Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

[Voss]

The reason why this is good is because these spells are written the way they tend to write powers/abilities/effects for non casters. In this particular game the DC of all your spells, level 1-9 is the exact same so using a low level spell isn't easier to resist or anything.

The benefit you get for using higher level slots is minor and generally not worth it, which aligns to the way most of the other powers are written.

Eitherway, no inherent scaling of spells is a good thing, and is a thing that lots of other games both computer and tabletop have successfully implemented and was one of the things that was obviously broken about D&D going back to 2E. This is a good thing.

You are a gibbering idiot. I can't be kind about this. Sneak attack scales automatically. Extra attacks (fighters) scale automatically. Casting magic missile at level 9 for 11d4+11 damage is fucking dumb when you can cast foresight and have advantage on all attacks, checks and saves and inflict disadvantage against all attacks against you for fucking 8 hours. Hell its even dumb when you can cast fucking meteor swarm and do 40d6 damage to a goddamn area instead of piddly damage doled out to individuals.

You are wrong.

Or you can just cast dominate person as a 4th level spell and add actions to your side and deny actions to the enemy side. The fighter and rogue do scaling damage for free*. Spending higher level spell slots to add +1dx damage is insane and stupid, particularly when it means you aren't preparing the spells that are actually good (spell preparation has a cap of caster level +casting stat mod for all your spells of all levels)

*granted the scaling is uneven, and yeah, sometimes you will want to have fireball so you can clear out those challenge 1/2 hobgoblins that attack like level 3 rogues, but scaling fireball with higher levels will always be dumb. The fact that the spell DC is universal makes this fact worse, because casting it as a higher level spell does less. This method of level scaling honestly means the entire spell chapter should have fucking Admiral Ackbar as the background.

This method of scaling does not make the spells equal to other abilities. It just makes the scaling a fake option that you never use because it is obviously dumb. Except the occasional non-damage spell where they scale something else, like dominating the boss for 8 hours instead of a minute.

It certainly has nothing to do with how other abilities scale, because I can see multiple things in each class that scale based on class level. Preserve life, divine strike, extra attack, sneak attack, and other things that are just constant bonuses: advantage on all saves forever, all ability checks that use prof bonus, a roll of less than 10 = 10 and so on

[souran]

Eitherway, no inherent scaling of spells is a good thing, and is a thing that lots of other games both computer and tabletop have successfully implemented and was one of the things that was obviously broken about D&D going back to 2E. This is a good thing.

That's only a 'good thing' because of the way that D&D wanked to its various multiclass systems. If you have a more tightly-controlled multiclass system, or rather, none at all then this might be a neutral or even a negative change. I say negative because it requires the game designer to write up more powers and thus take up more space.

This has nothing to do with multi-classing and everything to do with the linear vs. quadric scaling of classes. This is exactly what that was talking about where some classes level up and get more hit points and other classes level up and get stronger abilties, more uses of existing abilities, and the existing abilities become stronger as well.

That isn't needed and wasn't good. This fix is not unique, The dark eye and lots of other stuff uses basically this system. People don't not play wizards in those games.....

[souran]

You are a gibbering idiot. I can't be kind about this. Sneak attack scales automatically. Extra attacks (fighters) scale automatically. Casting magic missile at level 9 for 11d4+11 damage is fucking dumb when you can cast foresight and have advantage on all attacks, checks and saves and inflict disadvantage against all attacks against you for fucking 8 hours. Hell its even dumb when you can cast fucking meteor swarm and do 40d6 damage to a goddamn area instead of piddly damage doled out to individuals.

You are wrong.

Or you can just cast dominate person as a 4th level spell and add actions to your side and deny actions to the enemy side. The fighter and rogue do scaling damage for free*. Spending higher level spell slots to add +1dx damage is insane and stupid, particularly when it means you aren't preparing the spells that are actually good (spell preparation has a cap of caster level +casting stat mod for all your spells of all levels)

*granted the scaling is uneven, and yeah, sometimes you will want to have fireball so you can clear out those challenge 1/2 hobgoblins that attack like level 3 rogues, but scaling fireball with higher levels will always be dumb. The fact that the spell DC is universal makes this fact worse, because casting it as a higher level spell does less. This method of level scaling honestly means the entire spell chapter should have fucking Admiral Ackbar as the background.

You sir, are the idiot. Do you see all those OTHER spells you mentioned? Do you understand that they represent an increase in power? Do you see why if you have those abilities you shouldn't also have auto-scaleing magic missles when you have those other DIRECT power gains?

Spells don't need to get better internally while you are also getting more and better spells. Its a clearly broken paradigm.

[Lago PARANOIA]

This has nothing to do with multi-classing and everything to do with the linear vs. quadric scaling of classes.

Whether your have linear warriors, linear wizards or quadratic warriors, quadratic wizards or whatever else is irrelevant. If you have several tiers of powers in your game and the effects are obsoleted between tiers, you need to write more powers.

If Magic Missile, Grease, and Silent Image do limited scaling such that they max out at effectiveness of Cloudkill, Fireball, and Lightning Bolt those are fewer powers you need to write. However, if MM, Grease, and SI don't scale then you need to write twice as many powers. This holds true regardless of your multiclass system or power scaling system -- assuming that powers can be strictly tiered, which holds true for most but not all games with an advancement system.

If you have a fucked-up multiclassing system like D&D has, then it's an acceptable tradeoff. If you don't, though, then it inflates your word count and you introduce more failure points for your spells.

[Voss]

This has nothing to do with multi-classing and everything to do with the linear vs. quadric scaling of classes. This is exactly what that was talking about where some classes level up and get more hit points and other classes level up and get stronger abilties, more uses of existing abilities, and the existing abilities become stronger as well.

And that issue is entirely untouched. The scaling spells are bad. You might keep one as a backup in case the DM swarms you. You can fireball minions or dominate the boss. But you never fireball the minions for slightly more at the expense of the slot you use for dominate.

Third to Seventh level spells (yeah, for fucks sake) average somewhere around the same pile of dice. 8d6, 7d10 (that ones level 7, fire storm) 4d6+4d6, 2d8+4d6 (ice storm). Casting them at a slightly higher level is pure bullshit and dumb. That is literally all it is. It is a fake, trap option, not good design.

Look you can cast cure wounds for 1d8+stat. You could cast it a level 2 for 2d8 + stat. But that would be fucking dumb, because prayer of healing is a level 2 spell that heals 6 people for 2d8 + stat. Better spell does 6 times the effect of scaling a level 1 spell to the same level.

You sir, are the idiot. Do you see all those OTHER spells you mentioned? Do you understand that they represent an increase in power? Do you see why if you have those abilities you shouldn't also have auto-scaleing magic missles when you have those other DIRECT power gains?

I do see them. Yes, they are an increase in power- that is exactly the problem: using higher slots to scale the spells up is terrible compared to using a slot appropriate spell. And since magic missile doesn't scale, it means you stop using magic missile. You have a finite selection of spells. Preparing ones that are bad and don't do level appropriate effects anymore is stupid. Half the 1st level wizard spells just drop off the damn list as you go up in level, but you still have first level spell slots. I don't know what you use them on, except maybe identify, because they don't fucking scale and you don't care about anything they do. But keeping magic missile around to cast it at level 3 for 5d4+5 damage instead of fireballing an area for 8d6 isn't a rational decision.

Spells don't need to get better internally while you are also getting more and better spells. Its a clearly broken paradigm.

Having an increasing pool of increasingly worthless abilities that take up a finite resource slot (prepared spells) is even more broken, in a way that magic missile doing 11d4+11 at 18th level isn't. Seriously, if you're spending your one action per round and one of your 23 prepared spells to cast an automatically scaling magic missile at 18th level, you are still doing it wrong, especially since you can cast exactly one 9th level spell per long rest. But having it not scale automatically makes it utterly worthless. to the point that it might as well not exist. As it is, it is a fucking trap for stupid people. Congrats on being the first.

[souran]

If Magic Missile, Grease, and Silent Image do limited scaling such that they max out at effectiveness of Cloudkill, Fireball, and Lightning Bolt those are fewer powers you need to write. However, if MM, Grease, and SI don't scale then you need to write twice as many powers. This holds true regardless of your multiclass system or power scaling system -- assuming that powers can be strictly tiered, which holds true for most but not all games with an advancement system.

Ok, I will grant that you could have more spells in the book if the scaling on magic missle was written so that as a level 1 spell magic missle was magic missle, cast as a level 2 spell it had the functionality of acid arrow, as a level 3 spell it has the functionality of fireball.

There are games that do this with their magic system. I think gurps has one that is sort of like that and I know that the magic system they wrote for Wheel of time was VERY MUCH like that. Although, that book actually has fewer spells because describing that scaling eats wordcount.

That isn't really what this is about though becuase they didn't change the spell system to require any more spells. What they changed was the automatic increase in power of lower level spells as you leveled up. A wizard doesn't need his first level spells to get more awesome when he gets 3rd, or 4th or 5th level spells.

[Cyberzombie]

Look you can cast cure wounds for 1d8+stat. You could cast it a level 2 for 2d8 + stat. But that would be fucking dumb, because prayer of healing is a level 2 spell that heals 6 people for 2d8 + stat. Better spell does 6 times the effect of scaling a level 1 spell to the same level.

The concept they were going with is that you have a finite amount of prepared spells and you can use your prepared spells to take low level spells and have versatility (because you can use cast that spell with more of your slots) or you can take a higher level spell for more power, but you wont' be able to cast it as much.

So cone of cold is better than fireball, but you only have 1 5th level slots to use that. Or you could take fireball and be able to use your 3rd-5th level slots. Casting a 3rd level spell at 5th level isn't supposed to be as good as a real 5th level spell, because you're paying extra for that versatility.

Of course given that they hand out a ton of prepared spells, the whole thing doesn't work at all as intended because there's not enough choice crunch where you have to make many meaningful tradeoffs. If they halved the number of prepared spells people get, I can see it working okay though.

[souran]

And that issue is entirely untouched. The scaling spells are bad. You might keep one as a backup in case the DM swarms you. You can fireball minions or dominate the boss. But you never fireball the minions for slightly more at the expense of the slot you use for dominate.

Third to Seventh level spells (yeah, for fucks sake) average somewhere around the same pile of dice. 8d6, 7d10 (that ones level 7, fire storm) 4d6+4d6, 2d8+4d6 (ice storm). Casting them at a slightly higher level is pure bullshit and dumb. That is literally all it is. It is a fake, trap option, not good design.

I COMPLETELY AGREE that it is, as far as I can tell, ALWAYS inferior to use a higher level spell slot to cast a lower level spell. Because of how the rules for memorization work I think that there will be cases where you do memorize a scaling spell of lower level might cast it at 1-2 levels higher if you ran into something that your higher level spell was not geared for (you take dominate person and run into a horde of something where ice storm would have been better you can cast fireball as a higher level spell and as you point out the average damage won't be that different.)

Look you can cast cure wounds for 1d8+stat. You could cast it a level 2 for 2d8 + stat. But that would be fucking dumb, because prayer of healing is a level 2 spell that heals 6 people for 2d8 + stat. Better spell does 6 times the effect of scaling a level 1 spell to the same level.

I agree but I don't see why this means that this isn't a better system the than exising vancian system where because of cure lights wounds scaling its better and more cost effective than most other methods of healing. I would think that a level 2 spell SHOULD be better than a level 1 spell at healing, and enough better than you would want to actually cast it.

I do see them. Yes, they are an increase in power- that is exactly the problem: using higher slots to scale the spells up is terrible compared to using a slot appropriate spell. And since magic missile doesn't scale, it means you stop using magic missile. You have a finite selection of spells. Preparing ones that are bad and don't do level appropriate effects anymore is stupid. Half the 1st level wizard spells just drop off the damn list as you go up in level, but you still have first level spell slots. I don't know what you use them on, except maybe identify, because they don't fucking scale and you don't care about anything they do. But keeping magic missile around to cast it at level 3 for 5d4+5 damage instead of fireballing an area for 8d6 isn't a rational decision.

Which first level spells do you think eventually stop being useful? The only one I can see is magic missle and it should have been re-evaluated. Hell, they have even made sleep into a pretty good spell to retain even at high levels because you can let your buddies beat people up and then put them to sleep. I would say look at the level one spells again, they continue to do what they say they no matter your caster level or target level. They just don't get better at doing what they say they do as your caster level increases.

Having an increasing pool of increasingly worthless abilities that take up a finite resource slot (prepared spells) is even more broken, in a way that magic missile doing 11d4+11 at 18th level isn't. Seriously, if you're spending your one action per round and one of your 23 prepared spells to cast an automatically scaling magic missile at 18th level, you are still doing it wrong, especially since you can cast exactly one 9th level spell per long rest. But having it not scale automatically makes it utterly worthless. to the point that it might as well not exist. As it is, it is a fucking trap for stupid people. Congrats on being the first.

You will note that I never actually said that you should be casting 9th level magic missles. I merely used it as the example of how the spell scaling work because it is a clear example. I complete agree with you that casting 9th level magic missles is a poor decision. However, that still doesn't change the fact that if you can cast 9th level spells you don't need your magic missle to grant you 5 freaking missles. You don't need it to do that because you have 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2nd level spells to cast before you start casting 1st level spells.

[Voss]

Look you can cast cure wounds for 1d8+stat. You could cast it a level 2 for 2d8 + stat. But that would be fucking dumb, because prayer of healing is a level 2 spell that heals 6 people for 2d8 + stat. Better spell does 6 times the effect of scaling a level 1 spell to the same level.

The concept they were going with is that you have a finite amount of prepared spells and you can use your prepared spells to take low level spells and have versatility (because you can use cast that spell with more of your slots) or you can take a higher level spell for more power, but you wont' be able to cast it as much.

So cone of cold is better than fireball, but you only have 1 5th level slots to use that. Or you could take fireball and be able to use your 3rd-5th level slots. Casting a 3rd level spell at 5th level isn't supposed to be as good as a real 5th level spell, because you're paying extra for that versatility.

Of course given that they hand out a ton of prepared spells, the whole thing doesn't work at all as intended because there's not enough choice crunch where you have to make many meaningful tradeoffs. If they halved the number of prepared spells people get, I can see it working okay though.

What? Fuck you, no. At level 3, assuming a 16 int wizard, you will be able to prepare exactly 6 spells. Cutting that down to three is fucking awful. Hell, for a 20th level wizard, you're saying they should have 12.5 spells, total.

Cone of Cold isn't better than fireball. It does slightly more damage (seriously, average of +8) but is a 60' cone rather than a 20' radius circle with a 150' range. And its inexplicably 2 levels higher. That is outright terrible. The damage spells are actually contrary to the idea that higher level spells are better. You just grab whichever one has the best shape and is most likely not to have resistances. Maybe two if you're paranoid about the latter part.

I agree, however, that was the concept they were going for. But they did it wrong, not because the number of prepared spells is too low, but specifically because the spells don't scale (and frankly, there just aren't that many spells). You might keep a non-utility level 1 spell prepared when you reach level 3, but they barely matter at that step. You simply go for the actually level appropriate spell, and reshuffle your lower levels spells for the ones that aren't absolute bullshit.

Lets take an illustration of a level that people actually play at and spell people actually want to use. You have a level 3 mage. You prepared mage armor, shield (because you're paranoid) and sleep, magic missile, flaming sphere and web. So, for purposes of this example, 2 damage spells and 2 control spells. You're level 3, so you have 2 2nd level spell slots.

In the next room is a hobgoblin, it is 1/2 CR, which should be a reasonable encounter for a single mage... of level 1. It has 11 hp (because we know they do). Magic missile has good odds of not actually killing it (10.5 damage on average). Sleep affects 2d8 hp of creatures, average 9. That is even worse.

Now you could boost either spell to level 2 and be pretty sure that you'll win with a single spell. But that means using one of your exactly 2 2nd level spell slots on a goddamn 1/2 CR critter.

And you might want those, because the next room has two hobgoblins, and their special bonus damage rule will end you pretty quick- which makes it pretty important to have web, where both hobgobs are making +1 rolls (vs DC 15) to avoid and escape it. Or you can cast flaming sphere and park it next to them, do something else, and force them to take 2d6 damage each round (save for half at +1 vs DC15). And moving the sphere is a bonus action, and ramming someone with it forces another save.

Now add a party to this equation. At no point does burning slots to scale up the lower level spells around come across as a rational act. It barely makes sense to keep them prepared at all.

If what they wanted was to force hard choices, they failed. What they created was a spell system where you simply discard things that become shit, or you jump headlong into the trap for stupid people.

[Rawbeard]

Sleep affects 2d8 hp of creatures, average 9.

Wait... what? Sleep is now a shitty damage spell?

[Voss]

Nope. Sleep is vaguely useful as it puts creatures asleep based on their current hp, but you roll 2d8 to see how many hp of creatures you affect (if you roll less than their current total, no effect), and you can scale it at +2d8/spell level But I completely anticipate a 4th level power word:sleep to be released at some point that affects 15d8 hp or some shit.

I agree but I don't see why this means that this isn't a better system the than exising vancian system where because of cure lights wounds scaling its better and more cost effective than most other methods of healing. I would think that a level 2 spell SHOULD be better than a level 1 spell at healing, and enough better than you would want to actually cast it.

Casting cure light in third edition is dumb. Buy/make wands. Cast divine favor.

But a system where a level appropriate spell is 6x more effective than a spell scaled to the exact same level is fucking insane. Especially since healing is not exclusive to cleric- self healing and damage avoidance are class features, not restricted to spell slots, and everyone has a healing pool to draw on during rests. Burning a slot and action to heal 6 times more in combat (when the emergency healing matters) is completely obvious.
Cure (light) wounds is still more effective being cast at level 1 than it is being scaled, because you aren't spending level appropriate spell slots.



These spells... for fucks sake. Spiritual weapon is actual a pretty decent spell, as it is all bonus actions. So you essentially have a second level spell giving the cleric the 5th level class ability (extra attack) of the fighter for an entire fight.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Although, that book actually has fewer spells because describing that scaling eats wordcount.

That isn't really what this is about though becuase they didn't change the spell system to require any more spells. What they changed was the automatic increase in power of lower level spells as you leveled up. A wizard doesn't need his first level spells to get more awesome when he gets 3rd, or 4th or 5th level spells.

Let's say that you have a power spells system where you got, oh, 6 slots of discrete spells that could be used once per individual slot filling occasion. You have five tiers of spells such that each tier of power had a massive power leap between then -- think dimension door versus teleport or suggestion versus dominate person.

Let's also say that you want to have it so that a character gets to choose from a list that has no fewer than 12 distinct effects in it.

Now that this is established, let's view two power creation schemes. One in which powers don't scale in effect by tier at all and ones which do limited scaling such that a power scales to the next highest tier and no further. Let's also say that the entries for Scheme B average as being 50% longer so that the average word count for a spell from Scheme A is 80 words and Scheme B is 120 words. Now let's say that the spell lists for your classes are completely non-overlapping and you have 12 of classes with spell lists of equal size. Then, let's calculate how many pages you'll need according to this website, assuming single-spaced, Times New Roman, and a font size of 10. Finally, let's assume that you average a half-page picture per two pages, that is, artwork takes up an additional 25% of the pages you devote to powers.

Scheme A: You need to write 12 powers of each tier level for a total of 60. At 80 words per power, this is a total of 4800 words per class, or 57600 words total. That's 145 pages raw, 180 with pictures.
Scheme B: You need to write 12 powers at the first tier level and six thereafter, for a total of 36 powers. At 120 words per power, this is a total of 4320 words, or 51840 words total. That's 130 pages raw, 163 with pictures.

Now imagine that your game becomes 8 years old and now you have 24 powers per tier. Finally, you have 24 power lists. Because you need to wrack your brain a little harder for unique effects, let's say that the average length of powers for Scheme A is 120 words and for Scheme B is 180. Image count and font size stays the same.

Scheme A: 24 * 5 = 120 powers, 120 words/power * 120 powers = 14400 words per power list, 345600 total. That's 868 pages of raw text, 1085 with pictures.
Scheme B: 24 + 4 * 12 = 72 powers. 72 powers * 180 words = 12900 words per power list, 309600 total. That's 778 pages of raw text, 973 with pictures.

This disparity is only going to get worse as you add more power lists and expansion options over time. Also, I assumed a pretty generous inflation header for Scheme B; if you have a good system of tags and power organization, you could have something like 60 words for a singular power and 80 for a scaling power and that would inflate the relative word count of Scheme A even more. If you want a game that has more tiers of powers this also gets worse, though I have a hard time imagining that even games with huge amounts of power scaling like D&D needing more than six tiers of powers.

[Username17]

Now that this is established, let's view two power creation schemes. One in which powers don't scale in effect by tier at all and ones which do limited scaling such that a power scales to the next highest tier and no further. Let's also say that the entries for Scheme B average as being 50% longer so that the average word count for a spell from Scheme A is 80 words and Scheme B is 120 words. Now let's say that the spell lists for your classes are completely non-overlapping and you have 12 of classes with spell lists of equal size. Then, let's calculate how many pages you'll need according to this website, assuming single-spaced, Times New Roman, and a font size of 10. Finally, let's assume that you average a half-page picture per two pages, that is, artwork takes up an additional 25% of the pages you devote to powers.

I basically agree with your conclusion, but I think it's important to note that RPG books are not usually normal sized pages. They are coffee table books, meaning that you're actually looking at like 60% more words on a page than that formula gives you.

Which is not to say that it's acceptable to be filling up the world with non-scaling powers. It totally is not. Because 2/3 of fuck off too many pages is still fuck off too many pages.

-Username17

[Cyberzombie]

What? Fuck you, no. At level 3, assuming a 16 int wizard, you will be able to prepare exactly 6 spells. Cutting that down to three is fucking awful. Hell, for a 20th level wizard, you're saying they should have 12.5 spells, total.

Close to that amount, yes. A scaling system like the one they seemed to have tried to create only matters when it's a painful choice to choose both the low and high level spell variants. And for that, prepared spells need to be scarce so you're always crunching what you can take.

As written, basically the 1st level wizard gets 5 spells prepared, at level 1, assuming he's taking 18 intelligence which, he's a wizard so it'd probably be 20. Five spells is roughly half the 1st level spells that exist in the D&D basic rules. If you want to force wizards to make tough choices in spell selection, you need to cut that number way down.

Cone of Cold isn't better than fireball. It does slightly more damage (seriously, average of +8) but is a 60' cone rather than a 20' radius circle with a 150' range.

It's not better in all ways, but it does do more damage, and if you're fighting in the typical dungeon environment, you rarely need a 150 range. Spell sculpting also gets rid of all the drawbacks of a cone spell hitting your allies and requiring you to be in the front. You can cast CoC from the back line and just sculpt it around all your allies. I'd say it's better. Probably not 5th level spell better, but CoC has sucked in pretty much every edition of D&D anyway.

At no point does burning slots to scale up the lower level spells around come across as a rational act. It barely makes sense to keep them prepared at all.

Well first, you keep the lower level attack spells prepared because you need some kind of offense to use your 1st level slots on. While magic missile can scale up, flaming sphere can't scale down. It wouldn't be good to be out of 2nd level slots and have no offense besides your cantrips (which really kind of suck).

You're right about never wanting to scale up MM while you have flaming sphere. This is because you have enough prepared slots to have the majority of the useful spells you'd want from both levels, so there's no need to try to extend the usefulness of a lower level spell. It's part of the design goal that a 2nd level spell will do the job better than a boosted 1st. That's fine, but that also means that you need enough prepared spell crunch such that you sometimes won't have room for a native 2nd level damage spell, and will have to settle for using a boosted 1st level one.

So lets take those 6 spells prepared per day down to 3. Now there's some hard choices. If I want to go pure offense with MM, flaming sphere and web, I still can, but I have no utility at all. But if I want to add say invisibility, mage armor or shield to the loadout, now I have potentially difficult decisions. I can drop web, and be pure direct damage along with my invisibility spell. But then I'm obviously short on battlefield control. So I might make the decision there that Magic missile can serve double duty as my 1st and 2nd level direct damage spell. Obviously it's less efficient than using flaming sphere, but then I've got an offensive spell, a battlefield control spell and invisibility for utility. I can see that being a realistic choice some players may make.

But this sort of hard choice trade-off only occurs once you make prepared spells very limited. The only reason you'd ever rely on burning hands to take the place of fireball is when you don't have enough prepared spells to prepare fireball and burning hands both. If you can get them both, well there's no need to ever try to expand a spell's usage in this manner. And that's why the system ultimately fails. Prepared spells are so plentiful you never feel the crunch that forces a hard choice.

[John Magnum]

you sometimes won't have room for a native 2nd level damage spell, and will have to settle for using a boosted 1st level one.

I don't understand how this is ever possible, when "a boosted 1st level one" still takes up a 2nd level spell slot in my understanding of the current state of D&DN. Or are you talking about radically cutting down spells known total, not just spells prepared each day?

[malak]

you sometimes won't have room for a native 2nd level damage spell, and will have to settle for using a boosted 1st level one.

I don't understand how this is ever possible, when "a boosted 1st level one" still takes up a 2nd level spell slot in my understanding of the current state of D&DN. Or are you talking about radically cutting down spells known total, not just spells prepared each day?

It's closer to 3e sorcerer casting. You prepare a low number of spells and can then during play cast them using whatever (valid) spell slot you see fit - you don't assign the spells to slots during preparation, but instead you make a list of prepared spells, and choose the slots during play.

Stupid example: So assume you prepared a level one damage and a level 2 control spell, but then you really want to do damage, but all your level 1 slots are gone. So you cast your prepared damage spell with a level 2 slot.

[Voss]

What? Fuck you, no. At level 3, assuming a 16 int wizard, you will be able to prepare exactly 6 spells. Cutting that down to three is fucking awful. Hell, for a 20th level wizard, you're saying they should have 12.5 spells, total.

As written, basically the 1st level wizard gets 5 spells prepared, at level 1, assuming he's taking 18 intelligence which, he's a wizard so it'd probably be 20. Five spells is roughly half the 1st level spells that exist in the D&D basic rules. If you want to force wizards to make tough choices in spell selection, you need to cut that number way down.

Well, starting out, your numbers are wrong. The highest you can start a stat (barring random die rolls) is 16 or 17 (and with the current races int doesn't have any options for 17). So a first level character seriously starts out being able to prepare 4 spells (and can cast 2), and 20th level hits cap at 25 (and can cast 22). Preparation slots seriously become less than castable spells as you level.

Well first, you keep the lower level attack spells prepared because you need some kind of offense to use your 1st level slots on. While magic missile can scale up, flaming sphere can't scale down. It wouldn't be good to be out of 2nd level slots and have no offense besides your cantrips (which really kind of suck).

If you're burning even 1st level spell slots on magic missile, which is an unreliable way of killing a single hobgoblin, you are an idiot. Yes, levels 1-4 ray of frost is worse than a weapon attack. But setting your 2 level appropriate abilities on fire to not kill CR 1/2 enemies is fucking moronic. And as you level (starting at 7th), you will not get 2 level appropriate spells, you will start getting one.

You're right about never wanting to scale up MM while you have flaming sphere. This is because you have enough prepared slots to have the majority of the useful spells you'd want from both levels, so there's no need to try to extend the usefulness of a lower level spell. It's part of the design goal that a 2nd level spell will do the job better than a boosted 1st. That's fine, but that also means that you need enough prepared spell crunch such that you sometimes won't have room for a native 2nd level damage spell, and will have to settle for using a boosted 1st level one.

No, you won't. Thats the problem with the way this shit scales. A boosted level one is never worth the higher level slot. The damage bonus is seriously around +3 or 4 for burning a higher level slot. If you cast fireball at 5th level to do +2d6 damage, you are a moron. Keeping one area spell prepared at its minimum level may make sense if your DM loves the hobgoblin swarm. But casting it at a higher level is simply stupid.

So lets take those 6 spells prepared per day down to 3. Now there's some hard choices. If I want to go pure offense with MM, flaming sphere and web, I still can, but I have no utility at all. But if I want to add say invisibility, mage armor or shield to the loadout, now I have potentially difficult decisions. I can drop web, and be pure direct damage along with my invisibility spell. But then I'm obviously short on battlefield control. So I might make the decision there that Magic missile can serve double duty as my 1st and 2nd level direct damage spell. Obviously it's less efficient than using flaming sphere, but then I've got an offensive spell, a battlefield control spell and invisibility for utility. I can see that being a realistic choice some players may make.

No, that is a trap. Burning castings of web to do 1d4+1 extra damage is something only a moron would do. Keeping magic missile around because you don't have anything else worthwhile to cast with your first level slots is likely to happen. Using it to set 2nd level slots on fire is like paying 4 star restaurant prices at McDonalds because there is a 4 star restaurant nearby.

But this sort of hard choice trade-off only occurs once you make prepared spells very limited. The only reason you'd ever rely on burning hands to take the place of fireball is when you don't have enough prepared spells to prepare fireball and burning hands both. If you can get them both, well there's no need to ever try to expand a spell's usage in this manner. And that's why the system ultimately fails. Prepared spells are so plentiful you never feel the crunch that forces a hard choice.

This is a non-issue. This system doesn't encourage taking burning hands and fireball. This system tells you straight up that when you get fireball, you should have stopped using burning hands two levels ago.

[Cyberzombie]

I don't understand how this is ever possible, when "a boosted 1st level one" still takes up a 2nd level spell slot in my understanding of the current state of D&DN. Or are you talking about radically cutting down spells known total, not just spells prepared each day?

Well here's how it works. You have prepared spells, which can be of any level. These function like a 3E sorcerer's spells known, though you can change them per day and they are not limited by level. If you had say 4 prepared spells, you could take all 2nd level spells and no 1st. I could also take four 1st level spells and no 2nd or any combination thereof.

When you actually cast the spell, you use spell slots, which behave much like the 3E sorcerer's spell slots, where you can use any of your prepared spells assuming you have the slots. So while you could take all 2nd level spells prepared and no 1st, it'd mean your 1st level slots are unusable, since you don't have any actual spells with which to use them. Much like a sorcerer with no 1st level spells known, you'd have no way to actually burn 1st level slots to do anything.

Spells can scale upwards, so magic missile can be cast with a 2nd level or 3rd level slot and it gets slightly better if you do. It's not as good as a spell native to that level like a fireball or a lighting bolt, but you get one extra missile per spell level you put into it beyond the 1st. So if you have say lightning bolt available you'll always choose that over magic missile, because it's numerically better.

So logically the only way you'd want to use magic missile at a higher level instead of using a fireball or a flaming sphere is if for whatever reason your prepared spell loadout couldn't fit those. Now as written, this pretty much never happens because you have too many prepared spells, so unless you're really dumb you'll never fail to have an appropriate attack spell of every level. But if you cut those prepared spell slots to the point where there's crunch, then you may get an instance where the guy didn't take a 2nd level attack spell, so he might want to use magic missile as both the 2nd and 1st level attack spell (boosting it if he wants to use a 2nd level spell slot for direct damage).

[CapnTthePirateG]

So does anyone have an answer for why I can roll an 18 but I can't point buy it, or why elite array is the default when you statistically get more out of rolling?

Why does the description of the tiers explain that you get 6th+ level spells which let you do things PCs have never done before OR an extra attack?

Why does r/dnd, GitP, and Enworld seem to think this is the best thing since sliced bread?

[Voss]

Now as written, this pretty much never happens because you have too many prepared spells, so unless you're really dumb you'll never fail to have an appropriate attack spell of every level.

The hell you won't. Because once again WotC failed to understand that bullshit damage doesn't compare to action denial, and the disparity between monster stats (which are their saves) and spell DCs is fucking ridiculous. As in starting out with a roughly 65% failure rate for a lot of monsters like the hobgob vs almost anything. This failure rate can actually go up depending on stats, and is unlike to ever be lower than 45% (assuming a monster has a 20 stat, which is rare even for higher level monsters). And that is where the fucking DC starts, at 15 for level 1 characters. Without any items or spell bonuses, it goes up to 21, and that doesn't account for stat boosters, proficiency boosters or advantage/disadvantage, which isn't all that uncommon.

One or two attack spells is all you'll really want. Maybe 3 if your DM likes pulling the 'you use fireball too much, so ahah, fire monsters!' switch on you.

So does anyone have an answer for why I can roll an 18 but I can't point buy it, or why elite array is the default when you statistically get more out of rolling?

Why does the description of the tiers explain that you get 6th+ level spells which let you do things PCs have never done before OR an extra attack?

Why does r/dnd, GitP, and Enworld seem to think this is the best thing since sliced bread?

Tradition. Seriously, it is clearly designed on the stupid array (and sort of point buy, if you assume that the testers were stupid about it) just like 3rd and 4th, but if they took rolling away, there would be shouting and tears.

Also tradition. Plus, so many of the spells are really terrible, so apparently they think they all are. So level appropriate ability = being able to attack all day. Which naturally, is why clerics can get better AC, and more attacks through spells, and getting a scaling damage bonus to their normal attack.
Though personally, every time I look at the spell list, I quickly run out of interesting spells to care about.

Because those places are filled with idiots who aren't capable of learning behavior. ENworld got so cock-slobbery over 4th edition at this stage, that they got pissy when I referred to it as Warhammer Quest: Supers (except not as good as actual WHQ) and insisted that I couldn't say such things. So I walked, roughly 2 weeks after signing up for their terrible forums.

[Voss]

Fuuuuuuuuuck.

So, I delved into the darkness that is backgrounds. Which is mostly just bonus skills and equipment packages. But they also stuffed personality traits, ideals, bonds and flaws into them (complete with a suggested list of six of each per background that you can roll on randomly). 'Playing to' a trait, ideal, bond or flaw can prompt the DM to give you 'Inspiration' which you can 'expend' to gain advantage on an attack, save, or check. You can't gain multiple 'inspirations', but you can hang on to it until you want to use it. So make sure to have an RP moment about your orphan brother before you leave town so you can stab someone in the face more effectively somewhere in the dungeon!

Also, they use famous D&D characters you may have heard of as examples all throughout the text. 'Personality and Background' drivels on about Artemis Enterei (the Evil Mirror of Drizzt) and Tika Waylan (the barmaid from Dragonlance) simultaneously. Its... odd, since they're trying to tie mechanical bits of the personality aspects of background to him. Arty's 'bond' is 'be better than Drizzt', and his flaw is 'no personal relationships.'


Alignment is also in this section, and is literally one sentence of 'XX is blah blah, blah. These races are usually this alignment.'

So, for example.

Neutral is the alignment of those who prefer to avoid moral questions and don't take sides, doing what seems best at the time. Lizardfolk, most druids and many humans are neutral.

Chaotic Good act as their conscience directs, with little regard for what others expect. Cooper dragons, elves, unicorns.

NG, do the best they can to help others according to their needs. Many celestials, some cloud giants and gnomes.

CN, follow their whims, holding personal freedoms above all else. Barbarians, rogues and some bards.

NE, those who do whatever they can get away with, without compassion or qualms. Drow, some cloud giants, yugoloths.

CE: arbitrary violence, greed, hatred, bloodlust. demons, orcs, red dragons

LN: accordance with law tradition or personal codex. Monks, wizards

LE methodically take what they want, within limits of a code of tradition, loyalty or order. Devils, blue dragons, Hobgobs

The best is lawful good, however, even though I can't really distinguish functionally between several of the others.

LG creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society. Gold dragons, paladins, dwarves

Uh... Whose society? By this single sentence (which is literally all that is defined), a drow matriarch that enslaves people and tortures male children is lawful good, because she is totally doing the right thing as expected by society.


Minor props, on the other hand, for actually having a paragraph about not needing to be defined by binary gender roles under the Sex heading. (though they seem unclear as to what the difference between sex and gender is). But they do mention transgender and sexual orientation. Though only minor props since one of the five short sentences is about elven hermaphrodites, and sexual orientation is just 'Eh, up to you'. Which is better, but rather overshadowed by elven chicks with dicks.


Basic design failure:
the hide action is on page 72, and refer you to
attacking unseen on page 73 (though it actually says 'later in this chapter'
the hiding rules are on page 60, but refer you to
obscuring terrain which are on page 65.

So, essentially, the rules for hiding are on 4 separate pages, and reading through all it, the rough answer is still : yeah, no, you can't sneak up on people.

But rogues are excellent for kiting people from level 2, as they can dash (double move), disengage (half move, but no AoO, or hide (whatever) for free. Every round: 'I move 60' and shoot the enemy next to the fighter (sneak attack). And rogues get the benefit of actually caring about crits, since the changed the crit rules again (from max damage to roll dice twice, but not add modifiers, but you explicitly roll sneak attack dice again too)

[pragma]

Sleep affects 2d8 hp of creatures, average 9. That is even worse.

Point of clarification: my PDF reads 5d8 for the sleep spell. Which averages a much more reasonable ~22. Enough to put down two hobgoblins on a good day. I think it's definitely the level 1 spell to take.

Regarding the number discrepancy: It's possible they stole a march on us and changed the PDF without updating from version 0.1. If so, that kind of defeats the point of version numbers.

[Voss]

Sleep affects 2d8 hp of creatures, average 9. That is even worse.

Point of clarification: my PDF reads 5d8 for the sleep spell. Which averages a much more reasonable ~22. Enough to put down two hobgoblins on a good day. I think it's definitely the level 1 spell to take.

Regarding the number discrepancy: It's possible they stole a march on us and changed the PDF without updating from version 0.1. If so, that kind of defeats the point of version numbers.

You are correct. I misread it (probably by paying too much attention to the 2d8 per level scaling at the bottom). Which, means, of course, that control spells win even more. You can either drop 2 hobgoblins pretty consistently with sleep, or probably not kill one with magic missile.

And by virtue of not being a damage spell, it scales better than one (+9 rather than +3.5), so there might actually be times its worth scaling sleep up a level, such as an open area where you can't anchor Web. This will probably change when glitterdust, stinking cloud and other save or fuck spells are written back into the game.

On the page discrepancy, there isn't one. The full rules for hiding are split over 4 distinct sections of 4 separate pages. They just used 'later' rather than a page number for one section. Hopefully as a placeholder that they just missed, but fucked if I know. Between that and the spell casting focus where the class description points you to equipment which points you to the spells chapter to find out that its just a way to do material components, I find their layout decisions terrible.

Just like introducing ability scores on page 7, but not explaining the fucking concept or what they do until page 59. A new player could easily be forgiven for thinking that an ability score is just a number, and having no idea why there are two of them, rather than just the bonus. And to be honest, reading over the 'descriptions' of what ability scores do, I don't know why it isn't just a stat bonus (except 'sacred cow'), because I can't find a single place where the actual stat is used in any fashion.

[sarcasmoverdose]

This is just painful.

A) Mixture of crunch and fluff. The first four paragraphs of the dwarf's description look like this:

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2.
Age. Dwarves mature at the same rate as humans, but they’re considered young until they reach the age of 50. On average, they live about 350 years.
Alignment. Most dwarves are lawful, believing firmly in the benefits of a well-ordered society. They tend toward good as well, with a strong sense of fair play and a belief that everyone deserves to share in the benefits of a just order.
Size. Dwarves stand between 4 and 5 feet tall and average about 150 pounds. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor.

In english:
Dwarves are (medium) (humanoids) with a land movement speed of 25 (which is not reduced by armor) and racial stat modifiers of +2 con.
(fluff text moved to other fluff text)

B) Severe inconsistency.

Affable and Positive
Halflings try to get along with everyone else and are loath to make sweeping generalizations—especially negative ones.
Dwarves. “Dwarves make loyal friends, and you can count on them to keep their word. But would it hurt them to smile once in a while?”

In English: Halflings like to brag about how open and progressive they are whilst being bigots (so they're SJWs instead of hobbits now, I guess).
Rantier: Halflings are now internally contradictory because the designers forgot what they wrote two sentences ago.

C) Unnecessary Verbiage

Sex
You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture’s expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. For example, a male drow cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.

In English: "Your character's gender, sexuality, and personal identity do not affect your character's stats, although it may affect how others view your character."

D) Failure to understand the concept of evil

The evil deities who created other races, though, made those races to serve them. Those races have strong inborn tendencies that match the nature of their gods. Most orcs share the violent, savage nature of the orc god, Gruumsh, and are thus inclined toward evil. Even if an orc chooses a good alignment, it struggles against its innate tendencies for its entire life. (Even half-orcs feel
the lingering pull of the orc god’s influence.)
Alignment is an essential part of the nature of celestials and fiends. A devil does not choose to be lawful evil, and it doesn’t tend toward lawful evil, but rather it is lawful evil in its essence. If it somehow ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil."

Once again, DND fails to understand how evil is subjective.
Are these guys evil?

They say they're good and holy crusaders. They believe it, and everything they do is to further their version of justice and righteousness.

E) Campaign specific bullshit

Tika and Artemis: Character Details
Consider how the names Tika Waylan and Artemis Entreri set these characters apart from each other and reflect their personalities. Tika is a young woman determined to prove that she’s not just a kid any more, and her name makes her sound young and ordinary. Artemis Entreri comes from an exotic land and carries a more mysterious name. Tika is nineteen years old at the start of her adventuring career and has auburn hair, green eyes, fair skin with freckles, and a mole on her right hip. Artemis is a small man, compact and all wiry muscle. He has angular features and high cheekbones, and he always seems in need of a shave. His raven-black hair is thick and full, but his eyes are gray and lifeless—betraying the emptiness of his life and soul.
Tika and Artemis: Personal Characteristics
Tika and Artemis have distinct personality traits. Tika Waylan dislikes boastfulness and has a fear of heights resulting from a bad fall during her career as a thief. Artemis Entreri is always prepared for the worst and moves with a quick, precise confidence. Consider their ideals. Tika Waylan is innocent, almost childlike, believing in the value of life and the importance of appreciating everyone. Neutral good in alignment, she cleaves to ideals of life and respect. Artemis Entreri never allows his emotions to master him, and he constantly challenges himself to improve his skills. His lawful evil alignment gives him ideals of impartiality and a lust for power. Tika Waylan’s bond is to the Inn of the Last Home. The inn’s proprietor gave her a new chance at life, and her friendship with her adventuring companions was forged during her time working there. Its destruction by the marauding dragonarmies gives Tika a very personal reason to hate them with a fiery passion. Her bond might be phrased as “I will do whatever it takes to punish the dragonarmies for the destruction of the Inn of the Last Home.” Artemis Entreri’s bond is a strange, almost paradoxical relationship with Drizzt Do’Urden, his equal in swordplay and grim determination. In his first battle with Drizzt, Artemis recognized something of himself in his opponent, some indication that if his life had gone differently, he might have led a life more like the heroic drow’s. From that moment, Artemis is more than a criminal assassin—he is an antihero, driven by his rivalry with Drizzt. His bond might be phrased as “I will not rest until I have proved myself better than Drizzt Do’Urden.”
Each of these characters also has an important flaw. Tika Waylan is naive and emotionally vulnerable, younger than her companions and annoyed that they still think of her as the kid they knew years ago. She might even be tempted to act against her principles if she’s convinced that a particular achievement would demonstrate her maturity. Artemis Entreri is completely walled off from any personal relationship and just wants to be left alone.

F) Backgrounds. 5 1/2 pages of bullshit that could be rolled into one.

G) Equipment. All of 4e's "this weapon/armor is the one true weapon/armor". Nonsensical pricing (maul and greatsword are pretty much identical, greatsword costs 5x

H) Living expenses. A little over a page of useless flavor text that could be combined into one table and one short paragraph.

I) Spellcasting services. Important section that does not get and real rules, after spending several pages on filler, and followed by two whole pages of filler.

J) Spells. Oh hell, just look at them. Looks like they upped the padded sumo factor from 4E.

K) Conditions. All that filler text, and you couldn't even write some better rules?

I give up.

[nockermensch]

This could be from the playtest documents already, but it's the first time I'm noticing it: A lot of classical combat spells like bless, haste, improved invisibility, stone skin and web have concentration based durations now.

I was about to say that 5e was ruined forever for me just because that, but then again, concentration was changed so this is not as horrible as it seems: You can fight and even cast spells while concentrating without making any check or being at any disadvantage, it seems. Concentration now ends if you become unconscious or cast another spell requiring concentration. It also has a good chance to end if you take any damage.

Oh, and Voss was right. Casting spells on higher level slots is a huge trap in like 90% of the spells. Notable exceptions are dispel magic and mind control spells.

Lots of strange things: Meteor swarm became respectable at 140 damage on a failed save to fucking everybody, thanks to the huge area of effect, while Power Word Kill still snuffs just one creature with 100 hp or less. I guess that once you figure damage resistances and people making their saves meteor swarm becomes a lot less sexy but eh.