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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6835253" data-attributes="member: 996">Since the beginning, AFAIK, a wider variety of lists being possible in 2e.I certainly agree in the context of 5e, where Ki is explicitly magical.  In 1e, the Monk came off a lot like David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, so passing it off as non-magical seemed more plausible.Just might have to call it 'non-supernatural' rather than 'non-magical'.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> It's literally true.  Each class has at least one sub-class that uses some sort of magic... Absolutely, and there are 5 non-magical sub-classes in the PH, alone.To an extent - you won't need to be returning petrified allies to flesh, gating into the BBEG's pocket dimension, or dispelling magical barriers.  You still need to be able to get a party through a challenging combat without too many of them dying (especially given that you won't be resurrecting them the next day).Yep, and the Rogue's Expertise means that skills are certainly a non-issue for such a party.They should, but they don't even come close.  Thought there's 5, they really fall into two categories, tough DPR, skilled DPR.  Skills are covered, taking up space & sucking up damage is covered, beating down enemies one at a time is covered.  Nothing else is.Yes, and equally valid.  A Fighter & Paladin can both be armored, chivalrous, warriors.  A Cleric and Paladin can both be divinely-empowered warriors.  But them together than the Paladin is redundant because you can just have a Fighter/Cleric handling the same concept.  Except that MCing is an optional system, so the Paladin is justified(npi) in the Standard game that doesn't include MCing.  Which is to say it does, indeed, 'blend' them, just so much as to make them loose distinctiveness.True enough.  Same problem, writ slightly smaller. There always has been this argument that trap choices are justified by the fact that there are players who are willing to take a hit to effectiveness, even play a non-viable character, in order to play the concept they want.  It's even taken so far as to suggest that the only way to prove 'real roleplayer' cred is to play mechanically inferior characters for 'RP reasons.'  It's a little off-base.  Within the constraints of any given character concept, there are still optimal and sub-optimal choices - even the optimal ones may be non-viable in the bigger picture, but they're still the best you can do with that concept.  Optimization is always there, unless you eliminate choice entirely.  The best you can do is try to present balanced options, such that the optimal aren't game-breaking, and sub-optimal are still perfectly viable.  The thing is, that become problematic when all the choices are more or less equally available.  5e doesn't have as many spells as 3.5, and even the most broken of them aren't broken like 3e polymorph for a while there.  But, 5e spells are surprisingly swappable.  You can learn one spell in place of any other of a level you can cast when you learn it, you can prepare any spell you know in place of any other spell (level doesn't even come into it), you can use a slot to cast any spell of equal or lower level that you have prepared.  Each spell has to be balanced with every other spell in the same list - and many are in multiple lists (and some casters can poach spells from other lists).  That's problematic.If each class were to have a unique list, then each spell need only be balanced for it's native class, and with multi-classing in mind.  If slots were less flexible, if for instance, you could only cast spells of the slots level with them, not lower level ones to greater effect, then spells of the same class & level would be a little easier to balance.  You'd probably have to get each spell into a freely-exchangeable set with only a handful of other spells to really make it /easy/ to balance them...  and there's no way that'd be practical working from most of the caster classes in 5e, anyway.  Not compared to the last edition, they haven't, a great deal of their power has been restored.  There's a whole lot more slots to cast 'em with, too.  5e casters vs 2e casters is debatable.  Some spells are weaker in one than the other, some don't exist, but casters face fewer restrictions and risks in using spells in 5e than they do in 2e.   Relative to 3.5, yes, some spells have been 'nerfed' - the idea of repeating saves every round that started with 3.5 Hold spells has been expanded, Concentration checks aren't as easy to pass, you can't stack spells to a silly degree, &c.  OTOH, a few spells have it pretty good (8d6 fireballs at 5th level isn't exactly less than 5d6, nor is Sleep with no save exactly 'nerfed' relative to Sleep that granted one),  save DCs now scale with character level instead of slot level, and casting combines the versatility of 3.5 Vancian with the round-to-round flexibility introduced by the 3e Sorcerer's spontaneous casting.  That wasn't the answer for years, I don't know why it suddenly would be now.It's not like that's never happened.Very true, and a more concrete/practical reason that re-fluffing isn't really a complete answer.</blockquote>

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