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

[Helldritch]

You're preaching to the choir. I do not disagree with anything said here. That's why I've been arguing against the people who are saying that allowing a Sorcerer to replace one spell on a long rest is in no way, shape, or form stepping on the toes of the wizard or unbalancing the game.

Ho but it does. We proved it in an other thread over and over again. That rule was directly attacking the wizard's shtick.

Now, as I have said earlier in this thread. I'm all for helping the sorcerer in getting more whoomph but that whoomph should not intrude on an other class. Feel free to check what we did at our table. It works and it does play on the sorcerer's own strengths.

I strongly feel that the best avenue for the sorcerer is not spell versatility as it was presented but it is to play into their niche. More meta magic, more sorcery points and reinforcing the PHB sorcerer would be a good way to start. We already allow "chaos" sorcerers to initiate a wildmagic surge with a sorcery point. Dragon sorcerer can change any damage spell element into their draconic element for one sorcery (Lightning ball, cold bold, poison storm) and so on. These little changes made the sorcerer in the PHB much more appreciated. And the changes were not so big as to put them OP. Small steps in the right directions is all it took.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Ho but it does. We proved it in an other thread over and over again. That rule was directly attacking the wizard's shtick.

But. . . it doesn't. Does the fact that the Paladin or Druid can prepare spells make their classes step on the toes of the Wizard?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Ho but it does. We proved it in an other thread over and over again. That rule was directly attacking the wizard's shtick.

Now, as I have said earlier in this thread. I'm all for helping the sorcerer in getting more whoomph but that whoomph should not intrude on an other class. Feel free to check what we did at our table. It works and it does play on the sorcerer's own strengths.

I...don't recall seeing this proof. The thread is quite long at this point, and I don't actually know the text I'm looking for, so would you be willing to quote or link what you consider the best point where this was proven?

 

[Helldritch]

But. . . it doesn't. Does the fact that the Paladin or Druid can prepare spells make their classes step on the toes of the Wizard?

No, their spell selection is nowhere near that of the wizard. Arcane vs Divine is not even on the same level. But Arcane vs Arcane and both spell list are quite close to each other. With a single feat (ritual caster), and Spell Versatility, the sorcerer with its sorcery point out do the wizard rendering it obsolete. This has been proven by better debater and theorycrafter than I am such as DnD4VR. Go check the thread about spell versatility that happened a few months ago. It is enlightening.

The same debate happened in four french forum and in a few other forums (Giant something...) and the same warnings came over and over again. We tested this rule with my groups and the 13 of us came to the conclusion that with the standard rule, that single rule was putting the wizards down the drain. In one forum, it was even proposed that the sword dancer be made a sorcerer to keep it relevant with the new rule since wizard would simply be out of commission. To add even more, a group of 13 year old came to the same conclusion as we did and came to the store (outside the store actually, not to break confinement) and asked me if I had came to the same conclusions.

You have to remember that the rule was proposed because that at some tables, leveling is extremely slow. So slow that where you might rise in 3 levels in one adventure, these tables were reversed, 3 to 5 adventures for one level. In these cases, the rule made a lot of sense. But still, limiting it to one spell/downtime as we did would have been much more interesting. And even then, the downtime we have is not the same as yours. A highly situational rule that had the potential to disrupt many games if not carefully weighted against all houserules a table might have. All that to satisfy fringe games... That rule had no place in an official book.

 

[Helldritch]

I...don't recall seeing this proof. The thread is quite long at this point, and I don't actually know the text I'm looking for, so would you be willing to quote or link what you consider the best point where this was proven?

Check the thread and read it. I'm not going to search for it. Yet, it was proven, bunked and proven again, debunked and proven again but in the end, with the standard rest rule, it meant that the some sorcerer (divine soul) had full access to two full spell list over the course of a few long rest. As not all spells would be changed but those that were situational. DnD4vr did quite a job with that, showing how many spells a wizards normally had access to and would be about half what the sorcerer could get and the wizard is supposed to be the epitome of spell known... Just think about 1st level. It means that the wizards has 6 spells to prepare, vs 20? for the sorcerer. And if that sorcerer is a divine soul... it is even more ridiculous.

I have one group that is full of optimizers and they immediately saw the potential of the rule. Same with the racial one with all the swapping. But hey, if you want that rule, make it yours.

 

[FrogReaver]

Er...I don't know why that website would use a well-established logical argument name in order to label something that is simply the straw man fallacy (or possibly the slippery-slope fallacy). Reductio ad absurdum, as a term in logic, has never referred to a fallacy in any other text I have ever seen, not even in my 400-level logic courses. Merriam-Webster and the Collins dictionary both expressly state that it is a valid form of argument; the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which is written by accredited experts in the field, not user contributions like Wikipedia) explicitly states that it has been used in mathematics and logic since antiquity. It is, for example, a common way to prove that there is no smallest rational number (that is, a number of the form "A/B," where A and B are both integers), because any candidate you might pick can have its denominator B doubled, generating a strictly smaller rational number, meaning we can derive the negation of the original assumption from the assumption itself.

Now, the burden on someone making a reductio argument is that they must show (a) the absurd conclusion does in fact necessarily follow, and (b) that the absurd conclusion is relevant to the claims being made. But failing either of those doesn't make the reductio ITSELF a fallacy; failing the former is simply the slippery-slope fallacy (the assertion that a chain of consequences is necessary when it is not), and failing the latter is the straw-man fallacy (pretending that the actual claim is a different, absurd claim instead). Reductio ad absurdum itself is, and always has been, a perfectly valid logical form--as another example, Euclid used it to prove that there is no finite list containing all prime numbers. (Phrased as such because, at the time, they did not think of integers as we do, and were not comfortable with a concept like "infinity"; in practice, it means the set of prime numbers is infinite, but the reductio as used only denies the claim that any delimited list of primes is complete.)


You are correct that the "fallacy fallacy" is a problem, but not correct in that noting a fallacy in someone's argument is a good reason to say they have the burden to update their argument. That is, it is an informal fallacy to assert, "Because the argument against my position was fallacious, my position is thus correct." This is not guaranteed; someone can easily use fallacious arguments in defense of true things, in fact it's quite common. However, the more restrained claim, "Your position remains undefended, because the defense provided was fallacious," is perfectly valid and is, in fact, the correct response to a fallacy: noting it and, all else being equal, permitting correction thereof, if correction can be made.

Exactly. Thank you.

In context? It absolutely was a straw-man argument. No reason was given why "fighter one-hit kills all opponents" should be seen as the same kind of thing as "Sorcerer changes 1 spell known with a long rest." We are simply supposed to accept that the two are exactly as flawed, which is not okay--and the aggressively extreme example does come across as bad-faith argumentation.

Really? Because I would like for you to reexamine the initial claim (listed below).

You know that a lot of tables don't allow homebrew, right? It is way better for something to be an optional rule that is official than a homebrew rule.

Notice this is a universal statement.

Optional rule proposal - fighter 1 hit kills everything with a great sword.

better as home brew or official optional rule?

Notice that my statement meets all the qualifications of Acererak's statement. I've listed something that his own words state would be better as an optional rule that is official than for it to be a homebrew. That is an absurd conclusion because the rule I supplied is one where we have an overwhelming consensus of agreement that it should not be an optional rule at all. Thus, it is not always better for something to be an optional rule that is official than for it to be a homebrew rule.

If I made any error it was not elaborating on such a simple reducto ad absurdum to begin with.

 

[FrogReaver]

Because Reducto ab absurdum does lead to faulty conclusions, it is just inflated hyperbole.

"I think maybe we should remove this traffic light, it doesn't seem to be preventing traffic accidents"
"Well, let's just remove all traffic lights and stop signs in the entire country, since none of them prevent accidents"

That is an example of a strawman as the 2nd statement does not follow from the first. What I did with reducto ad absurdum doesn't have that issue.

Obviously the second point does not follow from the first. Just because this one situation exists, does not mean it can be logically taken to apply to every single scenario.

Unless someone is bolstering their argument with the fallacious statement that it's always better for X when it's not actually always better for X. Reducto ad absurdum does a great job pointing issue out. Though nowadays that kind of thing tends to incorrectly get labeled as a strawman.

"This rule wasn't bad, you are just saying it is because you don't like it. And not liking a rule doesn't mean it is bad" cannot logically be countered with "Then there is no such thing as a bad rule" The rule of needing to stab yourself with a rusty nail every time you take damage in the game has no bearing on the discussion at all, and is so absurd that it is just a red herring, meant to distract from the point and cause us to waste energy knocking down an absurd claim, rather than addressing the actual meat of the conversation.

Please show me how anything I or anyone else said leads to your statement here? If not then isn't this actually just an example of a strawman fallacy?

 

[FrogReaver]

Officially is very important to a lot of people. It's pretty petty and selfish to not want a company to print an optional rule just because you(general you) don't like that rule. Don't use it if you don't like it.

Also sounds pretty selfish to want them to print the optional rule just because you like it. Just home brew it if you like it.

I agree official is important. All the more reason to be careful about what gets made official.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Notice this is a universal statement.

I think that is a decidedly uncharitable reading of what was said, particularly given the context of the foregoing discussion. Yes, if isolated from the rest of the conversation, this would be a bald universal claim. However, in context, the discussion had been "you can always implement homebrew so why does it matter?" and the answer--which is entirely reasonable--is "a lot of places REFUSE to implement even the smallest amount of homebrew, so official-option status actually has significant utility."

I agree with your point: it is not true that all possible rule-change proposals are better as official optional rules. However, even in context, the point is...a little pedantic, I hope you can agree. Further, it doesn't really have any impact on whether Spell Versatility specifically is bad as an official optional rule, which is kind of the whole point of the discussion.

If I made any error it was not elaborating on such a simple reducto ad absurdum to begin with.

Sure, but if you expected such charity in reading your response, I would argue it behooves you to give such charitable readings in return. I admit, however, that I only skimmed the immediate context of your post (having flitted through the thread to check what the initial, allegedly-fallacious claim was). As a result of your post's brevity and that skimming, I failed to pick up on the subtleties of the argument--it came across as just a flat equating of Spell Versatility with your extreme example, rather than critiquing only the smaller universal claim as noted above.

So, if you'll permit me to restate Acererak's point without the objectionable universal claim:
When there is an issue (or at least a perceived issue) with the game, an official optional rule to address it is superior to a pure homebrew solution, in the sense that there are a significant number of groups which will outright refuse homebrew solutions or treat homebrew solutions with extreme and nigh-insurmountable skepticism, yet which will treat official optional rules as perfectly cromulent with little more than cursory criticism.

As an example, I have designed some homebrew options that I would like to playtest in actual 5e games to see if they are overpowered. At least half of the DMs I have approached have simply said "no," and of those who have been at least open to the idea, the majority have requested significant changes even before play begins. I admit this is simply personal experience; moreover, homebrew character options (in this case, a prestige class, a couple feats, and half a dozen spells) may well receive greater skepticism than a single overall rules tweak--especially since I have been clear in every case that I am looking to playtest this stuff. But the skepticism is quite real, and without hard data on the subject, we have to default to the simple fact that homebrew does get skepticism of a kind that official rules simply don't, optional or otherwise.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think that is a decidedly uncharitable reading of what was said, particularly given the context of the foregoing discussion. Yes, if isolated from the rest of the conversation, this would be a bald universal claim. However, in context, the discussion had been "you can always implement homebrew so why does it matter?" and the answer--which is entirely reasonable--is "a lot of places REFUSE to implement even the smallest amount of homebrew, so official-option status actually has significant utility."

I agree with that basic sentiment. However, outside a dubious universal claim like "it's always better to have an official rule than homebrew" there was nothing to support the claim that this particular rule would be better as an official rule than as homebrew. Thus, I attacked the dubious statement via my reducto ad absurdum argument - fully expecting that to push the discussion to progress toward it's ultimate conclusion where everyone came to the realization that ones view on whether the rule was good or bad (or neutral) was the sole determining factor on whether one believed it should be included as an official optional rule or not.

I agree with your point: it is not true that all possible rule-change proposals are better as official optional rules. However, even in context, the point is...a little pedantic, I hope you can agree. Further, it doesn't really have any impact on whether Spell Versatility specifically is bad as an official optional rule, which is kind of the whole point of the discussion.

Thank you.

Sure, but if you expected such charity in reading your response, I would argue it behooves you to give such charitable readings in return. I admit, however, that I only skimmed the immediate context of your post (having flitted through the thread to check what the initial, allegedly-fallacious claim was). As a result of your post's brevity and that skimming, I failed to pick up on the subtleties of the argument--it came across as just a flat equating of Spell Versatility with your extreme example, rather than critiquing only the smaller universal claim as noted above.

Keep in mind, critiquing that universal claim removed any sort of posturing that official rules are in general better than homebrew rules. IMO, it entirely depends upon the rule in question.

So, if you'll permit me to restate Acererak's point without the objectionable universal claim:
When there is an issue (or at least a perceived issue) with the game, an official optional rule to address it is superior to a pure homebrew solution, in the sense that there are a significant number of groups which will outright refuse homebrew solutions or treat homebrew solutions with extreme and nigh-insurmountable skepticism, yet which will treat official optional rules as perfectly cromulent with little more than cursory criticism.

Sure. I fully agree that official rules are better received. But a rule being better received is only a good thing if it's a good rule to begin with. It's a bad thing for a bad rule to be more accepted, no?