D&D 5E Spell Versatility is GONE. Rejoice!

[Lanefan]

Since when is it the sorcerer's identity to force them to be locked in a spell cage until they can level up?

Since 3e, when the class came into the game. Having just a very few spells that they can cast both spontaneously and often is what made Socrerers different from Wizards and other caster types.

All attempts since to increase their spell versatility without reducing the other benefits come across to me as just trying to get around the penalty that balances those benefits; and that dog don't hunt.

 

[Lanefan]

The DMs in charge of their table. If the players don't like that they're not using an optional rule, that's their problem and they can find a different table.

Yeah, and that's going to go over well with the friends one games with...

Never mind that not everyone has that big a player/DM pool to choose from.

So, the existence of Unearthed Arcana erodes trust in the designers? That's literally what they do in UA, throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks and will make it into a book.

For my part, I seriously hope that what they're putting in something like UA has already had the hell playtested out of it before getting there; such that if whatever it is does gain acceptance it's already known that concept/rule/idea will seamlessly fit into the existing system.

 

[Asisreo]

Sure, some of those make more sense. But, why do you need bonus action invisibilty and action flight? Bonus action invisibility and action resistance?

Cube of Force seems like it doesn't really need invisibility.

It just all... seems so circumstantial.

Its the fact that you can do these multiple things from the instance the fight starts. Invisibility is a great defensive buff and having it stay as long as possible while getting good actions out of it is another example of pushing your spells further.

I've tried to justify Phantasmal Force a few times. 1 minute of an illusion is not a lot, and again, a DM should require a check. Phantasmal Force is not as powerful as you seem to want it to be.

I mean, if a DM does determine that the investigation check is necessary, they still need to succeed on it. If they don't, they're still convinced it was real.

A minute of illusion is enough for a brief interaction, usually.

Deafening them is a terrible plan. And mage hand only lasts a minute, so if you are following a mark... you can't use it. There would be a lot of ways that this would fail utterly, if there wasn't some assumption that you could cast a spell in a crowded marketplace without everyone in the place noticing you.

Arcane Trickster Mage Hand wasn't anything meant to be the star 3rd-level feature. The spellcasting is the important subclass feature. Invisible Hand is just a nice bonus, so its not always useful all the time, but its useful at least sometimes, and its a nice bonus.

Sure, it should have some effect, but if you are trying to pretend that his wife just came in, and he's holding a conversation with himself, and no one is going to question it, then you've kind of gone too far.

There is a very limited set of things you can plausible have him react to, and even then, I'd

If you houserule a spell such that you need to make an ability check even though they already failed the initial save, you're being unjustly unfair to the spellcaster that expended a spell slot, sorcery points, and still had a percent chance to have the spell do nothing.

But if it does fail, you can always just go "huh, weird. Maybe it was something you ate," when they question things. They don't have any proof anyone casted a spell so the target going crazy is just as likely. And not all sorcerers are wearing their cosplay robe and wizard's hat in-character so they could easily just look as mundane as anyone else. In fact, having Disguise Self to look like an appropriate nonmagical character and cast the spell could be perfect forms of manipulation or sabotage.

Why are spell slots so cheap in these discussions? Does no one value actually having spell slots in these discussions?

People always act like converting spell slots to points is a painless endeavor with zero cost to the sorcerer.

I did say it was foolish if you did this. But I also want to say that 2-4th level spell slots are pretty plentiful at a combined 12 of them just sitting in your spell slot table. Even if you spare one of each just in case, you've made an additional 18 sorcery points, which should be more than enough with quite alot of spell slots left over.

Of course, this isn't something you must do at the start of the day. It could just be at the middle of the adventure, filling up your points as you need.

You present the question incorrectly.

"Is getting another fireball now worth spending the resources I might need later, or am I better off with not casting fireball and saving these spells for unknown challenges?"

That is a far more complex question.

Its the same question, just worded differently. I use need in an almost literal sense. Is the game going to be seriously negatively impacted if another fireball isn't thrown? Could a TPK be on your hands if more fireballs need to happen? If yes, you should use it because you'll never get to use those reserved spell slots if you die before that time. If no, you should wait and see more.

Of course, "fireball" can be replaced with any spell of your highest restricted level from levels 3-9. It isn't about fireball in particular, its about the spell slot and whether you have it and need it or not.

 

[Maxperson]

A mentality I really have a hard time understanding*, in the context of RPGs with their long and proud tradition of rules-as-guidelines and DMs-as-kitbashers.

* - outside of then-RPGA, now-AL play where a degree of cross-table consistency is expected.

I'm mixed. I freely house rule, but find myself leery of 3rd party stuff, though I will allow some if I can review it and am convinced that it won't be disruptive. I have also run into DMs who just refuse anything not in an official book.

 

[FrogReaver]

It is a fallacy, and making use of a fallacy for your argument is the definition of "arguing in bad faith." It is a strawman and reducto ad absurdum, as that is not what we are arguing.

Reducto ad absurdum is not a fallacy. It’s a type of logical argument.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Reducto ad absurdum is not a fallacy. It’s a type of logical argument.

It's a fallacy:

6.8a

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Since 3e, when the class came into the game. Having just a very few spells that they can cast both spontaneously and often is what made Socrerers different from Wizards and other caster types.

All attempts since to increase their spell versatility without reducing the other benefits come across to me as just trying to get around the penalty that balances those benefits; and that dog don't hunt.

The sorcerer's definition is to have a small amount of spells, that alone reduces their versatility. It isn't/shouldn't be in their definition as a class to be literally incapable of changing a spell unless they level up.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

A mentality I really have a hard time understanding*, in the context of RPGs with their long and proud tradition of rules-as-guidelines and DMs-as-kitbashers.

* - outside of then-RPGA, now-AL play where a degree of cross-table consistency is expected.

I typically don't allow homebrew unless I have made it or reviewed it and deemed it balanced. Other DMs seem to be less lenient with homebrew than I am.

 

[MoonSong]

The sorcerer's definition is to have a small amount of spells, that alone reduces their versatility. It isn't/shouldn't be in their definition as a class to be literally incapable of changing a spell unless they level up.

However, small is relative, is getting one or two spells known too much to ask? Some leeway to have room to make mistakes and perhaps have some fun? The class is very hard to use as it is.

The sorcerer has an unfortunate story of being experimental almost every time. With every edition putting a lot of excessive restraints on it to prevent it from being overpowered. These restraints always end up being too much and only a few of them get eventually removed, but later developments only prove that they weren't even needed. The end result is that it is unnecessarily gimped every time.

Honestly, being prevented from having any boost to playability without wizard players somehow ruining it helps nothing to this situation and is getting old. (Seriously this is not the first time sorcerer players can't get something nice because wizard players can't see us get anything without throwing a tantrum. Just having the class at all was a huge accomplishment because if it were up to them there wouldn't be sorcerer or a warlock, we'd just have the wizard class pretending to be the be it all end all of spellcasters.)

 

[Helldritch]

Er...do you really take that many long rests outside of downtime? Like...downtime is any time you aren't active continuously, as I've understood it. Are you really so continuously adventuring that taking 48 hours to just relax is all that rare an event? I just don't get why this would be a meaningful limitation.

Downtime is in between adventure. Which can a short or a long time to wait for it. Stopping at an inn is not downtime. You need to be able to relax or at least be able to safely assume that at least one week can go by without the risk of an attack.

During downtime you could make potions, scrolls, make money by training young fighters, carousing or whatever else. A downtime, can take from a week to a few decades to complete. As soon as you are in an adventure, no downtime is allowed unless the adventure itself requires a pause between chapters (and even then it might not qualify as downtime). This means that downtime can go from being relatively common to almost non-existent. This is a meaningful requirement to change spells in my campaign styles.

Long rests are 8 hours long. A short rest is one hour or 10 minutes depending on the circumstances (in tense situation it is shorter, in not so tense, it is one hour). But players will know in advance how long the short rest will be. This meant that the rules as it was made was way too permissive not only in my my campaigns, but in many more campaigns than anticipated as many are using the 8 hours long, long rest method.

At many many table it mean that sorcerers could change their entire spell list (or most of the spells they wanted to) during overland travel. Which was both removing the sorcerer's flavor as a caster of few spells but with powers over them that no other casters could hope to match; but also infringed on the wizard's big strength, versatility.

Yes a lot were saying it was not that much in respect to their own campaigns but WotC finally saw that the rule was way over its original intent and over compensating for what was happening in some campaigns where leveling was so slow that the sorcerers never had the chance to swap a spell at a new level because they were not leveling as intended.

I hope I made my stance clearer.