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

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

So you have never celebrated when your favorite sports team won a match, even though the fans of the opposing side really wanted their team to win?

Nope. I'm a D&D nerd. I didn't know that being a sports fan was required.

To be serious, it is very different, as this was a variant rule and D&D is not a competition against the rest of the community, and there's absolutely no reward for taking away someone's fun this way.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yay! We stopped Rangers and Sorcerers from being able to do a super limited version of what Wizards and Paladins can do! Huzzah!

Great. Just great. Is this seriously something that normally happens when something like this happens? Do people start celebrating when an optional rule that no one is being forced to use is dropped from the book due to the community screaming about it? I thought the D&D community was better than this. Have some empathy, people.

I have not once had this reaction to anything being dropped out of a book that I disliked, especially if it was an optional rule that some people did like a lot. I'm more upset about this reaction than the fact that it was dropped, tbh.

 

[Don Durito]

Rangers need to be able to select their spells from the whole list anyway. So many of them are situational. And swapping during a long rest is a damn poor way to take advantage of situational spells anyway. You have to know the situation in advance or be completely without time pressure.

 

[Leatherhead]

Eventually, people will stop caring about stepping on toes.

 

[MoonSong]

I never cared about the whole “it makes the Wizard worse by comparison” thing. The game is unbalanced, always will be. It isn’t a competitive game, so I don’t care.

I’m glad Spell Versatility got cut because it was thematically stupid and totally unnecessary.

I didn't love it either. But in my eyes, it was better than nothing. With it I could hope to emulate having more spells known and actually get to play with more niche spells. Back to square one.

It's bizarre because their love for the sorcerer class basically has nothing at all to do with the class mechanics and is entirely based on the no-schoolin' class fluff. Fluff for classes is as thin as cheesecloth in 5e though, so it's bizarre.

Guilty as charged. I love the class despite the mechanics. The flavor is just that good. (Now, as long as this doesn't somehow on an excuse to purposely handicap the sorcerer or to justify its removal, we can be good. )

By choosing not to make it official, they have room to come up with a better solution that is more generally desired. And that is something to rejoice about.

I see it in a less positive way. If they were to give us what really is needed -more spells known or class exclusive multi-use spells- they would have done it years ago. From my perspective, this was like the last chance to have it addressed at all.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean, some people may just be jerks like that, but I don’t think that’s the general thing for most of these controversial D&D rules (at least on this forum).

Instead, I believe many people see the inclusion of certain rules as undesirable because it will have a negative effect on our personal D&D experiences. An official published rule, even if optional (like multiclassing and feats), influences the general perception of the game, especially amongst new players who are less likely to pick and choose what parts to use. Tie in that AL generally uses official rules, and you get an additional entry vector. The fact is, even if you are playing in an established group that chooses not to use the rule, there will almost certainly be some sort of pressure or tension caused by it at some point, unless you wall your group off from the the D&D info-sphere and never take in new players. And in addition to the social elements of expectations, there are also design considerations. Current official rules influence what official rules are going to happen in 5e in the future. For instance, by putting the specific “Aberrant“ back into the psionic themed sorcerer it presumably (I don’t have the book yet) is more clear that it isn’t “the 5e psion”, leaving design space open for one. Or take the play test psi die. Some people loved them, but many people had concerns. They changed them into something that works for most people. And the conflict is resolved. Spell Versatility could negate future design choices that might alter the sorcerer in a way that might be more generally pleasing. It is clear (at least to me) that something is needed to improve a sorcerer’s flexibility, but it is also clear that Spell Versatility was contentious. By choosing not to make it official, they have room to come up with a better solution that is more generally desired. And that is something to rejoice about.

I definitely understand the desire to get cool new things, I just think it’s usually doable in a way that doesn’t impact on the fun of others with a bit of patience and restraint.

I get what you're saying, though obviously I disagree on the idea that it would have been deleterious in it's effect on the ongoing development of the game.

However, to me, the OP, and some posts in this thread since, come across rather more as equivalent to celebrating that your friend's team lost, than celebrating that your own team won, as it were.

And I just...don't understand that impulse. I don't think I've ever done that, ever rubbed it in anyone's face that they didn't get their way, or that their team lost, or whatever. Hell, I'm currently celebrating certain political events that are vastly more important than any of this, but I'm sure as sunshine in summer not gonna call my Dad to loudly celebrate at him that the thing he didn't want to happen, happened.

 

[FireLance]

It seems to me that if we can't be offensive, disparaging and dismissive on the basis of race, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation any more, we need to find an outlet for it in rule and playstyle preferences.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’m glad Spell Versatility got cut because it was thematically stupid and totally unnecessary.

I‘m fine with clerics having access to their whole spell list because it represents them praying to to their deities for divine aid. It makes sense for that aid to take different forms, and for gods to send different help on different days. A bard going to bed to learn a spell he’ll need the next day, and the other hand, is dumb. It’s gamey. It’s thematically stupid. I have to make up a whole new concept of where bard/sorcerer/ranger spells come from for this to even make sense in terms of story.

Huh.

I'm very curious what your conception of their magic is, especially the ranger and bard, that the idea of them learning new spells

 

[Mistwell]

This wasn't a win/lose situation. False Equivalences are false.

You can still use it just fine. You have the text. It was never going to be AL anyway. So, you're good, right?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Playing a sorcerer and being upset you can't change your spells like you change your trousers is like playing a barbarian and being mad you can't fly, teleport, or cast cone of cold.

BTW, just saying, I can change my trousers pretty much as often as I want. Spell Versatility allowed Sorcerers to change their spells like I can...idk, I can do most things more easily and often than Sorcerers can change spells with SV.

It's literally 1 spell per long rest. One. The idea that it's remotely comparable to the versatility to prepared casters is laughably absurd.

Oh, I see people mad about it here and there - there are threads I've seen where people make the claim that it isn't fair that a wizard can go to sleep and wake up with whatever spell the sorcerer used to win the day. Like, person - that's the class feature. It's what Wizards do.

It's bizarre because their love for the sorcerer class basically has nothing at all to do with the class mechanics and is entirely based on the no-schoolin' class fluff. Fluff for classes is as thin as cheesecloth in 5e though, so it's bizarre.

IME, the no-schooling fluff is very much not why anyone who loves the sorcerer loves the sorcerer.

all the great reasons

None of the given reasons ever actually justified the behavior.

On the Internet?

No, there isn't.

Yes, there is. There always is. The fact that people habitually engage in crummy behavior on the internet does not make that behavior any less crummy. Ever.