D&D 5E UA Spell Versatility: A deeper dive

[Sword of Spirit]

In the D&D Beyond video, Crawford explained that there's a segment of the population that are playing the game much more slowly than they imagined. These options are primarily meant for them.

The funny thing is that I am part of that segment playing with slow leveling and this solution isn’t working for me. My feedback can be summed up as “Good try! But it needs to go back to the drawing board.”

That doesn't mean that there's no possibility of mistakes, nor that the flavor of every rule works at every table, of course. Just that when the designer tells us that something is within the scope of a class that we should probably have to play with it to see what actually doesn't work.

Party spokesman: “Looks like we need some sort of spell to solve this problem.”
Bespectacled Wizard with three spellbooks: “Ah, lets see. I should be able to find that spell in the city we passed a few days ago, if the party funds are available for spell scribing...”
Sorcerer with big grin: “I can have it tomorrow.”

Every. Single. Time.*

I don’t get the way people want to deny that is what this does. It doesn’t matter how often it comes up, it’s that it can come up that throws class concepts out of whack.

I really don’t have to playtest it to know that that isn’t the class contrast I want to play with. Sorcerer needs a flexibility boost, but this isn’t right.

*Assuming its one of the spells shared by their lists (the majority are).

 

[Chaosmancer]

The funny thing is that I am part of that segment playing with slow leveling and this solution isn’t working for me. My feedback can be summed up as “Good try! But it needs to go back to the drawing board.”



Party spokesman: “Looks like we need some sort of spell to solve this problem.”
Bespectacled Wizard with three spellbooks: “Ah, lets see. I should be able to find that spell in the city we passed a few days ago, if the party funds are available for spell scribing...”
Sorcerer with big grin: “I can have it tomorrow.”

Every. Single. Time.*

I don’t get the way people want to deny that is what this does. It doesn’t matter how often it comes up, it’s that it can come up that throws class concepts out of whack.

I really don’t have to playtest it to know that that isn’t the class contrast I want to play with. Sorcerer needs a flexibility boost, but this isn’t right.

*Assuming its one of the spells shared by their lists (the majority are).

What happens if it is a spell in the Wizard's spellbook?

After all, by level 9 they have 22 spells even if they never received scrolls or spellbooks, or spent treasure on them, so it isn't unreasonable that the Wizard might actually have the spell needed to solve the problem in their book.

So, it is in their book and they can prepare it on a long rest. What do we expect to happen?

 

[cbwjm]

What happens if it is a spell in the Wizard's spellbook?

After all, by level 9 they have 22 spells even if they never received scrolls or spellbooks, or spent treasure on them, so it isn't unreasonable that the Wizard might actually have the spell needed to solve the problem in their book.

So, it is in their book and they can prepare it on a long rest. What do we expect to happen?

We expect them to say "Eh, I already know what spells I want to have prepared tomorrow. Let the sorcerer swap one of theirs."

 

[tetrasodium]

We expect them to say "Eh, I already know what spells I want to have prepared tomorrow. Let the sorcerer swap one of theirs."

If they both have the spell as an option & the sorcerer seems excited to do it, I'd expect that to happen. Sorcerer/warlock/scorlock really have a very different role in the party as both blaster & often the party face compared to wizards who are more utility, force multiplication, & being able to rewrite reality as "god" when the chance comes up. Maybe given a big enough spellbook & enough ritual spells (ie using some of the stuff I mentioned above) the sorcerer will get to feel awesome & change his spell for one situation the party expects & the wizard will be doing some other change or shift of role in order to be awesome with some other expected situation.

The two can work together without it being a zero sum game, but wizards need some new niche(s) to allow that to happen & instead of discussing that kind of mutually symbiotic play people are acting like this is an mmo where one class needs to be nerfed by arguing against strengths in the isolation of a vacuum rather than the classes as a whole hoping it will make their favorite class niche can be desirable in the next raid group instead.

It doesn't matter that sword of spirit's hypothetical example was contrived, left out what other classes were doing, & so many other things because it's irrelevant to the fact that people are seriously trying to argue spell versatility is not a big deal or that it;s super limited & doing so by pointing at wizard features in isolation while claiming the limitations of those & other wizard features are itoo trivial to be relevant.

 

[Ashrym]

If they both have the spell as an option & the sorcerer seems excited to do it, I'd expect that to happen. Sorcerer/warlock/scorlock really have a very different role in the party as both blaster & often the party face compared to wizards who are more utility, force multiplication, & being able to rewrite reality as "god" when the chance comes up. Maybe given a big enough spellbook & enough ritual spells (ie using some of the stuff I mentioned above) the sorcerer will get to feel awesome & change his spell for one situation the party expects & the wizard will be doing some other change or shift of role in order to be awesome with some other expected situation.

This I question because it looks like you're saying the wizard's roll is to rewrite reality while the sorcerer and warlock are just there for some more damage and maybe talk to people. I have a different opinion on the expectation level of power for a wizard. And those roles for sorcerers and warlocks.

The two can work together without it being a zero sum game, but wizards need some new niche(s) to allow that to happen & instead of discussing that kind of mutually symbiotic play people are acting like this is an mmo where one class needs to be nerfed by arguing against strengths in the isolation of a vacuum rather than the classes as a whole hoping it will make their favorite class niche can be desirable in the next raid group instead.

The wizard has a niche. It vaguely stems from the controller concept. 5e doesn't have niche protection, however, but spell versatility isn't going to change the actual spell lists or other class mechanics or that niche.

You might think this is mmo nerfing talk but Crawford stated it was done to move in the direction of the design goal, which was spell swapping at a certain pace. He just upped the pace and over-compensated (in some opinions). Swapping was always a thing whether it was the level up method or DM retraining methods.

It doesn't matter that sword of spirit's hypothetical example was contrived, left out what other classes were doing, & so many other things because it's irrelevant to the fact that people are seriously trying to argue spell versatility is not a big deal or that it;s super limited & doing so by pointing at wizard features in isolation while claiming the limitations of those & other wizard features are itoo trivial to be relevant.

I've discussed sorcerers with @Sword of Spirit in other threads and want to be careful not to put words in anyone's mouth, so correct me if I'm wrong on this: Sword of Spirit sees a need for improvement to the restrictive nature of the sorcerer's spells known. Sword of Spirit does not like this particular implementation. Sword of Spirit's opinion is valid in that the restrictiveness exists and a lot of people share it. This is not necessarily because wizard's have any disadvantage in comparison.

I personally work around the spells on sorcerers by not trying to be too thematic, select spells carefully, and supplement the spell selection using feats because those feats are worth a lot more on a spell starved class. I like meta-magic and think it's worth the restrictiveness but that's still just an opinion and no more valid than anyone else's, and I recognize how restrictive the spells known mechanic can be.

I think the spell versatility feature is trivial. A sorcerer with a different 4th level spell on a different day is still restricted to a 4th level spell and just gave up a 4th level spell that was chosen in the first place because it was a better fit. Spell versatility as a general concept exists on a much larger scope for some classes using spell preparation. It's literally a case of a lot of general spell versatility compared to the little bit swapping out a spell, and that general spell versatility doesn't actually come from changing spells via prep. It comes from having more spells prepped than sorcerers know.

Losing a spell known to gain a spell known is not as significant as having 2 or 3 or 4 or 10 more spells prepared in the first place, let alone swapping any of them. It's actually a zero sum exchange with the benefit being situational or not being saddled with an out-dated spell.

 

[tetrasodium]

This I question because it looks like you're saying the wizard's roll is to rewrite reality while the sorcerer and warlock are just there for some more damage and maybe talk to people. I have a different opinion on the expectation level of power for a wizard. And those roles for sorcerers and warlocks.



The wizard has a niche. It vaguely stems from the controller concept. 5e doesn't have niche protection, however, but spell versatility isn't going to change the actual spell lists or other class mechanics or that niche.

You might think this is mmo nerfing talk but Crawford stated it was done to move in the direction of the design goal, which was spell swapping at a certain pace. He just upped the pace and over-compensated (in some opinions). Swapping was always a thing whether it was the level up method or DM retraining methods.



I've discussed sorcerers with @Sword of Spirit in other threads and want to be careful not to put words in anyone's mouth, so correct me if I'm wrong on this: Sword of Spirit sees a need for improvement to the restrictive nature of the sorcerer's spells known. Sword of Spirit does not like this particular implementation. Sword of Spirit's opinion is valid in that the restrictiveness exists and a lot of people share it. This is not necessarily because wizard's have any disadvantage in comparison.

I personally work around the spells on sorcerers by not trying to be too thematic, select spells carefully, and supplement the spell selection using feats because those feats are worth a lot more on a spell starved class. I like meta-magic and think it's worth the restrictiveness but that's still just an opinion and no more valid than anyone else's, and I recognize how restrictive the spells known mechanic can be.

I think the spell versatility feature is trivial. A sorcerer with a different 4th level spell on a different day is still restricted to a 4th level spell and just gave up a 4th level spell that was chosen in the first place because it was a better fit. Spell versatility as a general concept exists on a much larger scope for some classes using spell preparation. It's literally a case of a lot of general spell versatility compared to the little bit swapping out a spell, and that general spell versatility doesn't actually come from changing spells via prep. It comes from having more spells prepped than sorcerers know.

Losing a spell known to gain a spell known is not as significant as having 2 or 3 or 4 or 10 more spells prepared in the first place, let alone swapping any of them. It's actually a zero sum exchange with the benefit being situational or not being saddled with an out-dated spell.

It's absurd to deny that a SAD charisma based class like sorcerer or warlock is not generally going to be a better party face than a wizard & aside from another warlock or sorcerer it's generally only a somewhat more MAD bard or much more MAD paladin who might challenge them there if built to. The fact that there are no social skills on the wizard skill proficiency options it beggars belief that you might think a wizard would be the party face. A class should play to its strengths & like it or not, blasting & being a face are two of the sorcerer/warlock/scorlock strengths

Given all the ways that sorcerer & warlock can add charisma to damage it borders on ludicrous to suggest that blasting is not one of the roles that they excel at. I think we ca both agree that the celestial warlock & divine soul are extremely unusual archtypes that fall well outside the realm of this discussion about how the UA stuff affects wizards. I can see how you might misinterpret the phrase "rewrite reality", but really & truly anyone posting to this thread should know the reference & as a result the kinds of things it covers.... Perhaps you'd be happier if I had said something like "controller of reality" or "control reality", but we are well past the border of silly suggesting that sorcerer & warlock strengths should be ignored.

 

[Ashrym]

It's absurd to deny that a SAD charisma based class like sorcerer or warlock is not generally going to be a better party face than a wizard & aside from another warlock or sorcerer it's generally only a somewhat more MAD bard or much more MAD paladin who might challenge them there if built to. The fact that there are no social skills on the wizard skill proficiency options it beggars belief that you might think a wizard would be the party face. A class should play to its strengths & like it or not, blasting & being a face are two of the sorcerer/warlock/scorlock strengths

Lol, I never said warlocks or sorcerers would be bad at it or that I might think a wizard would be the party face. I find it interesting that you think bards are any more MAD than sorcerers, warlocks, or wizards, however.

I disagreed that sorcerers and warlocks were nothing more than the party face and damage, or that a wizard's niche is rewriting reality as "god".

Twin works with concentration spells. Heighten lands status effects. Quicken spell is about action economy and not just dumping another damage spell. Subtle works with stealth depending on the spell effects and resists being counter spelled. Twinning haste or levitate can easily be more useful than damage.

Warlocks are all about the invocation, and not just the invocations that work on eldritch blast. Most of the spells on the class list aren't even that good at damage; just eldritch blast. They pick up fireball by going fiend instead, for example. It take misty visions on every one and pick up more SLA's as I level. The 15th level SLA's are all really good. The Arcanum are going to be soul cage, force cage, dominate monster, and true polymorph. Or something like that. They aren't damage.

Damage is something fighters do.

I will say that if you want a party face, then a rogue with reliable talent does the job better (if built for it) than the warlock or sorcerer, and the bard is just as focused on CHA but also uses class features that pertain to skills more than warlocks or sorcerers too.

Given all the ways that sorcerer & warlock can add charisma to damage it borders on ludicrous to suggest that blasting is not one of the roles that they excel at. I think we ca both agree that the celestial warlock & divine soul are extremely unusual archtypes that fall well outside the realm of this discussion about how the UA stuff affects wizards. I can see how you might misinterpret the phrase "rewrite reality", but really & truly anyone posting to this thread should know the reference & as a result the kinds of things it covers.... Perhaps you'd be happier if I had said something like "controller of reality" or "control reality", but we are well past the border of silly suggesting that sorcerer & warlock strengths should be ignored.

Sorcerers can do some nova damage well. It's not all they do. Warlocks can spam eldritch blast and that's not all they do. You're limiting them lower than their capability with those concepts.

I wasn't even getting into subclasses, but celestial and divine soul are popular in part because they can add spells wizard cannot. It's about the differences more than the similarities. If it's outside the realm of this discussion then why did you bring it into this discussion?

I don't actually need to look at treant's guide to participate in this discussion. I'll give you a heads up that it's not okay to tell people directly or indirectly if they can or cannot post. It's not okay to use language that may imply someone is not qualified to post because of knowledge of a reference. I'm not sure you meant it that way so I'm going with benefit of the doubt that I may have misinterpreted.

If you want to discuss then discuss. Just keep in mind I don't get upset or angry with people on the internet over a difference of opinion. I have no trouble going over the strengths and weaknesses of different classes as I see them.

 

[Li Shenron]

I keep thinking the discussion seems to miss the fundamental issues with Spell Versatility.

92 minutes of applauses...

 

[5ekyu]

The funny thing is that I am part of that segment playing with slow leveling and this solution isn’t working for me. My feedback can be summed up as “Good try! But it needs to go back to the drawing board.”



Party spokesman: “Looks like we need some sort of spell to solve this problem.”
Bespectacled Wizard with three spellbooks: “Ah, lets see. I should be able to find that spell in the city we passed a few days ago, if the party funds are available for spell scribing...”
Sorcerer with big grin: “I can have it tomorrow.”

Every. Single. Time.*

I don’t get the way people want to deny that is what this does. It doesn’t matter how often it comes up, it’s that it can come up that throws class concepts out of whack.

I really don’t have to playtest it to know that that isn’t the class contrast I want to play with. Sorcerer needs a flexibility boost, but this isn’t right.

*Assuming its one of the spells shared by their lists (the majority are).

Ok so see tho, I have to respond with "so what"?

Really, so whst?

I mean, the clerics sndcdruids have their whole lists, can swap out from any level to any level all per rest etc and whrn it comes to oddball weird spells have plenty of choices for " I got a spell that works too"... and yet for now what, 5 years or so, we have not seen sky is falling "but sometimes the cleric has the spell and the wizard doesnt" crisis threads.

Comparing that to the sorcerer needing to swap out one of his top 11 spells (at level 10 he has only 11 top spells) limited to one of that same level is a lot more restrictive than a cleric swappingnout one of his est 15 prepped of his est 25 total (10 sub-class.)

Between a cleric or druid or any of the other many class features, the current right now and "as seen in actual play" over years of play so far number of times and cases where "we need this one solution and it happens to be a wizard spell" vs the cases where "one solution is a wizard spell but we also have " is not a problem or gonna be pushed over the edge by sorcs and warlocks and bards getting this new swap.

To me, it's not a trauma causing hit to the wizard, it's a recognition that these other casters were too restrictive in being so completely cut out of the "adaptive spellcaster" by the one at level only plus few known double whammy.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If they both have the spell as an option & the sorcerer seems excited to do it, I'd expect that to happen. Sorcerer/warlock/scorlock really have a very different role in the party as both blaster & often the party face compared to wizards who are more utility, force multiplication, & being able to rewrite reality as "god" when the chance comes up. Maybe given a big enough spellbook & enough ritual spells (ie using some of the stuff I mentioned above) the sorcerer will get to feel awesome & change his spell for one situation the party expects & the wizard will be doing some other change or shift of role in order to be awesome with some other expected situation.

The two can work together without it being a zero sum game, but wizards need some new niche(s) to allow that to happen & instead of discussing that kind of mutually symbiotic play people are acting like this is an mmo where one class needs to be nerfed by arguing against strengths in the isolation of a vacuum rather than the classes as a whole hoping it will make their favorite class niche can be desirable in the next raid group instead.

It doesn't matter that sword of spirit's hypothetical example was contrived, left out what other classes were doing, & so many other things because it's irrelevant to the fact that people are seriously trying to argue spell versatility is not a big deal or that it;s super limited & doing so by pointing at wizard features in isolation while claiming the limitations of those & other wizard features are itoo trivial to be relevant.

The point I was trying to get across by asking "what if the wizard has the spell" is to highlight a different angle to this.

Yes, in Sword of Spirit's example they show the Wizard not having the spell which would be the solution, and this elevates the Sorcerer because with these rules allows them to have that single spell they need after 24 hours.

But what if the wizard has the spell?

What if there is no Wizard in the party?

What if the Cleric or Druid has the Spell?

What if a non-casting class comes up with the solution?

Sword of Spirit's example requires a very specific series of qualifiers to exist as a problem. A class needs this feature, the wizard needs to be in the party, the wizard needs to not have the solution, the wizard needs to want to have the solution, the wizard needs to know that they could head to somewhere and buy or gain the solution, they need to be able to wait the 24 hours for the other class to utilize this feature.

I am not saying there is no issue, but when you step back and look at the context needed for this to be a problem for the wizard specifically... it is a lot of conditions.