Which spellcaster should get which spellcasting system?

[Minigiant]

In the playtest, the wizard and cleric use different spell casting systems. The wizard has prepared vancian spell slots that he must prepare at night, cast later, and forget from mind. The cleric has spontaneous spell slots are prepared during casting but has fewer overall slots.

So the question is which spellcaster do you think should get which spellcasting system?

Wizard: Prepared Vancian. It feels right. The wizard still feels like he prepares arcane formula and implant them into mind.

Cleric: Sorcerer-Spontaneous Vancian. The cleric's deity always keeps the slot slot open until the cleric needs it. The deity feels never away from the cleric as the spell. comes when prayer for.

Sorcerer: Spell Points/Mana. If the bloodline/ancestor fluff continues to 5E, then the tapping into a numerical spell point system matches well. How much is restore during rest is a different matter. I prefer short regen during short rests and full after long rests.

Warlock: AEDU-sorta. Seems right. The warlock gets his at-will eldritch blast and curse. Maybe a few giant blast shaping and curse enhancement that are physically draining. And a Weird warped versions of a normal spell. And a few permanent buff or two at higher levels. Basially they have permenent spells that recharge at different rates.

Druid: 3.5-style Cleric Vancian. The druid's various magic domains (elemental, animal, plant, wildshaping, healing, life, death, spirit) should all pull from the same system. That way you don't have regenerating wolves howling lightning without cost. So the Druid prepares his spells but can burn spell slots to wildshape, heal, or call lighting.

Thoughts?

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I think there's a good chance that psionics will get the spell (power) point system since they have a long history of that.

Sorcerers could be AEDU, or they might go back to a third edition style.

Warlock could also be AEDU or completely at-will (again like 3e).

 

[Remathilis]

Ignoring Cleric and Wizard for a moment (I like the systems they already have)

Sorcerers should use something akin to spontaneous casting, but with at-wills.

Warlocks look like a good place for at-wills and encounter powers; eschewing dailies altogether.

Bards should work like sorcerers, but their at-wills be bard songs.

Druids probably will end up similar to clerics...

 

[Yora]

Everyone should use psionic spell-points. Or anything, as long as it isn't spell slots.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

We have to consider both the class and the mechanic in terms of fluff.

The sorcerer is all about bloodlines. It's innate magical potency passed down genetically. To me, this says that the sorcerer either has a innate mana pool it draws energy from that others don't have, or is able to draw energy from the world around him where others can't.

Thus, a sorcerer should have either a mana point system or pure spontaneous casting.

The warlock is granted his magic through a pact. Much like a cleric, it comes from an outside source. Unlike a cleric, it doesn't come from a being quite so powerful as a god. My thinking would be that he gets smaller magical abilities, more often. Because he doesn't pray for his magic, the abilities are permanently tied to him, much like a wizard's prepared spells. Unlike a wizard, though, they don't go away, either being infinite or refreshing themselves at a set interval.

Thus, a warlock should have either complete spontaneous casting or something similar to AEDU.



Personally, I think the sorcerer should be entirely spontaneous, and the Warlock should have at will and encounter-like powers.

A big advantage to making the sorcerer spontaneous is that means most magic that is innate to a creature can be considered sorcery and doesn't have to be tracked by the DM. Plus, having a set list of spontaneous sorcerer abilities would make monster creation easier while still providing consistency within the setting.

 

[tuxgeo]

Wizard: Vancian is the original wizard style, and it is nearly de rigueur for a unifying edition. I don't mind the wizard's having an at-will attack or two (or three?), however, at-will attacks should have some chance of having no effect, so auto-damaging "Magic Missile" should be 1st-level and should require a slot.

Cleric: I'm impressed by the subtle variation contained in the 5ENext playtest so far: spells are prepared (no cleric knows them all?), but slots stay open until used. However, I would prefer to have more emphasis on the specific deity of the specific cleric, at least to the 3E level (domains) and perhaps to the 2E level (spheres). For example, if you don't take the GOOD domain, you can never cast "Holy Smite." That sort of thing. Let's have less same-i-ness among clerics of differing faiths. (I'm not worried about at-will clerical attacks -- what will be, will be.)

Bard: Bards should have something, but I don't know what. We have seen mention of a more Celtic bard's being in the works; I imagine that this would be more musical or at least lyrical, with meters and rhyme schemes and alliteration. We'll see.
(If we can get away from "Vicious Mockery," though, that would be neat. Can you insult a Balor to death? Maybe if you are Orpheus himself; otherwise, no.)

Druid: I like druids. In 4E, we got a surfeit of choices: Beastmaster (wildshaping), Sentinel (wolf or bear as pet, plus "wilderness knacks"), and Protector (summon allies, plus have "primal attunements").
That's a lot of good choices, and I would be happy to see anything of that sort in 5ENext. For that reason, I want WotC to go forward from 4E on the Druid almost as much as I want WotC to go backward from 4E on the Cleric.

Sorcerer: Arcane magic lives within them. They channel it into spells.

River channels are defined at least partly by what happens in them: if no water runs through a river channel, it ain't really much of a channel. If lots of water runs through a river channel, the channel can be scoured out wider and deeper (forming canyons), or the channel can silt up and get choked off; but at least something is happening in that channel.

Sorcerers should be creatures of habit: sure, they can twist and warp the magic within them any way they want; but it's unreliable until they do it plenty of times each. (Practice makes perfect?) Their spells are the arcane habits they have formed.

Warlock: See Witch.

Witch: I'm not going there at this time.

Invoker, Shaman: (We're not going to get an Invoker or a Shaman in the first book, are we? Oh, well! No use worrying about them now, then.)

 

[Doug McCrae]

No one should be Vancian except for the wizard.

The sorcerer should build his spells up out of bits, and they should have a failure chance.

Clerics, druids and warlocks should probably all use the same system - spell slots or spell points, possibly some at-will powers too - as their powers have much the same source. Witches and warlocks are the same, they both made pacts with evil or weird extraplanar powers.

Psionicists use up spell points or hit points, or, alternatively, no points but every use of their abilities has a chance to fatigue or exhaust them. Once exhausted, they require a long rest to use their powers again.

Shamans, sha-irs, diabolists and some necromancers get all their power from disembodied entities. So long as they can stay sweet with those entities, they're golden, but a failed charisma check or badly drawn protective circle and things go south, fast.

Alchemists, artificers, and some necromancers perform their magic in a laboratory or workshop. Money is the most important resource. A failed skill check will waste parts, or, if badly failed, could result in an explosion or uncontrolled undead.

Maybe I'm getting too old school, with all these side effects.

 

[Sadrik]

Sorcerer/Warlock/Psion/Cleric/Druid - Spontaneous slots but tied to some way to recover slots specific to the class

Wizard - Prepared slots

Fundamentally I see the sorcerer/warlock/psion as very similar classes with just a different set of spells and a different backstory for how they access their power. I don't see the need to separate the mechanics that far apart. For instance I can see using the sorcerer with a warlock theme, or a psion theme. I know that will fly in the face of some. Mechanically they are all spontaneous casters with a different spell list.

 

[Li Shenron]

As long as Wizards are vancian, I'm fine with whatever they come up for the others. I do not mind if other classes are also vancian, neither I mind if the Wizard is the only one.

But then, I really hope that:

a) no class gets infinite spell knowledge anymore, like 3ed clerics

b) whatever the mechanical choices, they come from the concept/fluff of the class, not just because it has to be something different or "new"


For example, the 3ed Sorcerer was already quite in sync with the concept of "inborn" magical talents, but it would be ok also if it used spell points. I have the feeling that "at wills" should be limited tho or even avoided altogether, as if the Sorcerer was inherently limited by some sort of fatigue.

For the Bard, I'd like it to go back to its old concept of "dipping" into magic, thus having the equivalent spellcasting of a (much?) lower level Wizard or Druid, using the same mechanic. Then, in addition to this, there would be his unique song-based magic. Or even better, just give it the unique music-magic, and you can then use plain and simple multiclassing if you want the Wizard-dipped or Druid-dipped version.

For the Warlock, I disagree with the AEDU... if it's like a Witch, then it sounds to me like it should be more based on rituals and magic item creation, especially potions and charms/amulets, plus a small number of spells (e.g. shapeshifting). But I think encounter-based make no sense, it's just popular because of 4e, but has no ground in the concept behind the class.

Druid and Cleric are the most difficult... I have no idea what would be the best, because I still haven't decided on how much a Cleric's spellcasting power should be directly because of her God, and how much should be her own talent, or IOW even if generally granted by the deity how much is the weight of her own talent in both the number of spells known and the concentration/casting capabilities.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I think we have well-established tradition for all of this.

Arcane
Wizard: Vancian
Sorcerer: Spontaneous
Warlock: At-will

Divine
Cleric: Spontaneous
Paladin: Same as a lower-level cleric
Druid: Same as cleric
Ranger: Same as a lower-level druid
Bard: Same as a lower-level druid

Psionic
Psion: Power points