D&D 5E WotC Survey about PHB spells!

[Li Shenron]

Now, if you ask me what good this is for, I don't know.

IMO, I think these surveys only serve the most vocal players with the most time on their hands to take these tedious surveys, while everyone else who just enjoy playing the game and not waste time picking every little thing apart could care less.

I think someone decided that they must publish a 5.5 revision for the 50th anniversary coming in 2024, and are brainstorming what to work on for an update.

These surveys are for gouging, quick "like or dislike" questions on a massive amount of spells so that, instead of analysing where really could there be a technical issue to fix (like Guidance being spammable), they just want to know what the majority cares about. They prefer to change a spell that basically works but a lot of people have convinced each other it doesn't, than a real technical issue that almost nobody care about because they're not using it.

 

[overgeeked]

I don't know. In my experience, I'd expect a lot more paralysis about making a choice of what to do without definitive spells, and for most players to settle on two or three possibilities anyway even if freeform OR maybe even they'd be MORE likely to look on the internet for "good" spells to make on the fly and rely on those rather than their own imagination because it is "easier" or less stressful than coming up with something on the spot.

The majority of spells are a fancy name attached to these variables: range, damage, damage type, cost. The vast majority of spells only shuffle damage dice (a little more; a little less), damage type, cost (slots), and maybe a non-standard rider effect. The only difference between most of them is who rolls. Attack or save. Just make cantrips the baseline and slots the extra damage, range, damage types, and riders. You could condense the majority of spells in the PHB into one cantrip with a short list of damage types and riders. Categorize those by spell slot and you're done. Upcast the cantrip to a leveled spell slot and pick something (extra damage, damage type, rider effect, etc) from that level's list. There's really no need for a dozen different spell entries for different levels of "shoot fire at a target or targets".

In combat, most casters only ever blast anyway. Very few do anything else. You occasionally get someone trying something interesting, only for them to be berated for being "sub-optimal". In my experience.

Also in my experience, the majority of players in my group never look at the internet for stuff about D&D (unless I am showing it to them) and enjoy the process of figuring out what works for them.

My experience is the polar opposite. Most players I have to deal with are obsessive optimizers and power gamers. If it's not the absolute perfect, bestest spell for its level, then it sucks and anyone who picks it is stupid. That's an almost direct quote, btw.

The one player I have right now who spends a lot of time in D&D subreddits will tell me about some of the things he reads but usually in one of two forms:

1. Reddit says this spell is a pain to adjudicate and can wreck the game. I was considering taking it, but what do you think? I won't take it if you agree with that assessment.
2. Wow. People on the internet say this spell is worthless, but in this game it seems to be really working out for me because X, Y, Z.

Most of my players couldn't build a character or pick a spell on their own if they tried. If it's not something they can copy and paste from charop forum or jot down from a charop YouTuber, they're utterly lost. Somehow they've internalized the BS of "either you're perfect or you suck".

 

[Maxperson]

I got to C and then clicked the X and shut down the survey. They should have broken this one up into 3-5 parts and spread them out a bit.

 

[AtomicPope]

I just realize the only spell on that list I've never cast as a player or DM was Power Word Heal.

 

[Charlaquin]

Just let players create their own spells on the fly and include a casting check with each use. If the same spell is cast multiple times in short order, the DC goes up and the chance of a random wild magic...event increases. There's no need for the majority of the spells listed. There presence makes the game formulaic. One person who's good at 5th-grade math analyzes all the spells and declares certain ones good and other ones back, then the majority of players just use the "good" ones whilst ignoring the "bad" ones. Better to force some creativity.

I don’t know about forcing creativity, but an improvised casting system would be awesome.

 

[Charlaquin]

The majority of spells are a fancy name attached to these variables: range, damage, damage type, cost. The vast majority of spells only shuffle damage dice (a little more; a little less), damage type, cost (slots), and maybe a non-standard rider effect. The only difference between most of them is who rolls. Attack or save. Just make cantrips the baseline and slots the extra damage, range, damage types, and riders. You could condense the majority of spells in the PHB into one cantrip with a short list of damage types and riders. Categorize those by spell slot and you're done. Upcast the cantrip to a leveled spell slot and pick something (extra damage, damage type, rider effect, etc) from that level's list. There's really no need for a dozen different spell entries for different levels of "shoot fire at a target or targets".

In combat, most casters only ever blast anyway. Very few do anything else. You occasionally get someone trying something interesting, only for them to be berated for being "sub-optimal". In my experience.

My experience is the polar opposite. Most players I have to deal with are obsessive optimizers and power gamers. If it's not the absolute perfect, bestest spell for its level, then it sucks and anyone who picks it is stupid. That's an almost direct quote, btw.

Most of my players couldn't build a character or pick a spell on their own if they tried. If it's not something they can copy and paste from charop forum or jot down from a charop YouTuber, they're utterly lost. Somehow they've internalized the BS of "either you're perfect or you suck".

It kinda sounds like you would rather be playing with different people.

 

[Oofta]

Just let players create their own spells on the fly and include a casting check with each use. If the same spell is cast multiple times in short order, the DC goes up and the chance of a random wild magic...event increases. There's no need for the majority of the spells listed. There presence makes the game formulaic. One person who's good at 5th-grade math analyzes all the spells and declares certain ones good and other ones back, then the majority of players just use the "good" ones whilst ignoring the "bad" ones. Better to force some creativity.

I've tried encouraging creativity in different ways. Ultimately? A lot of people don't want creativity, it's just not their thing. A lot of people just want to figure out a strategy and stick with it. I'm not going to force my players to do something they don't want to do, it's not up to me to decide what's going to be fun for them.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Did the survey, I think that there should have been an option in the "did you cast this spell" section for "seen it in play"
Also an opportunity to explain dissatisfaction would be nice.
I wonder where this is leading.

 

[HammerMan]

Did the survey, I think that there should have been an option in the "did you cast this spell" section for "seen it in play"
Also an opportunity to explain dissatisfaction would be nice.
I wonder where this is leading.

yeah I tried to get my tuesday group to do the survey but when I told them you couldn't say WHY you are satisfied or disatisfied they all back out too long

 

[Orius]

Yeah, I'm not going through all that. I don't know the specifics of how the 5e spells work and generally prefer how they worked in AD&D and 3e with things like caster level scaling.