Again, from reading [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s posts, he isn't necessarily looking for magic-using classes to be limited (except maybe in Primeval Thule?). He wants them not to feel like somewhat-homogenised pew-pew-ers.
To give my own example - if you drop/limit magic-using classes altogether, then you don't have druids who can speak to animals, pass through overgrown plants, etc. But does bringing in that sort of magic have to also bring in at-will attack magic? Or even prevalent attack magic?
I think this is simply a matter of options, but at some point you have to stop and say "NO MORE!" because otherwise you're making books and books and books full of "options" for Druids so they can cast, so they can shapeshift, so they can attack
with magic, so they can attack
without magic, etc... So while I agree that the way things are leads to homogeneity, the alternative leads us to such an unimaginable glut that there's no real way to mange it all. We've seen the latter happen already. Speaking from a video-game perspective, when games cut down on glut (as World of Warcraft has done in the last couple years), it can lead to homogeneity. One of the areas that video games succeed where tabletop games don't is that a video game can give everyone an AOE attack, but use different animations for each class, giving an illusion of differentiation, while a TTRPG that's all in the mindscape. The ability is for all intents at purposes: "hit everyone within X for Y" but a TTRPG lacks the visualization. It's up to the player to imagine it. Is it a whirl of swords? An explosion of fire? A rain of hail? A tornado? A bunch of little gremlins? WOTC can attempt to fluff up the text, but that really leads to annoyance in attempting to glean what the spell actually does away from the floofy talk, and it also just stretches out what would otherwise have been a simple, short, concise ability into a long-winded novel.
One of the main things I liked about 4E was it did away with the novel-like spells.
This is a distinct factor that pushes towards making otherwise martial or non-caster classes (rangers, monks, and arguably at least some paladins and bards also) into being magic users. As well as the "GM restriction" thing, there is also the fact that many abilities need to be rationed, and D&D has traditionally preferred to integrate ingame and metagame reasons for rationing, and the traditional way that is done is via the Vancian spell.
Both these factors seems to have had quite an influence on 5e's design - I assume in reaction to the hostility many D&D/PF players evinced to the way non-magical abilities were implemented in 4e.
Sure, you'd have to be mad not to see 5E as 3.X LITE. Sure, there's a lot of bug fixes, there's some underground plumbing from 4E, but on the whole, it's a diet 3.x. But that's not to say 4E didn't have a similar layer of homogeneity, and in that respect, I find this whole thread funny. In terms of systems, 4E was MUCH more homogeneous than 5E, given that
everyone used the AEDU system and that
everyone was limited to roughly equal numbers of AEDU abilities. But people complained this system was
too homogeneous, so they went back to the system that was
less homogeneous.
So really I think it's funny. Just shows consumerism is alive and well in even the RPG market: people get what they want and still aren't happy.
