I let all of my casters change their spells after a long rest. It isn't all that big a deal and for those that can only change spells when they level up, can be painful. They could be stuck with a less useful spell for many sessions waiting for a level.
That's why I let them change 1 spell/long rest. I feel this retains the spirit of the rule, that they can't just change their whole array in one go, but allows them to change something each time. So far, it has not been an issue for either the Ranger or the Sorcerer who are using this rule.
My DM allows this for my arcane trickster and I allow it for non prepared spell casters in my games as well. I feel it's a good balance. It allows some flexibility if someone realizes some spells aren't as useful as they imagined in the campaign etc, without letting them redo their whole spell list for each day.
I let all of my casters change their spells after a long rest. It isn't all that big a deal and for those that can only change spells when they level up, can be painful. They could be stuck with a less useful spell for many sessions waiting for a level.
That's why I let them change 1 spell/long rest. I feel this retains the spirit of the rule, that they can't just change their whole array in one go, but allows them to change something each time. So far, it has not been an issue for either the Ranger or the Sorcerer who are using this rule.
My DM allows this for my arcane trickster and I allow it for non prepared spell casters in my games as well. I feel it's a good balance. It allows some flexibility if someone realizes some spells aren't as useful as they imagined in the campaign etc, without letting them redo their whole spell list for each day.
I'll +1 this too as I think it helps the known casters (particularly sorcerer) really pop!
I let all of my casters change their spells after a long rest. It isn't all that big a deal and for those that can only change spells when they level up, can be painful. They could be stuck with a less useful spell for many sessions waiting for a level.
I actually dislike that. As a player in a campaign of yours I dislike that. I had a concept for my character’s long investment over levels to slowly shift her spell list from the darker stuff she started with as a means of character development. Your houserule takes that entire character concept and makes it absolutely meaningless. Between that and how you treat illusions, 100% of the character development I had planned is trash. I kinda feel like all the weight has been taken out of the character and that much of my agency as a player has been negated, right down to magic item I chose for her.
You say “It isn't all that big a deal,” but on my end it’s a hugebig deal. You see it as a means to enable the players to do what they want, but from my perspective it has had the exact opposite effect. What I was looking forward to as a struggle is easily remedied with a night’s sleep now.
That’s why it’s so important to inform players of this stuff before they design their characters. I would have made a completely different character, specifically a non-caster if I had been aware of your houserules on magic.
I let all of my casters change their spells after a long rest. It isn't all that big a deal and for those that can only change spells when they level up, can be painful. They could be stuck with a less useful spell for many sessions waiting for a level.
I actually dislike that. As a player in a campaign of yours I dislike that. I had a concept for my character’s long investment over levels to slowly shift her spell list from the darker stuff she started with as a means of character development. Your houserule takes that entire character concept and makes it absolutely meaningless. Between that and how you treat illusions, 100% of the character development I had planned is trash. I kinda feel like all the weight has been taken out of the character and that much of my agency as a player has been negated, right down to magic item I chose for her.
You say “It isn't all that big a deal,” but on my end it’s a hugebig deal. You see it as a means to enable the players to do what they want, but from my perspective it has had the exact opposite effect. What I was looking forward to as a struggle is easily remedied with a night’s sleep now.
That’s why it’s so important to inform players of this stuff before they design their characters. I would have made a completely different character, specifically a non-caster if I had been aware of your houserules on magic.
That idea still works if the character development takes place over time. Or if you just decide not to make use of this optional ruling for your character and go with the normal 'you can replace one spell when you level up' thing that known casters tend to have. Just as someone who for some reason may want to lock in spell choices permanantly could always choose not to make use of the one swap out per level up rule.
You miss the point. The concept I had for the character is that she wants to swap them but can’t do it fast enough. That she’s forced into the slow progression. By eliminating that it basically ruins the entire character concept. The struggle she was supposed to be facing is nonexistent. Had I known about it in advance I would have built a different character entirely.
You miss the point. The concept I had for the character is that she wants to swap them but can’t do it fast enough. That she’s forced into the slow progression. By eliminating that it basically ruins the entire character concept. The struggle she was supposed to be facing is nonexistent. Had I known about it in advance I would have built a different character entirely.
Couldn't you just choose not to make use of the once per long rest thing for your character though, if it fits your character concept? You could come up with some in story reason for why it's not an option for her even, if the once per long rest thing is being brought up in story for other characters.
You miss the point. The concept I had for the character is that she wants to swap them but can’t do it fast enough. That she’s forced into the slow progression. By eliminating that it basically ruins the entire character concept. The struggle she was supposed to be facing is nonexistent. Had I known about it in advance I would have built a different character entirely.
Couldn't you just choose not to make use of the once per long rest thing for your character though, if it fits your character concept? You could come up with some in story reason for why it's not an option for her even, if the once per long rest thing is being brought up in story for other characters.
You are missing the point. These things should be disclosed before the campaign starts, not after a couple months of play. (Yes, we’ve been playing that long and haven’t had a long rest yet. It’s PbP.) In fact, the only reason I found out yet is by sheer accident having read it in this thread.
Yeah, sure, these rules should be ideally talked about before the game starts.
I just don't see why this is a character ruining thing, instead of something that can be worked out by either not using it for your character, or if needed for immersion's sake, coming up with an in story reason for why your character isn't able to that quickly or easily let go of the dark spells etc. It just doesn't seem like a problem that can't be hashed out easily with a chat with your DM.
I really don't know how anyone can call a spell list that includes Cure Wounds, Goodberry, Hunter's Mark, Fog Cloud, Absorb Elements, Ensnaring Strike, Pass Without Trace, Silence, Spike Growth, Healing Spirit and Lesser Restoration "bad".
Compare it to any other core class's spell list and you'll see the issue immediately; I didn't claim the list was absolutely devoid of good spells, I claimed it was worse than other lists. One of the things making the list bad is that the Ranger is a know-caster, per the topic of this thread, and changing them to a preparation caster absolutely improves their list, because they can choose more situational spells at the end of a long rest, making it less of an ask for them to learn a super good spell that generally won't come up. By the same token, if you made them a Ritual caster, their list would immediately get better. Alarm is easily one of the best spells in the game, but due to the actual rules Rangers actually have, you'll be hard-pressed finding a Ranger willing to burn all of the precious resources it takes (both a precious spell known and a precious slot). Most Ranger class guides tell you to give the spell a hard pass and tell someone in the party who can cast it more cheaply, like a wizard, for whom it is free - neither consuming a spell known nor a spell slot.
Slot count also absolutely matters. Goodberry is a fantastic spell, but how fantastic it is depends partially on how many slots you generally end your day with still on hand. That means it's intrinsically better on a full caster than a half caster, and on a half caster than a third caster. You can't analyze spells in a vacuum for considering how good a list is.
You say “It isn't all that big a deal,” but on my end it’s a hugebig deal. You see it as a means to enable the players to do what they want, but from my perspective it has had the exact opposite effect. What I was looking forward to as a struggle is easily remedied with a night’s sleep now.
A voice whispers in your head while looking at the slime creature, "Relax cupcake, your ties to the ether have been severed. It's on a withdrawal only network. Changes to your policy are no longer accepted. "
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
You say “It isn't all that big a deal,” but on my end it’s a hugebig deal. You see it as a means to enable the players to do what they want, but from my perspective it has had the exact opposite effect. What I was looking forward to as a struggle is easily remedied with a night’s sleep now.
A voice whispers in your head while looking at the slime creature, "Relax cupcake, your ties to the ether have been severed. It's on a withdrawal only network. Changes to your policy are no longer accepted. "
And then Tommary gets up from his crouch behind Toots ear, and standing up raises his left index finger [append rest of in game post]
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
One of the things making the list bad is that the Ranger is a know-caster...By the same token, if you made them a Ritual caster, their list would immediately get better...Slot count also absolutely matters.
That's got nothing to do with the spell list, it's class design. You wouldn't say the wizard spell list is bad because Eldritch Knights don't get ritual casting and full spell slots.
Obviously the lack of ritual casting and spell slots makes Rangers less flexible than full spellcasters, but that's not their competition. It's Paladins, Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters, all of whick also lack ritual casting and have the same or fewer spell slots.
My point was that 1) the Ranger spell list is full of utility that the Paladin list doesn't have and 2) Paladins have other, sometimes better ways of supporting the party than spells. I'm all for throwing Rangers a bone but I dislike the "class X gets this so why doesn't class Y" line of reasoning. They have some obvious superficial similarities but they're really not designed the same way, have very different niche, use spellcasting for very different things and have different narrative reasons for their magic. Making them more similar is a really boring way to address the Ranger's shortcomings.
I'm of the mind that, functionally, I like the idea of Rangers being versatile survivalists who can adjust to match their environment and situation to best optimize their limited access to magic. Alarm is a really good example... it's normally not worth a Spell Known to have that spell in your back pocket, since it's only going to be useful in very situational cases. A ranger has to generally pick spells that are useful on average, which means a lot of the unique utility spells are kind of a trap. You don't need Alarm through most of your adventuring day, but if you're going into a deep dungeon where you know that Long Rests will not be guaranteed to be safe it could be a life saver. Unless you're running a full campaign dealing with Yuan-Ti or something, Protection from Poison is just going to sit there eating up space on your Spells Known sheet, but if you know you're about to sneak into a Green Dragon's lair it would be nice to have access to it if you're not lucky enough to level up right before getting there.
Although there's no situation where Find Traps will be useful, but hey... if you happened to grab it without realizing how it actually works and your DM doesn't want to homebrew it to be actually functional, you could at least get rid of it without waiting for the next level up or begging for a retcon.
I let all of my casters change their spells after a long rest. It isn't all that big a deal and for those that can only change spells when they level up, can be painful. They could be stuck with a less useful spell for many sessions waiting for a level.
That's why I let them change 1 spell/long rest. I feel this retains the spirit of the rule, that they can't just change their whole array in one go, but allows them to change something each time. So far, it has not been an issue for either the Ranger or the Sorcerer who are using this rule.
This is what I have allowed. It was one of the optional class rules I really liked that didn't make it from UA to Tasha's. Any class with known spells can switch out one spell they know for another of the same level each long rest. It has worked out fine for my games.
My only hesitation to allow a modest degree of spell-switching is how it affects wizards. Wizards are built more around spells available than any other class, and letting them just swap stuff out really undercuts how their spellcasting works. It would take away the importance behind choosing spells as they level as well as the impact of finding spellbooks. Why ever pay to copy Cool Situational Spell A when you can just go to sleep and get it for free?
I'm definitely amenable to allowing a swap when someone takes a spell without realizing how it works or misunderstanding how useful it would be to them. But after playing as a few different spellcasters, I like the tension I feel when picking a new spell. I like the way it defines my character. That being said, I do think Ranger in particular should have been a prepare-style class as utility and versatility are central to the class concept. Choosing spells as a Ranger I tend to feel more frustration than tension.
My only hesitation to allow a modest degree of spell-switching is how it affects wizards. Wizards are built more around spells available than any other class, and letting them just swap stuff out really undercuts how their spellcasting works. It would take away the importance behind choosing spells as they level as well as the impact of finding spellbooks. Why ever pay to copy Cool Situational Spell A when you can just go to sleep and get it for free?
But it is RAW for Wizards:
You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of wizard spells requires time spent studying your spellbook and memorizing the incantations and gestures you must make to cast the spell: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
My only hesitation to allow a modest degree of spell-switching is how it affects wizards. Wizards are built more around spells available than any other class, and letting them just swap stuff out really undercuts how their spellcasting works. It would take away the importance behind choosing spells as they level as well as the impact of finding spellbooks. Why ever pay to copy Cool Situational Spell A when you can just go to sleep and get it for free?
But it is RAW for Wizards:
You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of wizard spells requires time spent studying your spellbook and memorizing the incantations and gestures you must make to cast the spell: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.
Also thanks to Tasha's they can swap cantrips on a long rest too....oof.
My only hesitation to allow a modest degree of spell-switching is how it affects wizards. Wizards are built more around spells available than any other class, and letting them just swap stuff out really undercuts how their spellcasting works. It would take away the importance behind choosing spells as they level as well as the impact of finding spellbooks. Why ever pay to copy Cool Situational Spell A when you can just go to sleep and get it for free?
I'm definitely amenable to allowing a swap when someone takes a spell without realizing how it works or misunderstanding how useful it would be to them. But after playing as a few different spellcasters, I like the tension I feel when picking a new spell. I like the way it defines my character. That being said, I do think Ranger in particular should have been a prepare-style class as utility and versatility are central to the class concept. Choosing spells as a Ranger I tend to feel more frustration than tension.
In my games I only allow it for 'known' spell casters. Sorcerers, rangers, arcane tricksters, eldrich knights etc.
Wizards I don't allow because they can add spell sto their spell book over time and, theoretically, eventually get every wizard spell into the thing over time.
My only hesitation to allow a modest degree of spell-switching is how it affects wizards. Wizards are built more around spells available than any other class, and letting them just swap stuff out really undercuts how their spellcasting works. It would take away the importance behind choosing spells as they level as well as the impact of finding spellbooks. Why ever pay to copy Cool Situational Spell A when you can just go to sleep and get it for free?
But it is RAW for Wizards:
You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of wizard spells requires time spent studying your spellbook and memorizing the incantations and gestures you must make to cast the spell: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.
You’re talking “spells prepared,” they’re talking “spells known.” It is absolutely not RAW for a Wizard to delete unwanted spells from their Spellbooks and replace them with different spells whenever they finish a long rest.
My DM allows this for my arcane trickster and I allow it for non prepared spell casters in my games as well. I feel it's a good balance. It allows some flexibility if someone realizes some spells aren't as useful as they imagined in the campaign etc, without letting them redo their whole spell list for each day.
I'll +1 this too as I think it helps the known casters (particularly sorcerer) really pop!
I actually dislike that. As a player in a campaign of yours I dislike that. I had a concept for my character’s long investment over levels to slowly shift her spell list from the darker stuff she started with as a means of character development. Your houserule takes that entire character concept and makes it absolutely meaningless. Between that and how you treat illusions, 100% of the character development I had planned is trash. I kinda feel like all the weight has been taken out of the character and that much of my agency as a player has been negated, right down to magic item I chose for her.
You say “It isn't all that big a deal,” but on my end it’s a hugebig deal. You see it as a means to enable the players to do what they want, but from my perspective it has had the exact opposite effect. What I was looking forward to as a struggle is easily remedied with a night’s sleep now.
That’s why it’s so important to inform players of this stuff before they design their characters. I would have made a completely different character, specifically a non-caster if I had been aware of your houserules on magic.
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That idea still works if the character development takes place over time. Or if you just decide not to make use of this optional ruling for your character and go with the normal 'you can replace one spell when you level up' thing that known casters tend to have. Just as someone who for some reason may want to lock in spell choices permanantly could always choose not to make use of the one swap out per level up rule.
You miss the point. The concept I had for the character is that she wants to swap them but can’t do it fast enough. That she’s forced into the slow progression. By eliminating that it basically ruins the entire character concept. The struggle she was supposed to be facing is nonexistent. Had I known about it in advance I would have built a different character entirely.
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Couldn't you just choose not to make use of the once per long rest thing for your character though, if it fits your character concept? You could come up with some in story reason for why it's not an option for her even, if the once per long rest thing is being brought up in story for other characters.
You are missing the point. These things should be disclosed before the campaign starts, not after a couple months of play. (Yes, we’ve been playing that long and haven’t had a long rest yet. It’s PbP.) In fact, the only reason I found out yet is by sheer accident having read it in this thread.
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Yeah, sure, these rules should be ideally talked about before the game starts.
I just don't see why this is a character ruining thing, instead of something that can be worked out by either not using it for your character, or if needed for immersion's sake, coming up with an in story reason for why your character isn't able to that quickly or easily let go of the dark spells etc. It just doesn't seem like a problem that can't be hashed out easily with a chat with your DM.
Compare it to any other core class's spell list and you'll see the issue immediately; I didn't claim the list was absolutely devoid of good spells, I claimed it was worse than other lists. One of the things making the list bad is that the Ranger is a know-caster, per the topic of this thread, and changing them to a preparation caster absolutely improves their list, because they can choose more situational spells at the end of a long rest, making it less of an ask for them to learn a super good spell that generally won't come up. By the same token, if you made them a Ritual caster, their list would immediately get better. Alarm is easily one of the best spells in the game, but due to the actual rules Rangers actually have, you'll be hard-pressed finding a Ranger willing to burn all of the precious resources it takes (both a precious spell known and a precious slot). Most Ranger class guides tell you to give the spell a hard pass and tell someone in the party who can cast it more cheaply, like a wizard, for whom it is free - neither consuming a spell known nor a spell slot.
Slot count also absolutely matters. Goodberry is a fantastic spell, but how fantastic it is depends partially on how many slots you generally end your day with still on hand. That means it's intrinsically better on a full caster than a half caster, and on a half caster than a third caster. You can't analyze spells in a vacuum for considering how good a list is.
A voice whispers in your head while looking at the slime creature, "Relax cupcake, your ties to the ether have been severed. It's on a withdrawal only network. Changes to your policy are no longer accepted. "
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
And then Tommary gets up from his crouch behind Toots ear, and standing up raises his left index finger [append rest of in game post]
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
That's got nothing to do with the spell list, it's class design. You wouldn't say the wizard spell list is bad because Eldritch Knights don't get ritual casting and full spell slots.
Obviously the lack of ritual casting and spell slots makes Rangers less flexible than full spellcasters, but that's not their competition. It's Paladins, Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters, all of whick also lack ritual casting and have the same or fewer spell slots.
My point was that 1) the Ranger spell list is full of utility that the Paladin list doesn't have and 2) Paladins have other, sometimes better ways of supporting the party than spells. I'm all for throwing Rangers a bone but I dislike the "class X gets this so why doesn't class Y" line of reasoning. They have some obvious superficial similarities but they're really not designed the same way, have very different niche, use spellcasting for very different things and have different narrative reasons for their magic. Making them more similar is a really boring way to address the Ranger's shortcomings.
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Paladin subclasses do get some of the best cleric spells tho....like Spirit Guardians.
I'm of the mind that, functionally, I like the idea of Rangers being versatile survivalists who can adjust to match their environment and situation to best optimize their limited access to magic. Alarm is a really good example... it's normally not worth a Spell Known to have that spell in your back pocket, since it's only going to be useful in very situational cases. A ranger has to generally pick spells that are useful on average, which means a lot of the unique utility spells are kind of a trap. You don't need Alarm through most of your adventuring day, but if you're going into a deep dungeon where you know that Long Rests will not be guaranteed to be safe it could be a life saver. Unless you're running a full campaign dealing with Yuan-Ti or something, Protection from Poison is just going to sit there eating up space on your Spells Known sheet, but if you know you're about to sneak into a Green Dragon's lair it would be nice to have access to it if you're not lucky enough to level up right before getting there.
Although there's no situation where Find Traps will be useful, but hey... if you happened to grab it without realizing how it actually works and your DM doesn't want to homebrew it to be actually functional, you could at least get rid of it without waiting for the next level up or begging for a retcon.
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This is what I have allowed. It was one of the optional class rules I really liked that didn't make it from UA to Tasha's. Any class with known spells can switch out one spell they know for another of the same level each long rest. It has worked out fine for my games.
My only hesitation to allow a modest degree of spell-switching is how it affects wizards. Wizards are built more around spells available than any other class, and letting them just swap stuff out really undercuts how their spellcasting works. It would take away the importance behind choosing spells as they level as well as the impact of finding spellbooks. Why ever pay to copy Cool Situational Spell A when you can just go to sleep and get it for free?
I'm definitely amenable to allowing a swap when someone takes a spell without realizing how it works or misunderstanding how useful it would be to them. But after playing as a few different spellcasters, I like the tension I feel when picking a new spell. I like the way it defines my character. That being said, I do think Ranger in particular should have been a prepare-style class as utility and versatility are central to the class concept. Choosing spells as a Ranger I tend to feel more frustration than tension.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
But it is RAW for Wizards:
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Also thanks to Tasha's they can swap cantrips on a long rest too....oof.
In my games I only allow it for 'known' spell casters. Sorcerers, rangers, arcane tricksters, eldrich knights etc.
Wizards I don't allow because they can add spell sto their spell book over time and, theoretically, eventually get every wizard spell into the thing over time.
You’re talking “spells prepared,” they’re talking “spells known.” It is absolutely not RAW for a Wizard to delete unwanted spells from their Spellbooks and replace them with different spells whenever they finish a long rest.
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