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<blockquote data-quote="MostlyHarmless42" data-source="post: 8003474" data-attributes="member: 6845520"><p>It would be a good exercise and I would be keen to see the results, no matter how subjective the observations may seem. Actual play data is useful, and while "It doesn't feel fun" is not qualitative, it is still useful feedback, especially if one can follow up with an explanation of why they feel that way. It kind of makes me thing of doing it pitched as an "X-men" game. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Correct, and while one can argue as to the effectiveness of each spell compared to others until the sun goes down, it does not change that yes, Elemental Evil/Xanathar's Guide went a long way towards fixing the issue. Again I do not dispute this. Related to the only element I still think is arguably unplayable: acid, the new Unearth Arcana does have a fairly decent 1st level acid spell that I hope sees official print. It would just be nice though if they released some sort of official way for the sorcerer to convert spells other elements damage-wise. I would prefer it to be a feat myself.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Agreed. Terrible DMs and players need not be that way.</p><p></p><p>Semi-related musing and a totally-not-completely-aside, I've currently a celestial warlock that for the life of me just never uses his spell slots except to heal or cure disease. I tend to favor two or three deadly encounter games with plenty of times to short rest in between and the party <em>does </em>love to take short rests. He fully understands the mechanics of the game but chooses to just spam eldritch blast and just seems happy to do it, and who am I to cramp down on his fun, but it is just...odd. It's led me to consider whether the optimal magic item for from a fun standpoint him is a certain pair of cantrip spamming bracers from Ravnica that I'm debating about whether or not I should implement some sort of limitation (i.e. charges per day) or not. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f914.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":unsure:" title="Unsure :unsure:" data-smilie="24"data-shortname=":unsure:" /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Perhaps I was too blunt with my word choice. I don't care for AL personally, but I respect those who do. What I do, however, is strongly prefer to find and implement as few houserules as possible from the current game as written. Any of my proposed changes to anything I run I am always striving to find the most surgical and concise way to address a shortcoming and always strive to consider the larger impact upon the game. I realize not everyone else does. It's why discussions about different topics are useful though as even if I didn't feel that Class X Ability Y has a problem balance wise I try to understand where they are coming from, because I want to help them find a way that works for them. I personally am quite inclusive with homebrew stuff being tested in my games or houserules, but I am quite strict on making the anything that sees my table fits the spirit of DnD 5e: a fast paced, concise and unfiddly (if not truly rules lite) rules game that actively tries to avoid abilities that are overly complicated with situational modifiers and stacking effects. It's not an exact science by any stretch of the means but I've play many different systems over the years and I can fairly reliably spot something that feels more "3.5/Pathfinder-y" (great games that are clearly about Rules over Rulings and have obscure rules for just about any strange thing you can think of <s>and are totally not annoying to lookup mid play</s>.). It's basically just about making sure rules match the spirit of the game.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A fair point. I've seen some people call for concentration checks on fear effects pointing to the rules about how a DM can call for saves on stuff like bad weather, horse jostling, etc. Maybe I've just had DMs that are more draconian in their approach to the rules. I'd never make such a call myself because I interpret it the same way you do, but then again I'm also quite eager to make sure to remind casters of horseback casting, am genuinely bothered that someone can use a longbow on horseback or sleep in fullplate without detriment (yes I know and use the Xanathar variant) within the rules, and love putting in random rainstorms to mess with all of the ranged people, so to each their own. <em>shrug</em></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And I would argue that the designers likely only gave them 4 ritual spells <em>because </em>they chose not to give them ritual casting, much the same way they likely tried to avoid giving them "named" spells (i.e. Bigby's Hand, Mortenkainen's Sword, etc. - focus on the general name schemes, not necessarily these two specific spells) because it felt less "intuitive" to use spells created by other casters they deemed "wizards"...completely glossing over the large mechanical impact that this might have in the long run and that all of these named "wizards" were NOT wizards but came from a time that predates classes. Frankly it surprises me that WOTC hasn't retconned some of these named people to have been sorcerers or warlocks and it is a bit telling that they tend to default to the wizard list with the large majority of their NPC statblocks in their modules, but I acknowledge that that is all interpretation and assumption of developer intent on my part.</p><p></p><p>Related minor gripe: they should've release their spells as "Spell Name, Famous Caster's Name" (i.e. Hand, Bigby's or Floating Disk, Tensor's) in the spells description/lists. Looking up spell names in the current game is a complete pain for those who don't know who the hell half of these people even are and couldn't care less. God I miss that about pathfinder.</p><p></p><p>As for sorcerers casting from willpower intuitively, I'll concede that while I personally feel ritual casting is too universally game friendly that I don't think they should've kept it from just sorcerers it is just that, my opinion. Though</p><p>I put out that the concept that same sort of explanation doesn't really do much to support why Bards or Warlocks should get it if the sorcerer does not, as all also use the same casting stat. If the only justification possible is "well, the bard spent time practicing music" and the warlock "read an evil book and went a bit mad" why can't the sorcerer roleplay that <em>they </em>read a few magical tomes out of curiosity (justified by their arcana proficiency) in order to help them learn to control their magic puberty and use Charisma to do it like the warlock? Yes I get that I could take a feat as a sorcerer and mechanically fluff it as this, but as you yourself stated, the sorcerer list has almost no ritual spells, the warlock list is quite small, leaving the choice between bard or using intelligence as a caster stat (while the same warlock uses their charisma and can pick from ANY rituals.) At the very least give sorcerers an option to learn it baked into their class like the warlock through a subclass or something.</p><p></p><p>Also, your line of reasoning here also poses me to ask: if sorcerers are supposed to <em>be </em>magical inherently, why do they need to use spell foci or material components. Gold cost ones I could see as a justification as maybe the inherent magic in someone isn't powerful enough to fuel the spells, but regular items? Why didn't sorcerers get the ability to <em>be </em>their own spell focus? Especially seeing as they had such an ability in previous editions?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MostlyHarmless42, post: 8003474, member: 6845520"] It would be a good exercise and I would be keen to see the results, no matter how subjective the observations may seem. Actual play data is useful, and while "It doesn't feel fun" is not qualitative, it is still useful feedback, especially if one can follow up with an explanation of why they feel that way. It kind of makes me thing of doing it pitched as an "X-men" game. :) Correct, and while one can argue as to the effectiveness of each spell compared to others until the sun goes down, it does not change that yes, Elemental Evil/Xanathar's Guide went a long way towards fixing the issue. Again I do not dispute this. Related to the only element I still think is arguably unplayable: acid, the new Unearth Arcana does have a fairly decent 1st level acid spell that I hope sees official print. It would just be nice though if they released some sort of official way for the sorcerer to convert spells other elements damage-wise. I would prefer it to be a feat myself. Agreed. Terrible DMs and players need not be that way. Semi-related musing and a totally-not-completely-aside, I've currently a celestial warlock that for the life of me just never uses his spell slots except to heal or cure disease. I tend to favor two or three deadly encounter games with plenty of times to short rest in between and the party [I]does [/I]love to take short rests. He fully understands the mechanics of the game but chooses to just spam eldritch blast and just seems happy to do it, and who am I to cramp down on his fun, but it is just...odd. It's led me to consider whether the optimal magic item for from a fun standpoint him is a certain pair of cantrip spamming bracers from Ravnica that I'm debating about whether or not I should implement some sort of limitation (i.e. charges per day) or not. :unsure: Perhaps I was too blunt with my word choice. I don't care for AL personally, but I respect those who do. What I do, however, is strongly prefer to find and implement as few houserules as possible from the current game as written. Any of my proposed changes to anything I run I am always striving to find the most surgical and concise way to address a shortcoming and always strive to consider the larger impact upon the game. I realize not everyone else does. It's why discussions about different topics are useful though as even if I didn't feel that Class X Ability Y has a problem balance wise I try to understand where they are coming from, because I want to help them find a way that works for them. I personally am quite inclusive with homebrew stuff being tested in my games or houserules, but I am quite strict on making the anything that sees my table fits the spirit of DnD 5e: a fast paced, concise and unfiddly (if not truly rules lite) rules game that actively tries to avoid abilities that are overly complicated with situational modifiers and stacking effects. It's not an exact science by any stretch of the means but I've play many different systems over the years and I can fairly reliably spot something that feels more "3.5/Pathfinder-y" (great games that are clearly about Rules over Rulings and have obscure rules for just about any strange thing you can think of [S]and are totally not annoying to lookup mid play[/S].). It's basically just about making sure rules match the spirit of the game. A fair point. I've seen some people call for concentration checks on fear effects pointing to the rules about how a DM can call for saves on stuff like bad weather, horse jostling, etc. Maybe I've just had DMs that are more draconian in their approach to the rules. I'd never make such a call myself because I interpret it the same way you do, but then again I'm also quite eager to make sure to remind casters of horseback casting, am genuinely bothered that someone can use a longbow on horseback or sleep in fullplate without detriment (yes I know and use the Xanathar variant) within the rules, and love putting in random rainstorms to mess with all of the ranged people, so to each their own. [I]shrug[/I] And I would argue that the designers likely only gave them 4 ritual spells [I]because [/I]they chose not to give them ritual casting, much the same way they likely tried to avoid giving them "named" spells (i.e. Bigby's Hand, Mortenkainen's Sword, etc. - focus on the general name schemes, not necessarily these two specific spells) because it felt less "intuitive" to use spells created by other casters they deemed "wizards"...completely glossing over the large mechanical impact that this might have in the long run and that all of these named "wizards" were NOT wizards but came from a time that predates classes. Frankly it surprises me that WOTC hasn't retconned some of these named people to have been sorcerers or warlocks and it is a bit telling that they tend to default to the wizard list with the large majority of their NPC statblocks in their modules, but I acknowledge that that is all interpretation and assumption of developer intent on my part. Related minor gripe: they should've release their spells as "Spell Name, Famous Caster's Name" (i.e. Hand, Bigby's or Floating Disk, Tensor's) in the spells description/lists. Looking up spell names in the current game is a complete pain for those who don't know who the hell half of these people even are and couldn't care less. God I miss that about pathfinder. As for sorcerers casting from willpower intuitively, I'll concede that while I personally feel ritual casting is too universally game friendly that I don't think they should've kept it from just sorcerers it is just that, my opinion. Though I put out that the concept that same sort of explanation doesn't really do much to support why Bards or Warlocks should get it if the sorcerer does not, as all also use the same casting stat. If the only justification possible is "well, the bard spent time practicing music" and the warlock "read an evil book and went a bit mad" why can't the sorcerer roleplay that [I]they [/I]read a few magical tomes out of curiosity (justified by their arcana proficiency) in order to help them learn to control their magic puberty and use Charisma to do it like the warlock? Yes I get that I could take a feat as a sorcerer and mechanically fluff it as this, but as you yourself stated, the sorcerer list has almost no ritual spells, the warlock list is quite small, leaving the choice between bard or using intelligence as a caster stat (while the same warlock uses their charisma and can pick from ANY rituals.) At the very least give sorcerers an option to learn it baked into their class like the warlock through a subclass or something. Also, your line of reasoning here also poses me to ask: if sorcerers are supposed to [I]be [/I]magical inherently, why do they need to use spell foci or material components. Gold cost ones I could see as a justification as maybe the inherent magic in someone isn't powerful enough to fuel the spells, but regular items? Why didn't sorcerers get the ability to [I]be [/I]their own spell focus? Especially seeing as they had such an ability in previous editions? [/QUOTE]
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