The One D&D Wizard's Scribe Spell ability is a .... spell? What the heck? Stop it, WotC! You don't have to – and shouldn't – cram every last class feature into the spell template.
Hunter's Mark should not be an example that every other class ability emulates. It should be an example of what NOT to do. Hunter's Mark never should have been a spell. It was *always* problematic as a spell, for so many reasons.
1.) All core class abilities should be detailed in the class description. Nobody should have to go spelunking through the huge list of spells to find a key class ability. See: hunter's mark, paladin smites, eldritch blast, etc
2.) A core class ability should not be something that can be acquired through some other class's special ability. Putting core abilities on the spell list means just that – via the Bard's Magical Secrets, various feats, etc. Nobody can get Lay on Hands through Magical Secrets, and that's good. They shouldn't be able to get Summon Mount or Eldritch Blast either.
3.) Making an ability into a spell brings a whole lot of rules baggage that usually doesn't make any sense with a core ability. Spells can be counterspelled, require components, sometimes get prevented from being used through various side effects of other abilities and restrictions, often have concentration, etc. Look at Hunter's Mark, Hex, and the various Paladin smites that require concentration, and how that severely limits the use of other spells because of this primary ability also being a spell.
4.) No spells should be must-haves. All spells should be optional. Otherwise, it's an illusion of choice. Sure, your ranger could choose not to take Hunter's Mark, but they'd be a lot worse off without it. Same with Eldritch Blast for a Sorcerer. If you have to use it to be effective, don't make it a spell.
Making everything into a spell just smacks of laziness to me. It feels like the designers didn't want to come up with a balanced resource system for an ability, or felt like the class description was getting too long, so they just slap the spell template on it and hide it in the list of spells.
Hunter's Mark should just be a Proficiency Bonus times per day ability that you can just do, like Channel Divinity. It shouldn't require components, any more than Channel Divinity does. It shouldn't be something you can counterspell. It's more of a supernatural effect (in the old parlance) than a spell-like ability. You could even call it an extraordinary ability - not magical at all, just the ranger's skill at hunting.
This goes double for the Wizard's new abilities for scribing spells into their spellbook and creating new spells. Why is Scribe Spell itself a spell? What does all that "spell" baggage actually make better about the ability? Why not just give them the ability to write spells in their spellbook like they had in 5e proper? What was wrong with that? It removed all the baggage of "I need to memorize this spell or have it in my spellbook to cast" because, oops, turns out, if your Wizard loses your spellbook in One D&D, they can't replace it because they can't cast the Scribe Spell spell.
I don't like that the special Paladin smites are spells, either. Why not just give the paladin the ability to add effects onto their normal smite? It would basically be the same, but again, without all the spell baggage. Why does the Paladin have one smite that can't be countered and works even if they're gagged, but has other smites that can be countered and require a verbal component? That doesn't make any in-game sense, and it really doesn't make any rules sense, either.
I do agree with much of what you say. However, I don’t know if all of this is something they are steering the game towards or if it, like some other aspects of the UA, they want to explore and experiment with and see how the community reacts to these changes.
I would like to hear results from the surveys to see how others feel about these changes. It could go either way but I’m hoping there will be changes to some of these. I’m fine with Hex being a spell but would like it to be more warlock specific (kind of how the wizard UA create spell gives it the wizard tag and not arcane so features that allow someone to chose from divine, primal, or arcane can’t get them.
I fully agree that scribe spell being a spell ist weird and unnecessary.
The other abilities though...
1) Fair point. On the other hand, if you are using the vtt it's actually more convenient to have those abilities with your other spells. But I also don't think it's too big of a deal. You have to look up spells anyway.
2) Magical Secrets and similar features only give access to spells on the divine, primal or arcane list. So the devs can just not put those spells on these lists if they don't want them to be aquired by anyone outside the class.
3) The devs have full control over whethrr a spell requires components or concentration. If they want e.g. hunters mark to require neither, they can easily change the spell. I also don't see why a warlock's Hex should not be a spell while bestow curse is. Some curses are spells, others aren't? IMO, the distinction between spells, spell like abilities and other supernatural effects is purely mechanical and makes little sense ingame anyway. Counterspell should affect anything that is ingame indistiguishable fromm being a spell. But aside from that, It's also irrelevant. Why would anyone waste a counterspell on something like Hunters Mark?
4) They are automatically prepared.
Making abilities spells uses an established resource system which makes bookkeeping a lot easier.
Why not? Or even more controversal: why should spells be subject to dispel, regardles of who casts them?
You could argue that a sorcerers innate magic is the class' ability. By that logic, none of the sorcerers spells should be dispelled. They only can be, because they are mechanically modeled as spells. But there is no universal ingame definition of what a spell is. For the wizard it's literally spells they learnt from a book - so here mechanics and lore are somewhat equivalent. For the sorcerer it's innate magic - so they could be treated like the spell like abilities of certain creatures. For the cleric, they are basically wonders performed by their deity using the cleric as a conduit - that doesn't sound like it should be dispelled by a mortals magic...
So the point I'm trying to make here is the following: The "Spell" framework is just an easy way to model various supernatural abilities with the same mechanic. Does it represent the fantasy perfectly? No, of course not - neither does round based combat capture all the nuances of an actual battle. You always have to make a compromise between "realism" and playability.
As a side note, I find it really funny how noone ever complained about the Chainlocks feature being an altered version of the **spell** "Find Familiar". But when summoning a magic blade is a spell people go berserk...
The One D&D Wizard's Scribe Spell ability is a .... spell? What the heck? Stop it, WotC! You don't have to – and shouldn't – cram every last class feature into the spell template.
Hunter's Mark should not be an example that every other class ability emulates. It should be an example of what NOT to do. Hunter's Mark never should have been a spell. It was *always* problematic as a spell, for so many reasons.
1.) All core class abilities should be detailed in the class description. Nobody should have to go spelunking through the huge list of spells to find a key class ability. See: hunter's mark, paladin smites, eldritch blast, etc
2.) A core class ability should not be something that can be acquired through some other class's special ability. Putting core abilities on the spell list means just that – via the Bard's Magical Secrets, various feats, etc. Nobody can get Lay on Hands through Magical Secrets, and that's good. They shouldn't be able to get Summon Mount or Eldritch Blast either.
3.) Making an ability into a spell brings a whole lot of rules baggage that usually doesn't make any sense with a core ability. Spells can be counterspelled, require components, sometimes get prevented from being used through various side effects of other abilities and restrictions, often have concentration, etc. Look at Hunter's Mark, Hex, and the various Paladin smites that require concentration, and how that severely limits the use of other spells because of this primary ability also being a spell.
4.) No spells should be must-haves. All spells should be optional. Otherwise, it's an illusion of choice. Sure, your ranger could choose not to take Hunter's Mark, but they'd be a lot worse off without it. Same with Eldritch Blast for a Sorcerer. If you have to use it to be effective, don't make it a spell.
Making everything into a spell just smacks of laziness to me. It feels like the designers didn't want to come up with a balanced resource system for an ability, or felt like the class description was getting too long, so they just slap the spell template on it and hide it in the list of spells.
Hunter's Mark should just be a Proficiency Bonus times per day ability that you can just do, like Channel Divinity. It shouldn't require components, any more than Channel Divinity does. It shouldn't be something you can counterspell. It's more of a supernatural effect (in the old parlance) than a spell-like ability. You could even call it an extraordinary ability - not magical at all, just the ranger's skill at hunting.
This goes double for the Wizard's new abilities for scribing spells into their spellbook and creating new spells. Why is Scribe Spell itself a spell? What does all that "spell" baggage actually make better about the ability? Why not just give them the ability to write spells in their spellbook like they had in 5e proper? What was wrong with that? It removed all the baggage of "I need to memorize this spell or have it in my spellbook to cast" because, oops, turns out, if your Wizard loses your spellbook in One D&D, they can't replace it because they can't cast the Scribe Spell spell.
I don't like that the special Paladin smites are spells, either. Why not just give the paladin the ability to add effects onto their normal smite? It would basically be the same, but again, without all the spell baggage. Why does the Paladin have one smite that can't be countered and works even if they're gagged, but has other smites that can be countered and require a verbal component? That doesn't make any in-game sense, and it really doesn't make any rules sense, either.
I do agree with much of what you say. However, I don’t know if all of this is something they are steering the game towards or if it, like some other aspects of the UA, they want to explore and experiment with and see how the community reacts to these changes.
I would like to hear results from the surveys to see how others feel about these changes. It could go either way but I’m hoping there will be changes to some of these. I’m fine with Hex being a spell but would like it to be more warlock specific (kind of how the wizard UA create spell gives it the wizard tag and not arcane so features that allow someone to chose from divine, primal, or arcane can’t get them.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I fully agree that scribe spell being a spell ist weird and unnecessary.
The other abilities though...
1) Fair point. On the other hand, if you are using the vtt it's actually more convenient to have those abilities with your other spells. But I also don't think it's too big of a deal. You have to look up spells anyway.
2) Magical Secrets and similar features only give access to spells on the divine, primal or arcane list. So the devs can just not put those spells on these lists if they don't want them to be aquired by anyone outside the class.
3) The devs have full control over whethrr a spell requires components or concentration. If they want e.g. hunters mark to require neither, they can easily change the spell. I also don't see why a warlock's Hex should not be a spell while bestow curse is. Some curses are spells, others aren't? IMO, the distinction between spells, spell like abilities and other supernatural effects is purely mechanical and makes little sense ingame anyway. Counterspell should affect anything that is ingame indistiguishable fromm being a spell. But aside from that, It's also irrelevant. Why would anyone waste a counterspell on something like Hunters Mark?
4) They are automatically prepared.
Making abilities spells uses an established resource system which makes bookkeeping a lot easier.
A species/ class ability should not be dispelled.
Why not? Or even more controversal: why should spells be subject to dispel, regardles of who casts them?
You could argue that a sorcerers innate magic is the class' ability. By that logic, none of the sorcerers spells should be dispelled. They only can be, because they are mechanically modeled as spells. But there is no universal ingame definition of what a spell is. For the wizard it's literally spells they learnt from a book - so here mechanics and lore are somewhat equivalent. For the sorcerer it's innate magic - so they could be treated like the spell like abilities of certain creatures. For the cleric, they are basically wonders performed by their deity using the cleric as a conduit - that doesn't sound like it should be dispelled by a mortals magic...
So the point I'm trying to make here is the following: The "Spell" framework is just an easy way to model various supernatural abilities with the same mechanic. Does it represent the fantasy perfectly? No, of course not - neither does round based combat capture all the nuances of an actual battle. You always have to make a compromise between "realism" and playability.
As a side note, I find it really funny how noone ever complained about the Chainlocks feature being an altered version of the **spell** "Find Familiar". But when summoning a magic blade is a spell people go berserk...
Yes, the topic here is a real question and a real problem growing.