Clearly I'm not adequately explaining my thought process, so feel free to let this thread die.
I think you are doing a decent job. Others seem to be intentionally ignoring it say you are just plain wrong. The hyperbolic example of the full spellbook was a little more than they wanted to think about. The idea of having any and all available ritual spells might not actually have a huge impact in some games. Depends on how often the group can wait for 10 minutes or an hour. If the DM does not want to allow them to open the ye Olde Swiss army book, they increase the pressure. But not every DM works the same, nor do they have the same pacing to their games.
As for the denial of spells to Primal and divine spell lists to help elevate the arcane list, you are likely correct. Most spells that don't immediately scream divine or Primal just get tossed in the arcane pile. Because arcane is MEANT to cover everything that the other two don't. Its like the junk heap of spells, it's got some real gems, and also many super duper situational, or I just want this for fun spells.
Thank you. The thing with the Spell book is that a wizard can choose 2 Arcane spells to put in per level. So any possible combination that might scare the DM is already present and available in a theoretical sense. This is why i say it doesnt actually matter if they have minimal spells or all the spells, they might have had the spell regardless.
Your thought process was to make the spell lists more equal so that Bards have a less obvious choice, no?
Exactly, But also, what are the downstream consequences of that action? Like I said, up until now the spell list was a feature balanced among other features that make up the entire class. Clerics are a lot more than their divine spells for instance. But that Wizard spell book mechanic just feels like such a red sock in the white wash at that point. Sure it's downstream from the initial change by 2 or 3 steps, but it just pulled my attention immediately.
Any possible combination of two spells isn’t a problem. Every possible combination is a problem. The Arcane list has utility for 90% of situations. The goal of limiting selections is to ensure other players get a chance to play the the game. It also helps prevent analysis paralysis. When a player has every option available to them it is likely to take longer to make a decision. The divine and primal list limit this by having a bunch of concentration spells on them. You can spend tons of time each long rest just trying to figure out which damage type you want to bring of each level with the arcane list. Also the biggest flaw is ritual spells. You would either have to take away the wizards ability to cast rituals that aren’t prepared or you would just be giving them every ritual spell on there list all the time which would not be balanced.
What I dislike about how the Wizard is designed, is that the DM basically has control over most of the spells the Wizard can access. Other than the first 6 spells (plus cantrips) and the 2 at each level up, Wizards have to rely on the DM to provide them with scrolls or spellbooks as loot, along with the gold and downtime to copy them. What if your DM just does not do this (for whatever reason)? Or what if they only give out a few? Or only some of the weaker or very situational spells? Or spells that don't fit your character's theme? The player is largely at the DM's mercy.
In the OneD&D videos, Jeremy Crawford espoused the idea of eliminating "Mother, may I?" features (i.e. features that take agency away from players and instead give the DM agency over the players' characters.) The Wizard seems like a prime candidate for redesign, based upon that premise.
My suggestion, would be to give Wizards more spell preparations than any other class. A lot more. Many caster classes have around 22 preps (at level 20) in their base class, with features & subclasses providing more preps- probly to around 30 preps.
Why not give Wizards a number of spell preparations equal to twice the sum of their Wizard level + their Int modifier. For many, this would be 8 preps at level 1, up to 50 or more at level 20 (& this would require the Wizard to have a large increase in spells known at first level, as well as at each level up- unless they simply have access to the entire Arcane list). Their Spell SLOTS would remain the same quantity as 2014/UA Playtest. But this massive increase in PREPARATIONS would allow Wizards actually to be what they have been reputed to be: the most versatile casters, who are PREPARED for anything.
This would eliminate one of the most frustrating parts of D&D: namely, trying to predict what will be happening in the next adventuring day and guessing which spells or features you might need to pick. The 2014 Ranger suffered from this issue, with having to choose terrain types and foe types at character creation, and hoping that those choices would be relevant. If not... then those features were basically worthless. Wizards have a similar problem on a lesser, if more frequent, scale. If the player chooses spells for the day that end up being not at all useful for the situations faced, then the Spellcasting feature is rendered irrelevant, at least to a degree.
I dunno. My idea is probably too extreme. And it probably would create its own problems- like analysis paralysis. But I still maintain that the Wizard class gives the DM too much power over the Player's character.
What I dislike about how the Wizard is designed, is that the DM basically has control over most of the spells the Wizard can access. Other than the first 6 spells (plus cantrips) and the 2 at each level up, Wizards have to rely on the DM to provide them with scrolls or spellbooks as loot, along with the gold and downtime to copy them. What if your DM just does not do this (for whatever reason)? Or what if they only give out a few? Or only some of the weaker or very situational spells? Or spells that don't fit your character's theme? The player is largely at the DM's mercy.
In the OneD&D videos, Jeremy Crawford espoused the idea of eliminating "Mother, may I?" features (i.e. features that take agency away from players and instead give the DM agency over the players' characters.) The Wizard seems like a prime candidate for redesign, based upon that premise.
My suggestion, would be to give Wizards more spell preparations than any other class. A lot more. Many caster classes have around 22 preps (at level 20) in their base class, with features & subclasses providing more preps- probly to around 30 preps.
Why not give Wizards a number of spell preparations equal to twice the sum of their Wizard level + their Int modifier. For many, this would be 8 preps at level 1, up to 50 or more at level 20 (& this would require the Wizard to have a large increase in spells known at first level, as well as at each level up- unless they simply have access to the entire Arcane list). Their Spell SLOTS would remain the same quantity as 2014/UA Playtest. But this massive increase in PREPARATIONS would allow Wizards actually to be what they have been reputed to be: the most versatile casters, who are PREPARED for anything.
This would eliminate one of the most frustrating parts of D&D: namely, trying to predict what will be happening in the next adventuring day and guessing which spells or features you might need to pick. The 2014 Ranger suffered from this issue, with having to choose terrain types and foe types at character creation, and hoping that those choices would be relevant. If not... then those features were basically worthless. Wizards have a similar problem on a lesser, if more frequent, scale. If the player chooses spells for the day that end up being not at all useful for the situations faced, then the Spellcasting feature is rendered irrelevant, at least to a degree.
I dunno. My idea is probably too extreme. And it probably would create its own problems- like analysis paralysis. But I still maintain that the Wizard class gives the DM too much power over the Player's character.
Why? Without any of this they are the most versatile caster. Why would you want them to be more versatile. 6 spells at first level and 2 every level after is plenty of spells. They don’t need more, but if they want more they have the ability to get more. If your DM is denying you any spells after you asking that is a bad table. Spell scrolls even appear as random treasure in the DMG. The power of ritual casting spells that aren’t prepared means they basically always have those spells at the cost of time. Ritual spells are some of the best utility spells in the game. Detect Magic, Identify, Floating disk, Unseen servant, tiny hut, and phantom steed just to name some awesome spells off the top of my head.
What I dislike about how the Wizard is designed, is that the DM basically has control over most of the spells the Wizard can access. Other than the first 6 spells (plus cantrips) and the 2 at each level up, Wizards have to rely on the DM to provide them with scrolls or spellbooks as loot, along with the gold and downtime to copy them. What if your DM just does not do this (for whatever reason)? Or what if they only give out a few? Or only some of the weaker or very situational spells? Or spells that don't fit your character's theme? The player is largely at the DM's mercy.
In the OneD&D videos, Jeremy Crawford espoused the idea of eliminating "Mother, may I?" features (i.e. features that take agency away from players and instead give the DM agency over the players' characters.) The Wizard seems like a prime candidate for redesign, based upon that premise.
My suggestion, would be to give Wizards more spell preparations than any other class. A lot more. Many caster classes have around 22 preps (at level 20) in their base class, with features & subclasses providing more preps- probly to around 30 preps.
Why not give Wizards a number of spell preparations equal to twice the sum of their Wizard level + their Int modifier. For many, this would be 8 preps at level 1, up to 50 or more at level 20 (& this would require the Wizard to have a large increase in spells known at first level, as well as at each level up- unless they simply have access to the entire Arcane list). Their Spell SLOTS would remain the same quantity as 2014/UA Playtest. But this massive increase in PREPARATIONS would allow Wizards actually to be what they have been reputed to be: the most versatile casters, who are PREPARED for anything.
This would eliminate one of the most frustrating parts of D&D: namely, trying to predict what will be happening in the next adventuring day and guessing which spells or features you might need to pick. The 2014 Ranger suffered from this issue, with having to choose terrain types and foe types at character creation, and hoping that those choices would be relevant. If not... then those features were basically worthless. Wizards have a similar problem on a lesser, if more frequent, scale. If the player chooses spells for the day that end up being not at all useful for the situations faced, then the Spellcasting feature is rendered irrelevant, at least to a degree.
I dunno. My idea is probably too extreme. And it probably would create its own problems- like analysis paralysis. But I still maintain that the Wizard class gives the DM too much power over the Player's character.
Honestly, I don't thin this is too much to ask. I think the spell lists themselves need revisions to downgrade the power, build more consistency, and remove extraneous bits. And rather than 3 spell lists, go back to each class having its own specific spells, because having just a master list (or only 3 of them) is a big fail for flavor and gameplay.
The "preparing" spells though, should be done away with.
While I do not think it would break the game I do not want something like this. IMO the wizard list now arcane list is based around a learned list in some ways. It is not a granted list it is something you gained through research, training and learning the spell. With it being arcane now it includes sorcerer and warlock so it may on some level be granted as well now though as a warlock you are delving for arcane secrets I'm not sure how much of the class is granted vs learned and will probably vary player to player and with sorcerers while magic comes naturally I do have the impression they are learning and training in a small list of abilities. Anyways my point is its core story behind it does not lend well to people just knowing every spell.
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Any possible combination of two spells isn’t a problem. Every possible combination is a problem. The Arcane list has utility for 90% of situations. The goal of limiting selections is to ensure other players get a chance to play the the game. It also helps prevent analysis paralysis. When a player has every option available to them it is likely to take longer to make a decision. The divine and primal list limit this by having a bunch of concentration spells on them. You can spend tons of time each long rest just trying to figure out which damage type you want to bring of each level with the arcane list. Also the biggest flaw is ritual spells. You would either have to take away the wizards ability to cast rituals that aren’t prepared or you would just be giving them every ritual spell on there list all the time which would not be balanced.
What I dislike about how the Wizard is designed, is that the DM basically has control over most of the spells the Wizard can access. Other than the first 6 spells (plus cantrips) and the 2 at each level up, Wizards have to rely on the DM to provide them with scrolls or spellbooks as loot, along with the gold and downtime to copy them. What if your DM just does not do this (for whatever reason)? Or what if they only give out a few? Or only some of the weaker or very situational spells? Or spells that don't fit your character's theme? The player is largely at the DM's mercy.
In the OneD&D videos, Jeremy Crawford espoused the idea of eliminating "Mother, may I?" features (i.e. features that take agency away from players and instead give the DM agency over the players' characters.) The Wizard seems like a prime candidate for redesign, based upon that premise.
My suggestion, would be to give Wizards more spell preparations than any other class. A lot more. Many caster classes have around 22 preps (at level 20) in their base class, with features & subclasses providing more preps- probly to around 30 preps.
Why not give Wizards a number of spell preparations equal to twice the sum of their Wizard level + their Int modifier. For many, this would be 8 preps at level 1, up to 50 or more at level 20 (& this would require the Wizard to have a large increase in spells known at first level, as well as at each level up- unless they simply have access to the entire Arcane list). Their Spell SLOTS would remain the same quantity as 2014/UA Playtest. But this massive increase in PREPARATIONS would allow Wizards actually to be what they have been reputed to be: the most versatile casters, who are PREPARED for anything.
This would eliminate one of the most frustrating parts of D&D: namely, trying to predict what will be happening in the next adventuring day and guessing which spells or features you might need to pick. The 2014 Ranger suffered from this issue, with having to choose terrain types and foe types at character creation, and hoping that those choices would be relevant. If not... then those features were basically worthless. Wizards have a similar problem on a lesser, if more frequent, scale. If the player chooses spells for the day that end up being not at all useful for the situations faced, then the Spellcasting feature is rendered irrelevant, at least to a degree.
I dunno. My idea is probably too extreme. And it probably would create its own problems- like analysis paralysis. But I still maintain that the Wizard class gives the DM too much power over the Player's character.
Why? Without any of this they are the most versatile caster. Why would you want them to be more versatile. 6 spells at first level and 2 every level after is plenty of spells. They don’t need more, but if they want more they have the ability to get more. If your DM is denying you any spells after you asking that is a bad table. Spell scrolls even appear as random treasure in the DMG. The power of ritual casting spells that aren’t prepared means they basically always have those spells at the cost of time. Ritual spells are some of the best utility spells in the game. Detect Magic, Identify, Floating disk, Unseen servant, tiny hut, and phantom steed just to name some awesome spells off the top of my head.
Honestly, I don't thin this is too much to ask. I think the spell lists themselves need revisions to downgrade the power, build more consistency, and remove extraneous bits. And rather than 3 spell lists, go back to each class having its own specific spells, because having just a master list (or only 3 of them) is a big fail for flavor and gameplay.
The "preparing" spells though, should be done away with.
While I do not think it would break the game I do not want something like this. IMO the wizard list now arcane list is based around a learned list in some ways. It is not a granted list it is something you gained through research, training and learning the spell. With it being arcane now it includes sorcerer and warlock so it may on some level be granted as well now though as a warlock you are delving for arcane secrets I'm not sure how much of the class is granted vs learned and will probably vary player to player and with sorcerers while magic comes naturally I do have the impression they are learning and training in a small list of abilities. Anyways my point is its core story behind it does not lend well to people just knowing every spell.