "arcane") are pretty arbitrary as they sit, and calling all magic "magic" is a viable solution. It lacks flavor, but leaves a lot of room or DMs/players to make their own fluff. Another option might be to expand the arbitrary nomenclature while doing away with anything other than the fluff. It's still arbitrary, but gives DMs/Players a slightly better jumping off point for their own ideas. Say, for example, in the class description for Druids, say that they use "Natural Magic" and leave it at that. Then in some other chapter, you describe what "Natural," "Psionic," "Bardic," "Elemental," etc. magic generally fluffs like. If a table wants to ignore it, they can. If they want to expand it to be a limitation, like don't do x or you'll lose your powers, they can. Anything in between is also acceptable.