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Caphi posted:Sorcerers aren't the ones that practice, though. Wizards are supposed to have studied spellcraft theory for ages (the thing wrong with this is a la carte level multiclassing but that's the thing wrong with a lot of things in 5e). Sorcerers are the ones to whom the magic just happens. I think part of the thing here is for a lot of people Sorcerer's do practice and train.
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Apr 13, 2024 20:13
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Wizards get to be cool because they have to do the most tedious bookkeeping to do it
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Apr 13, 2024 20:18
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wizards and sorcerers are the same because in D&D, the source of magic doesn't matter at all, you start by writing "this spell does X" and the "how" of that is just handwavey "it's magic" with nothing more behind it. Yes, over the decades various editions have attempted to rationalize a structure, with poo poo like magic schools and draconic origins and so forth. But at the end of the day, the fireball is there because magic, not because there's a coherent and restrictive structure to the game universe that dictates how and why and under what conditions you can create fire. This is of course all down to the fact that D&D is a kitchen sink setting. Once you're committed to a setting where magic can do anything you can think of, and there's no structural reason to rule out a specific magical effect as not in line with the game universe's premises, then dicing up magic between classes is an arbitrary decision. Like why exactly can't wizards heal just as well or better than a cleric? There's no flavorful reason borne out from a restrictive structure of the setting itself, it's just a game-mechanics balance restriction to make sure clerics get to heal. Something something necromancy or whatever. So how can "these guys memorize books, but those guys tap into their innate power" actually be used to divide up magical effects? Why should, I dunno, casting Fly or Create Water or Hideous Laughter or Ray of Death be something from a book or something you had to be really attractive and personable to do? It's a silly question, those source descriptions don't lead to anything we could all easily agree on because they're distinctions without actual distinction. Oh you get your magic from dragon ancestry? OK well what can dragons do and not do? Oh, they can do anything. Well. Oh you get your magic from a book? What magic is impossible to write down? Oh we never said. Hm. e. I guess what I'm really bloviating about is I don't think D&D gets to have its "magic does anything" setting-agnostic cake and also eat it with sorcerery being a really compelling distinctive kind of magic compared to book magic. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Apr 13, 2024 |
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Apr 13, 2024 20:27
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sorcerers should've been subsumed into wizards (arcane spell list, make metamagic a subclass) and warlocks (magic nepo babies, flexibility, ready access to a small spell list) and bards (charismatic natural casters). and then replaced with warlords. rip. e: ^^^yeah the problem is that spellcasters are just the normal character bits (saves, proficiencies, etc.) plus spellcasting, and spellcasting is just a list of effects you have access to with no real rhyme or reason besides a vague attempt to balance things via list access. all the half- and third-casters are way more fun and flavorful than the full casters Valentin fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Apr 13, 2024 |
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Apr 13, 2024 20:32
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But by that argument, there's no difference between Rogues and Fighters? As both are using the same weapons?  I think the point here is Classes should mechanically feel different, and play differently. 4e was controversial because in many ways the powers per X breakdown had the perception of making the classes play the same. The complaint is that while many classes do play differently, Sorcerers annoyingly are just inferior wizards whose mechanic differences don't help make the class stand out. I don't think it makes sense to say "Because these two classes share many of the same spells that they are the same" because um, Clerics and Druids? Or Bards and Sorcerers? Previously in 3.5e this mechanical difference was more real and practical because sorcerers had way more spell slots. There being mechanical differences that help convey narrative differences is fairly fundamental game design; the story and the mechanics should complement each other. Just because two countries both have oil wells doesn't mean there's no difference where one uses most of it on tanks and warplanes and the other just one their civilian economy, they're going to feel like very different countries. I think also you're looking at Spells in their effects being the same but potentially missing that in universe even if they have similar (identical) effects, they spells might appear to be different; much in the way that an Artificer has many of the same spells as another class but are explicitly pointed out to be using them in ways completely alien to full casters because they're fiddling with widgets and tools (mechanically this doesn't mean much but it probably should impose disadvantage on attempts to dispel or counterspell artificer magic tbh).
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Apr 13, 2024 20:39
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Raenir Salazar posted:I think part of the thing here is for a lot of people Sorcerer's do practice and train. You have been suckered by D&D's promise that it can simulate arbitrary settings and aesthetics. What it's supposed to feel like to play one, whether it does this successfully or not, is fairly well-defined and is in fact laid out very clearly. Sorcerers do, of course, gain power with experience, as all adventurers do in D&D, but the idea that they are honing and mastering a craft is not actually the idea their powers were made to evoke, especially compared to wizards "learning" their spells (whether wizards evoke this with their mechanics is a different discussion). The PHB posted:Sorcerers have no use for the spellbooks and ancient Raenir Salazar posted:I think the point here is Classes should mechanically feel different, and play differently. 4e was controversial because in many ways the powers per X breakdown had the perception of making the classes play the same. The complaint is that while many classes do play differently, Sorcerers annoyingly are just inferior wizards whose mechanic differences don't help make the class stand out. The thing is, the difference in spell selection between 4e sorcerers and wizards did make them operate and play very differently, and indeed naturally make a dragon sorcerer very different from a storm sorcerer, or an enchanter from a conjurer.
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Apr 13, 2024 20:51
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Giving artificers spells was weird to begin with tbh. Unless it more of a 'wizards are magic scientists, artificers are magic engineers and sorcerers are magic artists, and warlocks are magic nepo babies'
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Apr 13, 2024 20:53
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Raenir Salazar posted:But by that argument, there's no difference between Rogues and Fighters? As both are using the same weapons? i mean, rogues and fighters do have many similarities that can make them boringly similar to play, they have huge overlap in their battlefield roles depending on how you build them, and if someone said "rogues should be a fighter subclass" i wouldn't bat an eye. but also sneak attack and battlemaster dice in particular hugely change how each class plays relative to the other in terms of what they can do on the battlefield (this is also true of barbarian, which IS just a boring fighter without its subclass stuff). the problem isn't just that magic is all magic, the problem is magic is a list of specific effects you can access and wizards and sorcerers access basically all the same one (and wizards do it better) AND they're both just casters in robes. clerics and druids are a good example here, really: there's a lot of extra cruft on those classes beyond spellcasting. clerics can be frontline fighters depending on subclass and naturally tend to be more heavily armored. druids get shapeshifting! metamagic is not shapeshifting lmao. Valentin fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Apr 13, 2024 |
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Apr 13, 2024 20:54
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Caphi posted:You have been suckered by D&D's promise that it can simulate arbitrary settings and aesthetics. What it's supposed to feel like to play one, whether it does this successfully or not, is fairly well-defined and is in fact laid out very clearly. Sorcerers do, of course, gain power with experience, as all adventurers do in D&D, but the idea that they are honing and mastering a craft is not actually the idea their powers were made to evoke, especially compared to wizards "learning" their spells (whether wizards evoke this with their mechanics is a different discussion). I.e. sorcerers are Harry Potter.
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Apr 13, 2024 21:01
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Druid has accidentally fallen into distinct spell styles because the restrictions of Wild Shape cause Moon Druids to use spells differently from caster druids and therefore to choose them based on very different criteria. Cleric, on the other hand, has the same problem, that the domain is very marginal compared to the core chassis, considering that clerics are supposed to be expressions of their deity's power on Earth and not just dispensers of all your favorite Concentration effects. I genuinely think Spheres need to be brought back for clerics. Instead of this incredibly broad list of things every cleric can just do, they should get an extremely narrow list of core cleric competencies - healing, bless, some sort of ceremony or sanctify, and so on - and most of their spell list should be determined by their god, or at least buckets like "the combat buffs" or "the ones with plants" or "the Sun." Caphi fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Apr 13, 2024 |
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Apr 13, 2024 21:04
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I think a lot of these questions settle into much more satisfactory answers once you anchor your game to a specific setting, especially a setting that isn't so kitchen sinky. Like in Dark Sun you have a lot more to hang on in terms of how does magic work and function and importantly not work or have specific consequences and restrictions and that in turn informs class flavor and abilities.
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Apr 13, 2024 21:19
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Locking wizards out of one school as part of the subclass is such an obvious fix but wizards can't be bad at something obviously. Same thing for sorcerers, but they have to pick one or two elements they're good at and one or two they can't do. Something like this to stop people picking all the optimal spells all the time.
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Apr 13, 2024 22:56
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Locking wizards out of one or two or three schools is also fake. When you do that in exchange for giving the wizards bonuses, the wizards cry and scream and tear at their beards, but they're snickering at you behind your back. There are a lot of bad spells, but there are plenty of good spells, and if you still get the full (or even an increased!) complement of spell slots you are going to be able to fill them with good poo poo even if your good poo poo is all orange instead of a mix of orange and blue.
Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Apr 13, 2024 |
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Apr 13, 2024 23:24
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Outrail posted:Giving artificers spells was weird to begin with tbh. Unless it more of a 'wizards are magic scientists, artificers are magic engineers and sorcerers are magic artists, and warlocks are magic nepo babies' When I played an artificer I thought of it as being like a primitive wizard. Thousands of years ago before anybody wrote down which combination of sounds and gestures make Magic Missile happen reliably every would-be wizard was inventing the wheel himself. And that's what artificers are doing: reinventing the wheel. So instead of flashing gang signs while reciting the alphabet backwards to cast a particular spell (because that's how ancient wizards wrote it down and have been doing it for centuries) every artificer has to reinvent the wheel. Which makes them generally less powerful as casters, but also able to do things wizards have long thought impossible (like cure wounds). And in 500 years wizard dogma will be that you have to hold a trowel at a 45% angle while naming the lost dogs of Argosia to cast Cure Wounds, because that's how it is written down.
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Apr 13, 2024 23:52
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Leperflesh posted:I think a lot of these questions settle into much more satisfactory answers once you anchor your game to a specific setting, especially a setting that isn't so kitchen sinky. I think Dark Sun is a bit of its own exception to things and hasn't IIRC been reprinted yet for 5e because of how different its supposed to be from the Dragonlance/Forgotten Realms/Magic the Gathering universal setting.
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Apr 13, 2024 23:56
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Raenir Salazar posted:I think Dark Sun is a bit of its own exception to things and hasn't IIRC been reprinted yet for 5e because of how different its supposed to be from the Dragonlance/Forgotten Realms/Magic the Gathering universal setting. Yes. I think that's kind of my point though. It's its own thing distinct enough from "baseline" D&D that it actually plays different.
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Apr 14, 2024 00:00
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Raenir Salazar posted:I think Dark Sun is a bit of its own exception to things and hasn't IIRC been reprinted yet for 5e because of how different its supposed to be from the Dragonlance/Forgotten Realms/Magic the Gathering universal setting. I think they've said they have no intentions to ever do a 5e version
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Apr 14, 2024 00:04
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Leperflesh posted:Yes. I think that's kind of my point though. It's its own thing distinct enough from "baseline" D&D that it actually plays different. I think like, at the end the day it's like Magic the Gathering. Magic the Gathering has many different sets and settings, each are narrative different and introduce their own new bespoke mechanics and key words; but at the end of the day the card game's core loop and expectations remain the same. Every set there are 2 or more players, who play with a deck of cards, and generally there's a base line of you draw and play cards which modify the game state. Your deck theme is basically your class, red aggro is different from blue control; and generally these themes match the narrative fantasy being supposited. Red Aggo is Lots of Goblins, Blue Control is a Smug Wizard posing dramatically saying No. I don't think there NEEDS to be a setting locked in for the mechanics to make sense, but the setting being locked in can help enrich and deepend those mechanical differences. Like Strixhaven adding more spell casting stuff and Harry Potter themed stuff and Visual Novel romance subplots. Or Dragonlance and the Tower of High Sorcery/Knights of Solamnia feats. For most of 5e we basically had as I understand it, Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk(?) being treated as the default setting, which I think muddles things, Wizards of the Coast has been struggling to evolve the game it seems like while we've had loads of third party content creators putting out unique content like Drakkenheim and Grim Hollows. I think generally its pretty easy to imagine 5e ideally being the baseline mechanical system and distinction between your core classes with the settings fleshing things out to be further different; but 5e having to evolve with primarily Forgotten Realms in mind with some Magic the Gathering thrown in which has dozens of distinct fantasy settings inside of itself and WoTC's own cautiousness I think has prevented 5e from really delivering mechanically a deeper experience. It's delivered a very ubiquitous experience that people have easily and widely adapted, but I don't think the fact that we see people having issues with the core design means that there couldn't be a satisfying hypothetical core design that could've served as the same baseline and be as adaptable. 5e in general is pretty "broad" and "specific" at the sametime, things do in plain language what they do (allegedly), but also encompass a wide range of theoretical empty narrative space within the players imagination. It isn't hard to see two classes being different, I brought up Rogues and Fighters before which play mostly the same (move, target enemy, roll to hit, apply special abilities to hit harder or more, etc). But people do generally have pretty clear ideas of what Rogues are, and pretty clear ideas of what Fighters are; while also being able to occupy a wide range of narrative spaces they can customize; your bright eyed JRPG adventurer or your hardened veteran, both are possible within the same possibility space despite the mechanics not specifically pointing to either, just person who hits things hard and can be hit hard and wear heavy armor if they want. People have an idea of what Wizards and Sorcerers are, but mechanically the rules only really seem to let Wizards be a clearly defined thing that can do cool things, with Sorcerers being only slightly different from Wizards in worse ways. I don't think there needs to be a specific setting for this to have been modified a little and been better fleshed out. A lot of this feels like WotC being overly cautious in trying to balance things in some instances but not in others and its Sorcerers that got more of this effort to be balanced than Wizards.
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Apr 14, 2024 00:19
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Leperflesh posted:Yes. I think that's kind of my point though. It's its own thing distinct enough from "baseline" D&D that it actually plays different. It really depends on how you play it. I'm in the middle of a 4e dark sun campaign ongoing for the past couple of years. We don't have any arcane party members, but we do have a Shaman and a Psion, and since in 4e everyone can do some things that feel vaguely magical, it hasn't really felt much different from other campaigns I've done from a play style standpoint.
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Apr 14, 2024 00:24
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Jimbone Tallshanks posted:I think they've said they have no intentions to ever do a 5e version How could they? How could Hasbro put this on out to a mainstream audience next to Monopoly and Peppa Pig? "Because they are strong, tough, quick, and blessed with fantastic endurance, muls are high prized as slaves. In fact, most muls are born into slavery, products of the slave pits —owners recognize the muls' assets as gladiators and laborers, and so order the births of as many muls as can be managed within the ranks of their slaves. Muls are born sterile —they cannot perpetuate their kind." "Muls are half-dwarves, a cross between a male Dwarf and female Human. Because of their large bone structures, the pregnancy is hard on both the mother and Mul, usually resulting in the child having to be cut from his/her dying mother's body." Muls are made by forcing dwarf slaves to rape human slaves with both knowing the whole time that a successful pregnancy means she inevitably dies in agony. What is the Hasbro friendly version of that? Stuff that "edgy" can only be done by a fringe company with low overhead and no fear of being canceled.
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Apr 14, 2024 00:29
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Just have George RR Martin publish it.
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Apr 14, 2024 00:33
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Thankfully there are fans who have put a lot of effort into making a 5e rules conversation for people who want a gritty dystopian setting. Talking to my regular group and some others I could easily get enough people to run a Dark Sun game.
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Apr 14, 2024 00:54
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Facebook Aunt posted:How could they? How could Hasbro put this on out to a mainstream audience next to Monopoly and Peppa Pig? IMO you can update a setting with a new edition and aggressively remove the horrific terrible poo poo like this.
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Apr 14, 2024 00:59
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Leperflesh posted:IMO you can update a setting with a new edition and aggressively remove the horrific terrible poo poo like this. The point of the setting is awful poo poo on top of awful poo poo to show that this is a setting that desperately needs heroes. Otherwise it's just another fantasy setting but his one is arid and wizards are dicks.
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Apr 14, 2024 01:18
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ultimately it all boils down to sorcerers just being low int wizards edit: missed a page turn sorry
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Apr 14, 2024 02:44
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Raenir Salazar posted:People have an idea of what Wizards and Sorcerers are, but mechanically the rules only really seem to let Wizards be a clearly defined thing that can do cool things, with Sorcerers being only slightly different from Wizards in worse ways. I don't think there needs to be a specific setting for this to have been modified a little and been better fleshed out. A lot of this feels like WotC being overly cautious in trying to balance things in some instances but not in others and its Sorcerers that got more of this effort to be balanced than Wizards. The idea of sorcerers works, the idea of wizards works. But it only works if 'wizards can't be the best at everything'. The laziest answer is to have sorcerers being better at raw damage spells. Give them certain spells at earlier levels than wizards or something. Or have all spells that aren't in a wizards school be a level higher for them. If you're not an evoker fireball is a 4th level spell. Maybe that'd work with some tweaking, who knows. The entire argument is circular because the first thing to do is decide what arcane stuff are wizards bad at, which is a non starter.
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Apr 14, 2024 03:07
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Let Sorcerers ignore concentration checks on taking damage or something. Or add their charisma mod to it or something.
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Apr 14, 2024 03:11
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Outrail posted:The idea of sorcerers works, the idea of wizards works. The idea of wizards being better at sorcerers at anything they focus on doesn't work. It all comes back to 'wizards can't be the best at everything'. I mean I think mechanically the idea of sorcerers could be clearer; or more greatly emphasized. They have meta magic, but so few sorcery points that only a couple of spells are getting it, and only a limited number of meta magics, and Quicken is just trivially the best one to always pick. They have limited spells known (albeit the GM can always award you with more) but don't really seem to have more spell slots. At level 12 for example, they both have 16 spell slots in total; sorcery points potentially let the Sorcerer eke out more slots per adventuring day, and this could be non-trivially a lot; easily six level 1 spell slots!! or an extra 5th level spell slot and a 3rd level spell slot. There's definitely some interesting choice here, but its very tight, you're fighting between extra spell slots, spell versatility for meta magic which can be VERY pricey, and some of your other features like advantage on ability checks, but oh boy four whole sorcery points at level 20, the level 1% of players ever reach! Exciting. You could for example make it so that a base level Sorcerers should have like 50% more spell slots and sorcery points and converting points to spells should probably be cheaper, and should acquire more, probably at least 1 to 2 more meta magic abilities. I don't think emphasizing their natural store of magical energy in this way makes the wizard worse except for their ability to outlast a sorcerer in a magical endurance competition which I think is probably the one thing most people would agree the wizard should lose at in a head to head with a sorcerer. If anything it helps justify the rivalry sorcerers and wizards sometimes have in some fantasy stories; sorcerers sometimes are the hot headed free spirited magical freaks with a chip off their shoulder and wizards often are in hierarchical orders dedicated to rooting out sorcerers as threats to the natural order. I think the problem isnt that sorcerer doesn't work, every class even Blood Hunter works and someone can have fun playing that class. The conversation started because of comparing Sorcerers to Wizards and that's where there kinda is a certain lacklustre feeling of dissatisfaction with the class where it feels a little underbaked compared to Wizards.
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Apr 14, 2024 03:22
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Wizards can't take any spell that deals damage. If you're so smart, figure out how to make an impact without directly blowing poo poo up
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Apr 14, 2024 03:24
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wizards have to be virgins, and everyone in the world knows that fact about wizards
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Apr 14, 2024 03:29
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Raenir Salazar posted:
 The underbaked thing feels correct.
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Apr 14, 2024 03:30
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gently caress off with metamagic. It made sense when wizards used Vancian casting and sorcerers used spontaneous casting and got fewer spells but could use them whenever. So the wizard can know dozens of spells but has to decide if he wants to cast Fireball exactly 2 times tomorrow, or 3. If he's well informed he can prep the perfect spells for the day. If's he's going by the seat of his pants he just fills all his slots with Fireball.
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Apr 14, 2024 03:46
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The DnD 5.5 playtest added this to sorcerers, making them like magical barbarians.quote:Innate Sorcery
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Apr 14, 2024 03:50
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When is 5.5 suppose to come out because I really don't want to buy all the books on Roll20 and then them be made obsolete.
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Apr 14, 2024 04:31
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Sometimes soon this year I think. I think it's gonna be tied to the 50th anniversary.
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Apr 14, 2024 04:35
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Iirc the PHB comes out in september, DMG in november, and MM next spring
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Apr 14, 2024 04:47
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Wow that kinda sucks. The core books kinda need synergy
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Apr 14, 2024 04:58
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I wonder if this is a consequence of them firing so many people or if some business pervert decided this is good idea
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Apr 14, 2024 05:12
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It's been a very long time but I feel like that's how 3.0 was released too
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Apr 14, 2024 05:15
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Jimbone Tallshanks posted:Wow that kinda sucks. The core books kinda need synergy Ominous Jazz posted:I wonder if this is a consequence of them firing so many people or if some business pervert decided this is good idea So they were always intended to be staggered, as releasing all three at the same time would be too hard on the printers and lead to shortages, along with a few other reasons I can't remember. This is also not a new thing, every single D&D edition other than 4e had staggered books (from the dates it was the worst back in 1e) 1e: Monster Manual (Dec 1977), Player's Handbook (June 1978), Dungeon Master Guide (August 1979). 2e: Player's Handbook (March 1989), Dungeon Master Guide (May 1989), Monstrous Compendium 1 (June 1989). 3e: Player's Handbook (August 2000), Dungeon Master Guide (September 2000), Monster Manual (October 2000). 4e: It was originally announced they would be released over a three-month period, but the date changed after customer feedback and they released all three on June 6 2008. 5e: Player's Handbook (August 19, 2014), Monster Manual (September 30, 2014), Dungeon Master Guide (December 9, 2014). 5e staggered release posted:On the staggered release schedule, Jeremy Crawford wrote "our small team couldn’t finish the books at the same time and also ensure their quality. [...] We could either stagger their releases, or we could sit on the books until all three were finished". homeless snail posted:Iirc the PHB comes out in september, DMG in november, and MM next spring Exact Dates are September 17, 2024 PHB, November 12, 2024 DMG, February 18, 2025 MM. Game Stores that sign up with wizards are also going to get them 2 weeks early again. Yusin fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Apr 14, 2024 |
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