5e Sorcerer Variant?

One of my beefs with 5e is the uneven distribution of long rest and short rest abilities among classes (i.e. encounter and daily powers). The biggest offender, imho, is the sorcerer who gets only long-rest resources and is encouraged to use them up quicker because the sorcerer can spend more resources for a nova round. The quick brainstorm with a friend is to make sorcery points short-rest resources somehow. There's two issues with it.

Number of Sorcery Points. First, the number. 5e sort of assumes something like 2-4 short rests per long rest, so if we simply divide the sorcery points between half and a quarter, that should come close. Say half for now. That'd mean a level 5 sorcerer gets 3 points, which equates to one heightened spell per short rest or a bonus 2nd level slot. That seems pretty strong since warlocks get two 3rd-level slots per short rest, and the sorcerer would also have 3rd level daily slots. If it's a quarter, that means the level 5 caster has 2 points per short rest, which prohibits most expensive metamagic on spells other than cantrips and first level spells, but one level 1 slot per short-rest seems about right but weak. A third is probably about right.

Creating spell slots. The second issue is sorcery points being used to make new spell slots. Short rests could essentially be used to recharge, meaning why not take 3 short rests in a row to recover more slots? This is easily solved by capping created slots with a duration. I'd say end of next round, so you could create a slot in preparation for using it the next round. 1 minute might also be reasonable, or even 10 minutes though. But since they're easy to create, there's not a lot of reason to make them so long-lasting. And if/when they expire? They could automatically convert back to spell points. There's a slight loss here, as it's more expensive to create a spell slot (5 sorc points to make a level 3 spell) than you get from spell slots (3 sorc points for a level 3 slot). But that's probably fine.

Level 20. The sorcerer capstone ability is finally the short-rest sorcery points we want. Nice, but super late. They'd need a new capstone.

Done. What other consequences would this have? Some metamagics aren't going to work on your big guns. You won't have enough points to heighten, twin, or whatever your highest level spells. There's also a question of limitations, can you have more sorcery points that your max? I say sure, convert one big slot to points to power metamagic on your other big slots. Finally, it limits some metamagic options flat out, like Heighten Spell. We might be able to address this by either explicitly mentioning the option is best when you have more sorc points, or by fiddling with the number a bit, more like 1/4 plus 1 or half minus 1 something to ensure the number of sorc points at each level is about right. This still feels a little clunky, but I like the idea. Combine it with 1-2 bonus low-level utility spells for each origin, and it might do well.

Ridiculous 5e spells for villains

Playing Curse of Strahd, I have a hankering to let the villains do some creative spellcasting. I made nice use of the 5th level spell scrying as a PC in my Princes of the Apocalypse game, and its given me more inspiration to use some by-the-book spells in nifty ways. I mostly looked through the wizard list on the 5esrd (all of it) as the big-bads in Strahd seem to use the wizard list (Strahd, Baba Lysaga, and the Old Bonegrinder ladies). There's probably others, but these were some of the initial thoughts.

Curse of Strahd spoilers below. I'm sure I read somewhere about an alternate spell list in Strahd for when one of the villains prepairs for the PCs, but I can't find it anywhere now. These spells will give some nice fodder for that though, and a few are already on the character's normal lists.

An elegant solution to the cleric problem

I've been debating writing up my ideas for an improved 5e cleric class, and have a few that I really like. The idea is to make the cleric a much more versatile and customizeable class, rather than what the cleric is now. To that end, there's a few simple fixes. Conceptual at the moment, I might mock up a version later. I'll say cleric and priest interchangeably, but I might ultimately call it a priest because there's not a real reason you couldn't also use the cleric class in the same game as this priest.

Spells and domains. The cleric spell mechanism is stupid. For some reason, they're much more flexible than wizards in their spells known (two bonus domain spells for spell levels 1 through 5!) and any increase to the number of cleric spells automatically makes all clerics more versatile. I think there's a solution to this problem (that I've written about twice before) to be found via Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperboria: just give them a few spells per level. When clerics and druids have a whole list to choose from, its unbalanced. Wizards have to work to expand their list of spells knowable, so why can't clerics? Originally, clerics had a thematic and reasonable spell list which wasn't too big, so why not keep it that way? Then, you can expand the list with a few simple mechanisms. I think it would work something like this:

1) All clerics have access to a small set of pretty iconic priest spells. This is basically the sphere of All from 2nd edition, with a few staples in it like bless and protection from good/evil. So make that 2-3 spells per spell level.

2) Add to that a couple iconic domain spells. All clerics of a specific faith gain the training/insight of their deity or aspect of the deity. This is largely what happens in 5e, and similar to gaining one or two spheres in 2nd edition.

3) Add one more layer to the system, where, based on a cleric's wisdom, you gain a few bonus spells for insight. This allows a player to pick 1-5 additional spells per spell level that a cleric can add to their list which are derived through piecing together obscure bits of theology or delving deeper into the mysteries of their faith. These might be restricted to secondary domains or spheres, but means the player has a finite set of possibilities. This could be ditched simply by expanding the universal cleric list a bit (still restricted from what it currently is), but I like the idea of being able to pick a few additional spells that others of your order might not have access to.

4) As is, you keep prepping spells normal-like, you just create a custom list for each priest. Its definitely not as simple as the current system, but I could imagine two clerics of Lolth in a drow game with different spells this way.

Cross this spell system with a vocation system. Just like fighters or thieves choose an archetype at 3rd level, why not give clerics another meaningful choice? Priests would have a few distinct options:

A) Crusader. The militant of the faith. This option would get a few combat bonuses, like weapon and armor training and extra attack.

b) Evangelist. This is the skillful priest, who gains expertise in persuasion and performance. Alternately you could reword this as votary so the archetype is trained in the deity's ways, so it might cover thief skills for a god of thieves or knowledge skills and tools as appropriate. Or maybe they're two distinct options.

c) Theurge or mystic. This is the caster priests, who probably gains a few additional spell options and maybe a "divine recovery" for a few extra spell slots. You could get halfway to wizard by allowing a theurge to maintain a ritual book as well, giving them more rituals (or a limited number of rituals, like 1 their wisdom modifier).

d) Prophet. A cleric free from the heirarchy, the prophet might lose some basic spell training but gain some big guns and granted powers.

This makes a cleric about as complex as a warlock, with two meaningful choices (domain/deity at level 1 and vocation at level 3).  And I can imagine a game in which the party all follows one deity yet has multiple clerics in the group actually working.

The greatest old school spells (low levels) and dreams of a better system.

Now that I'm running an Al-Qadim Church for SundAD&D morning fun, its feeling pretty crazy to explore some of the brokenness that was old school D&D. Obviously we're doing it with some mid-to-late second edition material, but its is crazy seeing some of these hidden gems.

1) Animal Friendship. Traditionally a druid spell, but it turns out any specialty priest with the animal sphere gets it. This is a set of permanent animal companions, whose total hit dice is less than twice your level. You do need to train them tricks if you want them to do more than follow you around friendly-style. The animals won't be your friend if you have ulterior/sinister motives, but basically its a huge pile of semi-competent companions. Good uses thus far: big cat than can shred goblins. Good suggested uses thus far: guards to stand watch at camp (especially at night) and something small/quick that can fetch things. There's probably a lot more uses, but eventually one or two combat creatures plus one to master each other trick sounds pretty reasonable to me.

2) Charm person. The duration is measured in weeks. And this is a step down from permanent in the Swords & Wizardry book (which I assume is faithful to the original edition). In my game calendar, I have to roll a bunch of saves to see how long folks will be charmed and I'll mark it off when we come to that date. This means if a character of average intelligence is charmed for about 1-4 weeks for each failed save, and the save for 0-level characters is a 19+ on a d20. Still less broken than permanent, but I literally now have a day log so I can eventually decide when NPCs break the charm.

3) Goodberry. This second level spell belongs to druids too, and is a nifty way for them to provide some food or minor healing to the party. The Antagonizer pointed out that the spell seems to need fresh berries, so I guess this is mostly going to be things on the vine from now on, but I also have to keep track of how many berries were made on which day. I think, perhaps, I'll need to start sharing my calendar with the PCs so they can more easily keep track of some of these things. I did decide to enforce that goodberries will first function as rations before doing healing, but only if its actually been 24 hours or so since the last meal (i.e. you don't need to have one for breakfast before you can get healed, though that'd be another good ruling). We're playing in a jungly setting, but I suppose maybe there could still be a winter-ish month where berries are out of season.

4) Armor. Thankfully it doesn't actually stack with actual armor, but it does stack with physical shields (not the spell) and dexterity, and it lasts for a long-ass time till you start taking damage. This spell is definitely saving the collective asses of the players, but they're all restricted in their armor somewhat (specialty priest, or multiclass wizard or thief).

5) Sleep. I knew it was good, but it can basically take out a couple low-level goblins like none other. I'm waiting for the PCs to use it for a hunting spell (sleep on a flock of game fowl?) or some other good uses, but even just putting one or two guards to sleep is pretty amazing.

6) Entangle. This is another druid spell that the specialty priest has, but its basically stopping creatures in their tracks. Because its a huge radius, its stopped a couple encounters right away. Rereading this, I think the creatures aren't effectively paralyzed, so next time I think the party will need to expect a few missile attacks or creatures struggling to free themselves (probably depending on the weapons creature have and the plants in the area), but even if the creatures might get missile attacks this spell is pretty great.

-1) Ventriloquism. Not really a great spell, but I managed a pretty fun encounter with it because it was the only spell the enemy wizard could cast. Obviously he's going to use it as best he can, even if his goblin allies didn't get a surprise round.

These have been the big-use spells thus far (minus ventriloquism), but I expect some others eventually. One disappointment is that I think other low-level spells would be a lot more enticing if their durations were a bit longer to begin with and didn't creep as much. A lot could be something like one hour plus 1 turn per level, and they'd actually be pretty competitive with some of the ones listed above. Invisibility to Undead, for example, lasts a flat six rounds and never improves.

To be fair, some of the lackluster spells of 5e suffer this problem as well. A lot of them simply don't scale with higher slots, and I'd love to re-write some to do this. Things like Invisibility and Greater Invisibility should just be combined into one spell, for example. I'm just yearning to use Create Water to flood things in my 5e game, but that's in part because I once won a 2nd edition gladiator game with the spell when my 30+ level wizard cast it once or twice to flood our arena (8 feet of water really puts a damper on the dwarf warrior). Also, by the book, the 5e version of Create Water fills a container, dramatically lessening its use potentially. I like the precision of 5e, but sometimes things like spells attacking a creature really rubs me the wrong way.

Ultimately, I'm really liking some of the clunkiness of these old school spells. As I do this a bit more I think I'd love a game that is a bit more of a blend of old school stuff with 5e. I like some of the simplicity of how 5e has a nice handful of conditions which don't really overlap, but I also like how the old school spells leave a lot more room for interpretation (I like the reaction mechanic of 5e and would love to see feather fall be able to stop missile attacks mid-flight). I like how the old school game is decidedly lower-powered at low levels so far and its fairly gritty. While I love warlocks and sorcerers, I really love how I can hand out spellbooks to PC wizards to give them things to find and potentially add to their list of powers. I also like how not everyone has to have magic. I suppose there's always room to tinker. I do like 5e, but wish it had skewed a little more old school or that those modular dials that were touted could be turned down from Heroic a bit more. I might have to look at some other OSR games and see what's best to steal from them eventually, but I think this Al-Qadim game, crazy old school spells and all, will keep my attention for a quite a while still.

The cleric is broken: or, how the eff do I give clerics (and others!) new spells...

I'll admit it: I legitimately believe that the 2nd edition specialty priest was one of the best forms of the Cleric class. But we live in a post third-edition world (and first-edition and before are part of that world too), and I have a legitimate dilemma. How the eff do I give clerics new spells..? (I've noted this before.)

Clerics, since time immemorial, have always had access to their entire spell list. The problem is that every book that expands the cleric spell list directly expands the cleric's versatility and therefore power. The conflict is: certain gods should grant certain spells, but the cleric class doesn't have a great mechanism for gods granting spells.

The genius of second edition (at least following on the heels of the 1st edition Dragonlance Adventures) was dividing cleric spells into spheres. You could easily assemble a list of spells known based on spheres, and new spells were simply added to the list of spheres. It wasn't perfect, but at least each book with new spells didn't automatically add to each priest's selection. And those that did add were reasonably appropriate.

Now, I wish 3rd and 5th edition had expanded domains a bit, such that each domain granted more than a couple spells at each level. Ultimately that would be like an expanded second edition sphere of all but more distinction between deities/domains. It still suffers because there's no way to grant appropriate spells to a cleric of Isis and not to a cleric of Horus or Set. The problem remains: expand the cleric list, you do it for all or none (or specifically just to a few).

So I'm considering running a 5th edition assorted Saturdays game here in faraway and need to decide how to integrate spells from the Elemental Evil stuff or the Necromancer Games' Book of Lost Spells. I'm picking on the cleric here, but most D&D classes are now like this: bards, clerics, druids, fighters (eldritch knights), rogues (arcane tricksters), sorcerers and warlocks [Edit: forgot paladins & rangers!] all have the same basic problem. However, there's a few options.

1) Just fucking add them for everyone. This is the least satisfying option.

2) Let some appropriate spells overwrite generic spells. This is say I offer detect disease or putrefy food and drink in exchange for some spell on the regular list. This is reasonable at each spell level, and requires the DM (i.e. me) to decide which spells belong to a particular deity, patron, or whatever-the-fuck bards and sorcerers use for gaining spells. Its reasonable, but also unsatisfying.

3) Discovery. Through mystic tomes, journals from dead mages, runestones, or whatnot I could add spells to particular characters' lists. This is still in the DM's hands, and could be combined with option #2 I suppose. The thing is... there's no real reason why bards couldn't have found a particular spell anyway. For bards and sorcerers this is a bit more satisfying as they basically just add to a set list of spells known. For clerics and druids, this is less exciting because, by the rules, it seems like their god should have either granted the spell from the get-go or not.

4) Replacement. This is like #3 but without discovery. Here I (i.e. the DM) just arbitrarily replace some spells on a PC's list with others. Doesn't motivate anyone to discover new shit, but it is reasonable.

5) Bonuses. Like #4, but based on spellcasting stats. Essentially, the DM gives bonus spells to particular characters based on their spellcasting list. So a Cleric of Ptah with a +3 wisdom bonus would add 3 additional spells of the DM's choice to their list. I like this option, but it might be hard to come up with that many spells per level. Simply replacing the bonus/level with the bonus spread across levels this would be pretty manageable, or maybe double the bonus across levels (so that +3 bonus translates to six added spells of whatever levels are appropriate). The problem with this option is finding the right number of additional spells for any given priest. That's 5 or 10 depending on wisdom scores, I suppose. Thankfully the Book of Lost Spells does provide quite a few, but there might not quite be enough great options for any given priesthood (or bardhood, druidic cult, sorcererous bloodline, or warlock patron).

I'm obviously still brainstorming a bit, but option 5 seems like its the best. Its DM-sensitive, but gives some customization to different types of cleric (or bard or druid or sorcerer or warlock) without stupidly expanding each class's spell list. I'm still looking for something better. I'm thinking combining #3 Discovery with #5 Bonuses, but ultimately anything that could be discovered also feels like it could be a bonus. If deities are active in the world, I suppose one-off spell options could be given as well: Isis knows her agents may need a Detect Curse spell and offers it on one particular occasion. 

Scimitars against the Dark and the magic in dream Al-Qadim campaign

I still have this dream Al-Qadim campaign I'd like to run, and reading through Spells & Magic lately, I've been thinking of any rules alterations I'd want to do. The key thing that sticks in my brain is those nifty alternate magic systems. Channelers, Witches & Warlocks, Alienists, Defilers & Preservers, Ritual Prayer, Conditional Magic... That could be game-changing stuff.

But I can't find any info on it online. Did anyone use these in play? Was one of the systems horribly broken or easy to abuse? Do they mix well in the same game?

The obvious first thing to do is assign different magic systems to different classes. Start with the priests:

Hierarchy Priests (Pragmatists, Ethoists, Moralists) - Ritual prayer. These folks follow the rules and gain their religion's power through rites and rituals. It may take longer to cast a spell if they do the right thing, but they can save some power by taking time to do it right and/or make a spell more potent with the right sacrifices or time.

Free Priests (Mystics and Kahins) - Conditional Magic. These free priests gain their power through investments and dedication. When they act in their deity's interest, their spells are quite potent. If they act against their deity's will, their spells are reduced.

Hakimas - Technically free priests, but neither of the previous magic systems seem appropriate. I'm leaning towards channelling, but it doesn't quite seem like they should be weakened by the cosmic insights they are granted. There's not a real established Hakima code to build conditional magic out of though, nor is there some Hakima rite to base ritual prayer off of. So I'm a little stumped.

Moving on to the wizards, its also nebulous here. I'm not sure if its unfair to have two types of priests use a different system than wizards, but there's baggage on a few of the ends.

First off, channelling seems reasonably appropriate, even if it were to be shared with the Hakima. I want to keep the Brotherhood of True Flame in the setting, others are so minor it's hardly important.

Second, either warlockry or alienism seems like it could be grand for the setting, but they don't fit with the Brotherhood of True Flame. They'd be great for a Scimitars Against The Dark type game though, and alienism fits the sungazer wizard kit in that Scimitars.. article in Dragon Magazine. But in a world where magic is gleaned from demons or the dark between the stars (or monsters that existed before time was?), where is the role for the Brotherhood? The sword-and-sorcery that I've read generally eschews wizards' guilds because wizards are power-hungry madmen, so maybe alienism isn't the worst. Warlockry kinda steps on the Sha'ir's feet though. Also, alienism really would force a Scimitars Against the Dark type game where I'm not 100% sure that's what I'd be into.

Speaking of the Sha'ir, even if Alienism is adopted for most wizards, alienism certainly doesn't fir the Sha'ir. Then again, the sha'ir also has a unique magic mechanism, so maybe an alteration there isn't needed after all. Though channelling would be fitting, it would just hinder the Sha'ir more: they're already pretty limited in terms of spells they get to cast, and channelling wouldn't really limit the Sha'ir much because they'd be resting a bit while their gen fetches a new spell anyway.

Then there's the Rawun. Bards are spellcasters in AD&D, so what's their magic system. And there's paladins and rangers too, but I suspect paladins could be ritual and rangers could be conditional no problem. But bards get a good number of spells. Should every rawun go bad from learning cosmic secrets? Probably not. So I'm tempted to give them channelling like the Hakima, but that seems crappy too.

Best case thus far, I'm just doing stuff for priests other than the Hakima. Maybe its not worth it after all. Or maybe channelling can be just used for the mages (not sha'ir), bard, paladin, ranger, and hakima. Alienism might really shake up the setting a bit (what if you eliminate non-free priests as spellcasting options?), but it might do too much.

The other major problem here is these variants are only applicable to an OSR or 2nd Edition game. This would majorly impact the balance of things in 5e. One reason, I suppose, why I like how older editions are still more customizeable.

Al-Qadim: Elemental Provinces

Just a little proof of concept for adapting elemental provinces to a 5e Al-Qadim game. The Elemental Evil spells combined with Book of Lost Spells has added a good number of options to the game. Enough, I think, where one could easily start playing at low levels.

I obviously pillaged spells from all over the Player's Handbook. There's a few levels in which a given province doesn't have a spell, which is a slight problem. These could be filled in, however. There's also possibly a controversial assignment or two (Mage armor and sleep being only available in the Sand province). I also don't like ice magic as sea spells, but I left a couple in from the PHB as they flesh the sea province out a bit more. I'm tempted to consider lightening as flame spells, but that gives a whole lot to the Brotherhood of True Flame. If you give those all to wind though, you end up with wind sorcerers using primarily lightening spells to attack instead of the thematic windy spells...

I'm keen on exploring a few broader or thematic application of the elemental provinces as well. For example, Air is the element associated with thought, so detect thoughts and telepathy could fill out that list, as well as invisibility which seems to fit the wind province more than others. Water might get intuitive and emotional spells. Sand could get some other defensive spells along with things like hold person as earth is the element of rigid stability. Flame might get aggressive, inspiring, and charming spells. That sort of thing. Some provinces might share spells, such as the hold spells being shared by sand and wind, or charm being shared by flame and water.

Spells marked with a * are Elemental Evil and I'd say commonly available. Spells marked † are Book of Lost Spells and the DM might provide those as treasure rather than just including all of them on a big list (other than the cantrips, I'd make those freely available to choose). I'm mostly going off of spell names for Book of Lost Spells entries. There's probably a few I missed and a couple that'd be best left off these lists. Also I wasn't sure what to do with a few spells which might be of two provinces (e.g. Air Forge† as wind and flame or Steam Bolt† as sea and flame, etc.), so I just made an arbitrary decision. I could see them as only being available to "sorcereres" who specialize in two provinces, or just dual-listing some as I've done below.

In terms of classes, I imagine giving each "arcane" class (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard) access to one province. Wizards might have a tradition that gives them access to a second province. Arcane Tricksters and Eldritch Knights choose spells from one province instead of their usual school restrictions (this might lead to lots of sand eldritch knights and sea/wind arcane tricksters). This basically means a new spell list for most every class, as I'd try to remove most of the elemental spells from everyone (even Clerics/Paladins/Rangers maybe).

Lists after the break:

A failure of 5e: Cleric and Druid spell lists

I was (perhaps foolishly) reading some forum posts about the new Elemental Evil materials for D&D. Besides the usual gripes which amount to wanting more material, I've been thinking about how the new spells affect clerics (not at all) and druids (uncertain).

See, what they did was provide about 40 new mostly-elemental spells. They provided lists saying which spells can be taken by which classes, and one of those is the druid (cleric and paladin were left out). But there's an interesting caveat:

"Your DM might add only a few of these spells to your druid’s spell list. For example, if your druid is from a coastal region, the druid might have access only to the new water-themed spells." (Elemental Evil, p12).

Now, what has historically happened is every new spell in the game is available to the proper class. But everyone other than Clerics and Druids has a mechanic for how they "know" that spell. Wizards have to get a copy in their book (now you get a couple free when you gain a level, otherwise you have to seek it out) and other classes simply gain a new spell at each level (or thereabouts). Clerics and druids know every spell on their list, so when their list is expanded the classes just get that much more versatile.

This, I think, is a problem. But is there a solution?

Obviously for Elemental Evil they say: its the DM's choice if your druid can use all or only some of these. A reasonable thing to do at this point. As a DM, I think I'd simply ask the player to suggest which of those spells she would want access to and remove a few from the druid list that seemed less appropriate (i.e. a coastal druid might gain more water spells and lose fire ones).

But this is ultimately a little unsatisfying big-picture-wise. What you want is a good mechanism to allow all clerics/druids to have a universal set of core spells, and then provide additional ones based on their domain/circle/what-have-you. They did this, to an extent, with the bonus domain/circle spells. So its easy to instead customise those bonus spells instead of the list as a whole. But then we've still kinda got two different lists of bonus spells.

I'm not sure what the solution is here. With at most 40 or so spells, a little customization isn't bad. If they add another 20-40 spells in 6 months though... and another 50-100 spells a year after that... the problem balloons into an outrageous bloated system.

It sounds like the Cleric/Druid need a slight redesign that they don't want to do. A cleric might "know" a number of spells at each level equal to his wisdom score, or perhaps 10 + wisdom modifier. You pick them from the Cleric list and you or the DM can select a few which are thematic but don't fit the general Cleric list. Fairly elegant, but shitty for new players (i.e. time-consuming and difficult).

My beloved 2nd edition wasn't necessarily better in this respect. Cleric spells were divided into spheres of influence, but still the more spells published the bigger your list got, though it was at least thematically coherent still (by and large).

A different, but not quite as elegant solution, would be to similarly divide the spells up into paths of power, a la the old Dragon Magazine article (#216). That divided up wizard spells into a number of paths, and wizards could only pursue a few thematic paths until they mastered them. I think, in theory, it meant high-level wizards were still crazy-potent, but it forced wizards to be thematic in their spells. I can see this being useful for both clerics/druids and sorcerers in particular, who ought to have maybe one or two thematic spells at each level but you don't want people to be making constant choices (i.e. choose once to get the Flame path and you've got a set spells with one flame spell at each level, rather than choosing from a large group of spells at each level to add or wholly customizing your spell list).

The problem with this "paths" approach is it doesn't jive with the current domains/circles, because both are mechanics to add new spells to the spell list. The classes still need a rewrite to prevent bloat in the long term.

Wizards are a bit of a concern as well, but the DM can (and should) limit which spells are available to some extent. So you don't have to let all the extra spells in as scrolls or through NPC spellbooks found as treasure. Sorcerers and Bards and Warlocks pick from the list, so even a bloated list isn't really increasing their power/utility unless bad spells are created for the game. But clerics and druids... I wonder if they'll actually do anything about this.

5e Spells: W(h)ither Creativity?

So the disappointing thing about 5e is that it seems sanitised for balance, but in a somewhat half-assed way. That's not right, its pretty well done, but maybe its too much compromise. What getting me at the moment is the utility spells.

So, I'm playing a gnome trickster cleric. I get some nice spells like polymorph and charm person and pass without trace. Things to help with sneaking and all that. Some nice options. But, unlike other spells, these don't scale with higher slots. And some of the higher level cleric spells are just less... interesting.

The DM tried to tell me that spells like blade barrier and banishment were great, and I agree. But not great for a trickster. I want some more utilities. And utilities that last longer. And these just aren't happening. Its sad too, because some spells like Bestow Curse show us the way.

For example, why can't a detect magic spell be cast with higher level slots (think 5th/6th level) that doesn't need concentration? Maybe its just 10 minutes or even one minute without concentration, but that's still great! A 6th level slot might be worth the 10 minutes or an hour. And a 9th level slot lasting all day... is that really unbalanced? The same applies to things like unseen servant, tenser's floating disk, and all sorts of other options. Even a higher level polymorph might let you keep your mental abilities or at least be able to concentrate on it for more than one hour. And this isn't just a problem with some utility spells, but a lot of them. No attempt to make them scale.

Then there's the saving throw issue. You can get advantage on magical attacks to deal damage, but it is almost impossible to give your foes disadvantage on saving throws. That makes my idea of playing a callous, cavalier, or downright evil enchanter rather unappealing (besides that they don't seem to get their one useful feature till level 14). So basically, you have an easy go of it if you're just planning on blasting your foes, but using some non-combat spells creatively never gets much easier. Guess some of that's the limit of bounded accuracy and a game focused on killing your foes rather than avoiding them.

I don't have my DMG yet, but theres a table I hope is in there but kinda doubt is: using spells creatively. Because I think they did some good jobs with spells like Create/Destroy Water and Control Water giving us some likely options, but they could have spelled out some of the combat uses better. Like the light cantrip: in AD&D, you could cast it at your foes eyes to blind them. It seems like a rather iconic thing to do and not all that hard to give rules: target gets a save or is blinded for one round (or dazed or whatever an appropriate condition is). Not always the best use of an action but it could have its uses and makes light a useful cantrip. Same thing with ray of frost: give it a secondary use for attempting to knock creatures prone (maybe they get a save/defense bonus of +1 for each leg they have beyond two? or simply advantage if they have more than 2 legs). These uses could easily be hard-coded into a lot of the non-combat spells: even using unseen servant you could sactifice it for a "help" action in a combat. Maybe not the best, but it gives people a clear use of these utility spells in combat.

But the table though. I want a table that gives good advice for using some spells creatively and how much damage they should do. If I use create water against a fire elemental, how much damage should it do? It barely has to be a table. I'm thinking something like:

• Single Target, just damage: 2d8+1d8 per spell level above 1st.
• Multi target, or single target + condition: 2d4+1d4 per spell level above 1st.
• Area of effect type spells ought to do half-damage on a failed save.
• Apply advantage on an attack roll or disadvantage on a save if it's thematically appropriate (i.e. create water against a fire elemental).

But since they're hard-coding some uses into spells, it seems obvious that create or destroy water ought to be able to do damage to fire or water creatures.  Why is this missing? Stone shape against an earth creature? These utility spells have been sanitised their combat uses. On the surface they have an old school feel because they give you some nice non-combat options, but those non-combat options don't scale well and any combat applications of utility spells are left entirely to the DM to decide. I'd think given the interest in balance in organized play that they'd make some fair and balanced rulings about this sort of thing so they can be evenly applied by different DMs.

I guess maybe this bothers me more because it seems like my current DM has just given up on learning the system: he calls for lots of pointless skill checks (ok, a style issue) and doesn't seem to understand which proficiencies do what (he never uses investigation, seems to misunderstand thieves' tools, and occasionally calls for things like "agility saves" which are usually--but not always--interpretable). So in this world, I'd rather have some clear guidelines on how some of my creative spell use ought to work, and, frankly, we know in D&D that when someone comes up with one creative use for a spell it gets repeated ad nauseum. 5e would be better off giving some of these utility spells a bit more utility, and it could have been better off coding it in the rules.

5th Edition: I am the goddamn healer...

So, in this 5th edition D&D game I showed up to a couple months ago, I was told that the party could use a healer. Being a good team player, I whipped up a cleric. But the type of cleric I might be more into: gnome trickster domain cleric. I had just read War for the Oaks and felt like I might have a good handle on playing a trickster cleric. Though we didn't discuss everything and a few players picked pre-gens when they showed up, so we weren't building a cohesive party. Otherwise I should have gone with a Knowledge Cleric or Sage Bard because we could have used the encyclopædia role (no actual wizard in the party originally). I'll judge these people as Pathfinder players and they mostly want to do cool things and deal tons of damage.

But last week, it happened: I was going to cast Pass Without Trace for the party so everyone would be able to sneak and we'd do well at it with little risk.

"How many heals with that cost us?"

Eff you.

Because we have a warlock and no one else is really benefiting from short rests except via hit dice, the DM has been kinda stingy at letting us take short rests and the party hasn't thought they're as valuable perhaps. And why should they: the gnome (Candide Voltaire, yep, reusing that name) can heal them.

I'm a little sad at this because in 4e the healer was doing other things while healing, and the encounter-based healing meant that the healer also didn't really have to use as many daily resources. Now, I could exchange Cure Wounds for Healing Word and still be making some attacks, I suppose. And I think I just might start doing that now. Though I was also tempted to multiclass wizard soon to grab some illusions or rogue to solidify some sneaky skills with sneak attack. I could have picked a life cleric and maximized my healing potential, or a bard or druid or something else. But if we've returned to "Don't waste your spells if it isn't healing me..."

Bah.

I was just a little taken back by the comment. Next time I'm just going to cast the damn spell anyway. A good few good sneaks and surprise rounds is totally worth one second level slot for a heal-up. And I just might consider a dipping into Wizard or Rogue to grab some other sneaky trickster powers besides my cleric spells.

5th Edition Wizards: I might learn to stop worrying and love the wizard

So the new 5th edition wizard has been stuck in my craw for a while. Basically since forever. But I finally sat down with the wizard and really took a look: it might not be as bad or nonsensical as I thought. I feel like the 5th Edition wizard has lost his position as king of magic a bit. But maybe its not quite as bad as I thought.

First, in terms of number of spells they can prepare: they seem to get Int Modifier + level. This is on par with Clerics or Druids who get Wis Modifier + level + domain / circle of the land spells. That's 10 more spells prepared for the cleric or druid than the wizard. Wizards don't even get one bonus spell of their specialty or anything. However. In older editions of D&D, clerics did get bonus spells for wisdom while wizards got squat. So this isn't necessarily something unique. Plus wizards do get a ritual casting bonus: they can cast spells in their books as rituals, others can only cast spells they have prepared. So the wizard does potentially have up to 17 rituals in addition to what they have prepared. Not a huge bonus, but its something. And easy to over look.

Second, wizards don't get those nifty bonus spells for their specialty. So an Enchanter can prep 100% necromancy spells. But looking at the School of magic features, most of them actually do refer specifically to the specialty school. Not all of them mind you, so Enchanters get some stupid spell-like power, and evokers get a bad/useless potent cantrip feature that seems to affect all their attack cantrips, and necromancers all gain power from killing their enemies (though they get a little more for using Necromancy spells). But. Many of these powers are thematic (if not useful/awesome) and do key off casting spells of their specialty. So there is some incentive for a wizard to prep a few important spells of their school.

Now, there's still some issues. I think a lot of spells (and other powers) are assertive in their writing, and this might limit people's choices. For example, Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, and Druidcraft all have a little set of bullet points which spell out pretty well all the things the spells can do. Maybe that helps with organized play and many DMs might let more creative things happen, but by the book those spells are pretty lame/limited. Ray of Frost focuses on the damage it does and slowing enemies, but I really hope that if a dungeon has a wet floor ray of frost could freeze it. I also really hope that the DMG has guidelines for adjudicating cantrips.

What I'm saying is maybe the sky isn't falling. Though it isn't as easy to adapt old settings or do some more radical homebrew as second edition and earlier.

5th Edition Wizards

I've played the playtest rules as a wizard a few times now, and while the rules are generally quite close to 2nd edition or 3rd edition, I still find the magic system a little disappointing. To a smaller extent I have the same problem with Pathfinder/3.5, but wizards are no longer defined by their spells.

I mean this in two ways. Both their ability to cast spells as the undisputed masters of magic, and the number and variety of spells.

First, it  seems like everyone and their mother also gets spells. Now, this was somewhat true in 2nd edition or earlier since Paladins and Rangers did get a couple spells at higher levels, but they were so few as to be completely unmemorable for me. We'll know for sure when the PhB comes out, but it looks like Rangers, Paladins, Bards, Druids, Clerics, not to mention Wizards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks, but also the Eldritch Knight fighter and Arcane trickster thief get spells. Meaning its mostly Barbarians, Monks, and some fighters and thieves who don't get spell access. That's a lot of magic!

Second, the playtest wizards have very few spells they can cast. 1 + wizard level. In the basic rules this is increased to Intelligence modifier + level, which I think is going to be a nice little boost, but Clerics also get Wisdom modifier + level. Wizards do get ritual caster, but the number of spells castable as rituals seems quite low (mostly low-level divinations in the Basic rules) and their casting time makes them a little prohibitive. But they are, at least, options.A wizard basically has room to take a few combat spells that they'll continually cast (including the boring blast cantrip, a damaging area of effect, and a single-target damage spell) and then its whatever utilities they can manage that might also have combat uses. It seems like a master of magic should be casting more variety. I suppose as a sorcerer I'd just feel more limited? Or maybe there'd be a 2-4-1 deal on spells of your specialty, so enchanters actually had an incentive to prep enchantment spells? 1+level would be great if you got to prep Intelligence modifier bonus spells of your specialty. I suppose this is partly my beef with some of the more modern design theories: I'd rather Wizard class features support their spellcasting rather than be fixed thematic powers related to their specialty. Because now every illusionist casts invisibility as their reactionary spell instead of being able to do blur or whatnot, and Necromancers will probably get some "steal your soul" deathknell type feature rather that whatever thematic spell specialty which uses the rules which are already pretty much in play.

Finally, the spells themselves seem much more focused and combat focused like the powers of fourth edition. I suppose some would count that as a feature, but I felt it as sheet blinders. Just like in 4e where you focused on the small set of powers you had, in the playtest rules I felt constrained by what my small number of spells allowed me to do. Invisibility, for example, can only be cast on a creature. The new Levitate can at least be cast on unwilling targets. Maybe its nostalgia, but AD&D spells seemed to all have variations or possible combat uses. Light, for example, could be cast in the dungeon as usual, might negate magical darkness, or cast on someone's eyes to blind them. Sure, its not the best use of a first level spell but its an option for a combat use of a non-combat spell. Now light is just a cantrip that means you don't need a lantern. They're good about letting most combat spells level up, but few utility spells have text explaining what happens with a spell when cast at a higher level, which is a huge loss. Small "spell chains" like Hold Portal and Wizard/Arcane Lock could have been linked with one just being the higher level version of the other. Similarly the various illusion spells could all be one spell, gaining additional senses or volume with higher level slots. Overall, it seems a little silly that Prestidigitation can't affect enemies in any appreciable way, yet ray of frost can do quite a bit of damage and slow the enemy (but can it create an icy patch on the floor so your enemies might slip and fall? or keep your beer cold?).

It all culminates with a loss of what I see as one of the great funs of wizards: a crazy list of kookie spells (particularly when you have to seek out strange and new spell effects). We don't need a Bigby's Gentle Wipe (or Vigorous Wipe) spell and dungeon necessities like Banish Excrement (taught in three versions, the Baatezu version which transports it to the Abyss, the Tanar'ri version which transports it to the Nine Hells, or the Athar version which transports it to a randomly selected deity's domain). Moreover, you don't have room to memorize Mordenkainen's Fluffy Pillow (or soft bedroll, or even full-on bed). I guess you can still use prestidigitation and thaumaturgy that way, but even those have a bullet point list of options, not a list of inspiration.

I'm not sure 13th Age or Pathfinder got it right with their cantrip rules and spell lists either though. And, frankly, AD&D was a bit of a mess. I guess my ideal wizard game still might not be out there.

Revisiting D&D Schools of Magic

As I've been thinking that a D&D style game is hindered by overly generic classes (the exception being a game with only a small number of classes: maybe 3-5), and doing away with the generic Wizard or Magic-User might open up a few more doors. Replacing the generic class with the specialty versions prevents one class from stealing the thunder of its subclasses, and allows multiple of those types of characters to coexist a little better in play, I think. The natural D&D thing to replace the standard Wizard with is thematic specialist Wizards. But a few seem a bit off.

One issue, in Second and Third edition, the schools are somewhat poorly defined. Transmutation is a heinously powerful school, and Abjuration is horribly ignored. There's no contesting that an Abjurer has a terrible selection of generally useless spells (they don't even get all the defensive ones!) and Transmutation has a strange abundance where things like Burning Hands could just as well be evocation. Conjuration, too, in 3rd edition gets a strange set of ranged touch attack spells which could easily fit into evocation. This didn't matter so much in first edition where schools were largely story-based (until Dragonlance Adventures came along and divvied them up between the different orders of High Sorcery).

Another issue is reversible spells: spells that summon things are clearly conjuration/summoning, but spells to dismiss them are abjuration. Two sides of the same coin should be maybe combined into one school, no? I suppose this is just another instance of schools being poorly defined.

Yet another issue is schools are only slightly relevant. Pathfinder almost neuters the idea of an opposition school for specialists by just forcing the wizard to learn the spell as one level higher. The Illusionist can still cast Animate Dead, it just is harder. So the specialty goes from a meaningful choice to a thematic choice. Any wizard can basically cast any spell. First edition Illusionists simply cast a slightly different set of spells that normal Magic-Users had, and while not exactly weaker, they were overshadowed by the generalist Magic-User.

So what would the fix look like for a game with a healthy set of classes but without a generic ones? I think you could still use a generic Wizard (who's intelligence and prolonged study grants magical mastery) but require a specialty: no generalists allowed. Second, give a smaller set of coherent specialists. For example, a Binder or Conjurer would focus on various protection-from-X spells, wards, summon monster spells, and a few others like maybe Charm Person and Hold Person. A thematic and coherent set. An Enchanter or Beguiler might focus on charms, illusions, and people-based transmutations (think Bulls Strength or Polymorph Other).  A Necromancer would have their traditional suite of spells (death spells, animating and controlling and destroying undead, fear and some curses). An Elementalist could take the role of the war wizard and evoker throwing around fireballs and lightning bolts. An artificer or alchemist would enchant items, change and create physical items, and other genuine transmutation spells.

This set-up just did away with the abjurer (mostly by giving his spells to the conjurer) and the illusionist (by folding him into the Enchanter). I'd also throw tighten up some of the definitions and probably allow some subschools to be shared (people-based transmutations could belong to an Enchanter or an Alchemist, Fear or Curses could be had by an Enchanter or Necromancer, etc.). By properly subsetting schools into more thematic lists, a given wizard could slowly grow in mastery of his own specialty and possibly sacrificing a little depth for the breadth of choosing spells from outside his specialty list. I think it'll work as long as each class has 3-4 clearly thematic subschools.

So what would this look like? Assume you chose Enchanter: