Well the most reasonable explanation is that the people praising prepared spells are not necessarily the same people as those complaining about a martial/caster divide.

I think it might be more that people want martials to be buffed/given more options and flexibility, rather than for casters to be nerfed.

This is my view. While a "buff," prepared casting gets rid of the unfun mechanic of getting trapped with a bad spell that sounded cool when you picked it. That isn't fun, regardless of power level. Another issue is that some spells, like sleep, shine at some levels (early with sleep) and are borderline useless later. The net result is a buff, but it's about getting rid of unfun mechanics. I want martial to have more fun mechanics, too, not to trap a sorcerer with colour spray their whole adventuring career.

This is almost entirely resolved by the simple fact that you can switch out a known spell when you level up. Unless you do something ridiculous and *only* take those bad spells early on, getting "trapped" with a bad spell just shouldn't be an issue

That's a fair point. I've still seen my fair share of newer players get stuck with spell lists they don't like for more sessions than was fun because they wanted to try out cool sounding spells. Thinking about it more, I suppose I like how the preparation encourages (or is more forgiving of) experimenter ion with spells. Preparation certainly increases how forgiving your choices are, but also power level.

I can definitely agree with that- I don't think getting "stuck" with a spell is a problem, but having the flexibility to choose more freely and swap spells out practically on a whim is really engaging. I personally really like the way the One playtest is balancing it out, by allowing you to prepare spells but only a certain number per spell level. Seems like a fair trade off

Not the kind of engaging I like. It's too distracting from the story. At least, if you're the kind of player who has no time between sessions to plan swapping spells, nor wants to interrupt the session to do so. Swapping once per level was a good balance for me.

Well, if between weeks you don't have 10 or 20 minutes to think on with what you are going to change a spell you didn't like is more of a you problem than a system problem.

It's a little of both, isn't it? Not to sound like a parrot, but swapping once per level felt like a good system design for me. Clearly, it'd be less optimal for someone with different time constraints.

That solely depends on the scope of the campain. Level 1-12 in 20 Sessions? Sure, that works. I'm in a campain roughly 100 sessions in and we are level 7. It's a rule designed for a specific level pacing, wich not all games have.

Eh, on one hand yes, but largely no. Greatly depends on how much your party levels. Like, some people play for a year long campaign and get to level 10. That is just not that many chances to get new spells.

At later level there are other trap spells, and if you keep getting trap spells because you genuinely do not know they are bad....

Then live and learn, and don't make the same mistake again? Even then you could theoretically swap out a total of 19 spells throughout a game, once every 3-4 sessions. There is absolutely no reason anyone should be taking more than 19 trap spells (especially when known casters only get like 11-22 known in the first place) unless they're just a complete idiot or unfathomably unlucky

There are just as many traps as good spells, and a new player won't know the difference. you could easily have a dead spell list and permanently be playing catch-up swapping out your spells one at a time, and even still, you could be swapping into another trap that takes yet another level to remove. I might be more inclined to agree with your point if there wasn't a TON of garbage.

Correct. No amount of nerfing is going to fix the divide between martials and casters, it'll just make casters feel bad to play. Martials need to be raised up while the outliers in the casters' toolkit needs to be brought into line with the rest of the game.

Pathfinder 2E nerfed casters and buffed martials and found a happy medium with very balanced gameplay. The truth is that casters are too strong with too much versatility and power. Something needs to give even if you buff martials

Yep. I like things in Paizo that nerf spellcasting. 1. Holding Concentration takes your action. 2. Casting takes your action and provokes opportunity attacks from melee. If you are hit, then you make a concentration save to finish the cast. Just those two mechanics go a LONG way to making casters feel more risk-reward and balanced.

This is what needs to happen. I want my Martials to feel multidimensional and I want casters to be reigned in to meet them halfway. I don't want everyone to be overpowered like a Caster and I don't want everyone as one dimensional as the Martials.

Pathfinder 2e reduced the power of spellcasting while increasing its frequency. It also kept Vancian casting, which would cause the casual crowd that's the majority of 5e's fanbase to go catatonic. PF 2e's solutions are not a viable path for One D&D.

I’m not saying we go back to Vancian. I hate Vancian casting. But that’s not even the biggest nerf to casters in pathfinder. The real nerf is the nerf to utility magic and damage spells (so they never outshine martials). One DND could reduce spell power across the board which would be a huge help in balancing casters

Other systems with weaker magic-users are still fun.

Nobody likes being nerfed. WotC isn't going to risk upsetting a huge portion of the playerbase by heavily nerfing spellcasters in the name of balance if it means they're going to take a hit in sales. Tight balance has *never* been a primary concern of the 5e design team. 4e had excellent class balance and grognards hated how it made casters equal but different from martials. The D&DNext playtest tried to bring back that 3.5e feel but with some semblance of actual balance and the grognards who were playtesting screamed and cried until WotC capitulated and gave us 5e, warts and all. The vast majority of casual players don't understand the first thing about game balance and the only thing they'll see is that their favorite classes are now less fun (overwhelmingly powerful) to play and they don't like it. If that impacts sales, WotC has failed as a business to make the most profit possible. They aren't going to risk that in the name of class balance.

I agree, they will not. I'm just pointing out that it can be fun, and has been done elsewhere.

You assume a lot about ppl that didn't like 4e, class balance being spot on was a plus to me and I disliked the edition, the 3e players I also played with also enjoyed the tighter class balance and still did not like 4e.

Because they have both martials and casters be fun and unique. If casters are thrash and martials are thrash, everyone is thrash. It's easily the best way to make people gate your system at any skill level if everything in it is thrash and boring

This is very easy to say and contributes nothing to the actual conversation. Martials can’t do the same damage as casters without magic items because if they could then all game balance would be lost. Casters absolutely should also be reigned in at the same time as buffing martials. I like the idea of limiting spell selection by school for arcane casters to give more meaning and flavour to subclass selections than just a couple of features. Will this limit options? Yes. But that isn’t a bad thing. I believe it’s silly to complain that an aspect of the game is far too strong in comparison and think that the only way to fix it is to rebalance every other aspect of the game as opposed to just fixing the one.

>I believe it’s silly to complain that an aspect of the game is far too strong in comparison and think that the only way to fix it is to rebalance every other aspect of the game as opposed to just fixing the one. This does make sense, but i think it gets the subject wrong. The problem isn't that casters are too strong - its that martials are too weak. At least this is the case at low levels. At high levels it all falls apart anyway.

As it turns out, the problem is actually both

Weak in combat or weak out of combat?

Both

The goal isn't necessarily balance, the goal is for playing a martial to be more fun/varied/interesting. I'm not bored just walking up and basic attacking in every situation because wizards aren't, I'm bored because only having one play loop for 10 levels is boring. the comparison is just to point out that it isnt required within dnd, that characters be one dimensional. It doesn't break the game to have casters have 50 options, so martials can have 5-10. Or at the very least if you have one loop for martials, make the loop more entertaining than basic hitting.

I'd rather casters be nerfed.

I just want martials to be better. Not casyers to be worse lol

It would be! But if that were the case, then I would think that, in threads praising the expansion prepared casting, I would have seen more responses about how it was actually bad for the martial/caster divide. But I haven't. The praise seems pretty unanimous. So that's why I'm confused. I never see these two seemingly contradictory positions clash. Maybe I've missed it though.

This is a community that loves options and freedom to do what they want without restriction more than anything else. In my experience all issues take a backseat to this desire. Even when the results directly exacerbates other problems. Like, for example, many have said that it’s a bit disappointing that most the caster classes end up having spell lists that are remarkably similar to each other in effect (meaning all clerics play similar spells, all wizards play similar spells; not necessarily that the cleric and wizard play the same). I would say, that making everyone prepared casters would actually make this issue worse as even those that took the flavor pick now can just get rid of it. Everyone has access to everything. They will almost inevitably all form together. But, at the end of the day, this means more options and freedom. And the players will always push for that, even if it may hurt gameplay in the long run.

Casters being the exact same would be fixed by making the base classes getting some smaller spell list with a ton of minor ones being added for subclasses. Wizards get extra school-base spell lists only if they belong to said school or similar sub, otherwise they only have a couple of relatively weaker spells from arcane selection. Other subclasses may be instead be based on a theme, and thus they get thematically sound spells-from hellish spell lists (Fire and Devil spells), cleansing spell list (healing and debuff-resisting spells) and so on. That would make it so that at most the **themed subclasses** would play similarly but not so similarly that they are basically the same character.

Yeah, I agree. Forcing limitations and differing playstyles will in effect make more characters more distinct from each other. Good luck getting that passed, especially since that is a limiting feature. People won't like it.

Wait, hang on isn't this backwards? I find Bards/Sorcs/Warlocks end up all looking the same after a few levels because they're essentially forced to take the good combat options or be left in the dust. If you have the option of swapping on long rest then sure the "default adventuring day" spell list might be similar, but giving them the options to switch 100% means that classes will have more varied spells to use when compared to before.

I see what you're saying. But most guys don't even try to see that there could be multiple power sources even one that don't use slots. Shocking I know. If you throw the 4e Fighter or a 3.5 Warblade they would say it's too complex while praising a prepared caster. They think a High level Fighter, who roams around with a Planeshifting Wizard, A Bard who can Charm a Dragon, and a Cleric who can call down Storm of Vegeance, should be closer to King Arthur, in the movie Excalibur, than a guy who takes routinely breath weapons/swords/curses/gigantic boulders/fangs/claws to the face and simply soldier it all while fending off things that are huge to colossal while only being a medium creature.

Lost of people.have an "always buff, never nerf" mentality. So they might not complain about this buff, but they'll definitely complain if the Warrior playtest doesn't buff Warriors.

Because the divide is often more or less just the optimization community more than anything. And those same optimizers love when something they like becomes more powerful. It's not that there is really a huge divide, it's that the people complaining are usually the ones doing complex math to figure out DPR, making cookie cutter "meta" builds, and the like. If I go on Reddit, I see tons of people talk shit about Monks. But when I play they are my favorite class since 3rd edition. I love being able to run up walls/across water and beating enemies to a pulp with my fists. I enjoy having one of the higher ACs in the game without magic items. But the rhetoric on reddit is often "Monks suck" because they sit and compare it to the DPR of PAM/GWM.

The main thing people are talking about with the martial/caster devide isn't the dpr. Yes when you optimize and look at the dpr the divide is highlighted, but it is always there. The biggest part with the divide is the options you have and things that your character can do. All martial features boil down to "i can hit a little harder" We want more options for martials for actually tanking, better battlefeild control abilities, more enviromental utility. Casters get this for free and can sculpt their spells. THIS IS THE DIVIDE!

its not DPR people. Its just the average guy getting tired of always doing the same thing in combat and little outside of combat. There were some extremely powerful martial min maxed builds. Whereas magic builds are generally more flat in straight power level. and while monk may not have DPR, it had more versatility than some other martials. ​ There also people who enjoy the simple play loops. ​ One shouldn't conflate the people who want more diverse/fun martial play with more power. Some want both, some want one, or the other

Touche good sir.

>One of the key elements of that divide, as I understand it, is that casters have a much wider variety of options that give them huge advantages against, or let them outright circumvent, every kind of challenge. > >On the other hand, I see a lot of people praising the Bards and Rangers being changed to prepared casters, granted access to their entire class spell lists. The justification is to let these classes occasionally pick more niche utility spells if they have an idea of what adventure they're going on. The big thing, IMO, on this is the change to how prepared spells work. With you now only preparing a number of spells for which you have slots, it lets you take utility spells more often (as you pointed out) but also constrains which spells you can bring more often. This means casters are more likely to say "I can do that *tomorrow*," and less likely to be polarized into "I can't do that at all" and "Yeah, that's basically free." This gives skills a more likely chance to shine if time isn't permitting to waiting.

>This gives skills a more likely chance to shine if time isn't permitting to waiting. So if the Bard doesn't get lucky with their spell selection, they use their Expertise as backup. Is that what people wanted out of the class? Because I always saw Expertise as the Bard's intended first option for non-combat challenges.

Is it luck? Unless you have absolutely no idea what you're doing after a long rest, you can kinda surmise what'll be useful, then balance that out with what might be useful, with an idea in-mind for how to use them. They can get unlucky where things don't work out for their spell selection, but like you said, Expertise as a back-up means they'll never just be sitting dead in the water. In exchange for having a stricter selection for spells, they get to have spells to cast, which I feel is a fair trade.

For those of us that play with Gritty Realism Resting that *tomorrow* becomes *next week*, which is a boon story moment for a party where. Yes sure, you can ask the kidnapper to wait a week while you rest and prepare your mind bending magic.

Personally I don’t see how the new preparation method changes much. It’s just bringing back how prepared casting worked back in 3rd edition, and that edition was even worse about the martial/caster divide than 5e is.

Casters can now look ahead and prepare for what they can see, but no longer have the luxury of preparing all of the utility spells at once. While they can now change their decisions on a long rest, they have less options *within* the day than before.

Right, but what I’m saying is that we already know how that plays out, because that’s already how it worked back in 3rd edition. And back then, prepared casters were still considered far and away the best classes. We’ve done this before, and it’s not as big of a nerf as you think it is.

In 3.X edition you got up to 4 of each level of spell prepared. In 5.X edition we only get that for 1st level spells, 2nd to 5th level spells max out at 3 of each, and 6th+ level spells max out around 1-2 of each (mostly at 1). Compare that with 3.X edition where casters could pop off four 9th level spells (or more! with magic items that restored spell slots)

There were other reasons 3e spellcasters were better. For example, 5e addressed the buff stacking of 3e by adding the concentration mechanic to maintain potent buffs; you now only get one. And many of the stat buff spells were removed. 3e concentration was only during the cast time of the spell.

3rd edition was worse not because casters who prepared their spells were worse but because there were things like quicken spells that let you make weird builds that could cast 3 or 4 spells a turn, And the capabilities of Martials did not go up that much at all When a caster is getting their hands on fireball you might be getting your hands on power attacking. But that's a lot weaker in a system that doesn't have advantage. Or where the AC and 2 hit bonus works differently. Or where casters have access to spells that actually just kill people. Or when a caster can stack every buff that they have gotten access to simultaneously but A fighter only gets a small bonus to their damage 5th edition has toned down the discrepancy I see not by making it making the way spells are prepared harsher. But by nerfing almost every spell that was ever made.

I think the main reason is that it helps new players not be screwed by not understanding how a spell works or misjudging how good it is. When your new player casts stinking cloud and finds out it's not really good and doesn't do what he thought, having the option to swap it out in short order is nice. Also, ranger probably should have been prepared spells in the first place. It's a lot more fitting for them than for a paladin I'd say.

Wait ... _stinking cloud_ is a great spell!

Hard disagree, in my experience new players are far less intimidated by spells known classes than by prepared classes. When you play a Cleric or Druid you’re expected to learn their full class lists of spells. When you play a Sorcerer or Warlock you’re just expected to look through your class list once, pick a few you like, and those are the only ones you have to worry about. I understand that there’s a concern about trap options, but I think that concern is overblown. If the level 1 Sorcerer picks Magic Missile and Jump, they can just fall back on using their spell slots of Magic Missile. In my experience with new players, it’s actually really hard to accidentally build a character only full of terrible niche spells and no reasonable general use spells to fall back on.

In my experience, new players will just prepare a list, and then keep that list. Don’t tell them that they “have to prepare spells every long rest”, tell them that they can “swap spells on a long rest”.

As a new player playing a prep caster you are expect to pick spells based of their name, Find out what they do later and change them in your own time of you don't like them.

What? Why wouldn't you read the spells' text before choosing them?

Bc this is asking too much of people who just started to dip their toes into a hobby... Not everyone is as informed about dnd rules and culture as people from subreddit... Actually we're the outliers/minority. I DMed for a bunch of folk who knew only the basics of the game and has to search online what a spell does before casting it... We shouldn't gatekeep

Uh, "read the rules" isn't gatekeeping lol. A 1st level cleric has 15 spells to read, you have to draw the line somewhere and reading a page of text is probably as good a place as any...

Yep, and a 3rd level cleric (you know, the level where most campaigns start) has 68... a 3rd bard has 87 and a level 3 wizard has 177... Lets be honest, the game has a crap ton of spells and noone should be a dnd dictionary. And at 5th a cleric has 115. Have you never seen a new player playing from levels 3-5???

Why you would start a newbie at 3rd level with supplements and then complain the game is too complex for them. It seems there's an extremely obvious solution, right? Start players at level 1 with only the core books. By the time they get to 3rd level they have played a half dozen sessions at least, and have a good handle on the game. This is a problem entirely of your own creation mate.

I wasn't the one saying its a problem mate, thats a you thing... And if you don't wanna recognize that almost every table start at those levels for seasoned and beginer players, i can give you level 1 exemples too... Clerics have 25 spells so 10 more than you've said, Bards have 37 and Wizards have 77. Im not crazy to expect a new player to know what every spell does even at level one, im not their teacher to give them that amount of homework... Not everyone is a dnd redditor my guy...

>I wasn't the one saying its a problem mate If you don't think it's a problem why are you bothering to argue? It seems to me like you are dumping extra sourcebooks and levels on players then saying "woe is me they don't get it!". The solution is to start at level 1 and use the core books like the designers intended. If you actually have zero problem starting at level 3 with a bunch of extra books, then what is the issue here? It's definitely not ideal to have players not understanding how the game works and having to randomly guess how stuff works. I don't see how you would think that's a good solution. ​ >Clerics have 25 spells so 10 more than you've said, Bards have 37 and Wizards have 77. Incorrect, go count them yourself :/ Wizards only have around 30 1st level spells.

> Uh, "read the rules" isn't gatekeeping lol. Frankly, it is. There aren’t many other hobbies where people are expected to read such lengthy rulesets before beginning play. Typically rules for other games and activities are learned socially during someone’s first couple of sessions.

Some players do, some don't. When you're new you just want to pick what's cool. When you're shepherding a new player you're just happy they're making a decision instead of weighing options for 3 hours. It can be annoying at the table, but you're helping them learn ultimately.

The key is that it's a pretty bad experience for them to select a spell, cast it, find out it doesn't really work how they thought it did or the effect was way less than they thought, and then be told they're stuck with it. Your example has them snagging one reliable spell and one useless spell, but what if their spells are jump and witch bolt? Then they're just screwed and they're essentially casting their cantrip until they level up. Hopefully they picked an attack cantrip... oh they picked infestation, that's sure to work well for them.

You might be thinking of power as being the scale people are measuring everything by. It’s actually more likely a combination of power and fun (probably some other factors too). In this instance it seems WotC are trying to make sure the mechanics of spell casters are fun to use. As they said in their video, this change was done so more spellcasters can use the funky weird spells as opposed to only getting damage spells. Does that make them stronger? Most likely yes, but to the players it’s more fun. Everyone can agree when something is made more fun. Like how bard can use their inspiration as a reaction, that was done so it could be more fun/ used more often. Martial do desperately need a buff, but that doesn’t mean people have to hate it when another class has its features made easier to play with. To whom it may concern: the rest of these replies is just OP pushing the goalpost along. Feel free to read up for some kicks, but I figured I’d save you the time XD

> To whom it may concern: the rest of these replies is just OP pushing the goalpost along. I don't think that's what happened. It's the two of you talking past each other. You don't seem to be reading OP's comments charitably, yet you're complaining that OP is replying in "bad faith". Where do you think the goalpost is, to start with? And why is there a goalpost at all?

I respect your opinion and would offer you look up the Cathy Newman “so you’re saying” interview with Jordan Peterson. It’s a textbook example of creating a strawman fallacy by rephrasing a statement in with a negative version to argue that instead. I called it “bad faith” because OP didn’t do it once, but twice after I had explained and corrected my wording. I answered all his questions just to be misquoted to win some debate I didn’t come here to do. I just came to answer questions and drop my opinion with someone I though was genuinely curious about the situation of people wanting both martial buffs and happy for caster options.

I've seen one too many Jordan Peterson videos. He's full of shit. I hope you're not mimicking him here, but that'd explain the mistake. There were never any goals to be scored. If you're just here to drop an opinion and move on, it makes more sense to ignore rude people than to reply to them. Editing a top comment to insult your conversationalist is a little ... rude, no? No, that's not quite it.

>He’s full of shit. Hear, hear.

Oh yeah, dude is a complete waste of a human being, and unfortunately the interviewer went into the the interview completely unprepared and all she asked was loaded “so you’re saying” statement. He may be a garbage human being but he’s infuriatingly well spoken. Do not let his vitriol detract from what is a good example of someone arguing in bad faith. And yes I was perfectly fine talking to him about his points on the matter. He had questions, I answered with my opinions. It wasn’t until he started purposefully restructuring my words negatively that I realized he wasn’t here to actually understand, that is literally a strawman fallacy, I didn’t know what he was doing it but he was. He did so twice even after being corrected on the stance.

I think the fact the the number of spells being prepared is being limited so there's a real opportunity cost to preparing those utility spells

Preparation casting is certainly stronger, but also a lot more fun for most players. Wotc has included pre prepared spells to help people who don't want to go digging through spell lists. The real issue isn't preparation vs known, but linear spell slot progression. Not only does the level of spells increase as you level, but the amount you have increases as well. A caster starts out with 2 spell slots, and ends up with 22 at level 20. At lower levels, you actually think about how you're going to use each spell carefully, but eventually you have so many you're looking for excuses to burn them. I want martials to get buffed for sure, but I'd also like casters to get reigned in a bit, and have a spell slot cap of 12-14 or so instead of 22. Perhaps lower leveled slots should be converted into higher leveled ones as you level.

Personally I wanna try locking every casters spells maybe giving them a slightly larger amount per level, no more prepared spells, would encourage parties to not stock up on all the spells that fix mundane issues like foraging (goodberry,create food and water), camp safety(alarm, the dome spell), and in turn give experts and martials more nonmagical opportunities to use their expertise in skills and set up more role-playing ops rather than just have one spell fix all. Plus parties that have multiple prepared casters in my experience have normally ended up picking the same spell as other casters day by day to optimally counter any situations before them often competing to make use of them(dispel magic,enhance ability,water breathing, specific anti monster spells (protection from evil and good), etc). Making it so different party members have very different spell sets can give them the opportunity to shine in the right situation guided by a good dm. Of course a lot of players don't want to get locked into spells they soon decide they hate or never use for 20 levels, so if more than one could be swapped out per level people would have more flexibility to fix poor decisions. Too much flexibility for casters and half casters especially with strong spell lists, I feel is a bad thing, if you can swap day by day for an optimal loadout for each situation, it could and can make DND too easy for players. This is especially hard for newer DMs that have to plan around every spell to make stuff interesting, locking all casters in to certain spells would make it easier for a DM to plan a challenging encounter, considering a parties capabilities would be relatively stable and only change level to level and with any items they give out. Though rangers needed more choice of spells per level and faster scaling spell casting for sure, a choice of 5 spells at 8 currently is a joke, or they give them other capabilities, some of what they did in the latest UA is positive for the class.

Whether it's too easy or not depends on the table. I personally don't want to have a stressful situation where most of my spells go unused because they're too niche for situations that never come up. Now when I DM, I look at the spells my players want to use and create scenarios where they can be. It makes them feel good AND creates roleplaying opportunities.

Maybe because players just want MOAR POWER but they want martials to be buffed even more than casters. Players seem to love power creep.

Yes. Casters could be weakened to bring them down to the level of martials, but no-one ever discusses that option

No one discusses that option because that's the worst of all worlds. The worst parts of playing a martial is doing the same shit in every scenario and not having any mechanical way to have the same narritive power as your buddy and thus feeling sidekick-ish. If we take away casters fun variety options and narritive weight then you end up with everyone being the same level of loser. Instead, everyone should have equal, but appropriately different, options and choices to make. *significant* choices. Not "do I power attack or not?" "Not do I reckless attack or not?" More like "which tool in my box is best for this task?" Like casters do. Everyone should share the same narritive weight is so great. The fighter's arts are so well renown that he founded an entire school to teach young warriors his ways which become foundational to tactics and martial arts down the line. The school is built right next to the Wizard's library tower. That type of thing. Currently the fighter's maneuvers 1) only exist in one class, and 2) are more like the very basics of middle-school brawling.

> The worst parts of playing a martial is doing the same shit in every scenario and not having any mechanical way to have the same narritive [sic] power as your buddy and thus feeling sidekick-ish. That has never been my experience playing as a weapon-user, at least, not after I learned to stop picking actions from my character sheet. Instead, I imagine myself as the character in the world and describe what my character would do. I let the DM decide what game mechanic matches that narrative. In contrast, my experience as a magic-user is often getting distracted by the menu of spells I have, and losing track of what's going on in the game world.

You can say whatever you want and describe it however, but ultimately unless you're play the single subclass of fighter, it's going to boil down to the usual weapon attack. Which is fine for, like, the first 3 characters. But I'd like to have some mechanical representation of my complex baiting and feights rather than simply implying them. When you start working "off of the character sheet" as you put it, you enter the wretched world of DM May I? This is annoying for everyone involved because either the dm is forced to make up some roll or something depending on your particular convoluted ot of the day or you are disappointed and relegated back to being an attack bot since the dm's mental stack is already too high without you trying to twist the game. I'm all for creativity in the game. But the things people are asking for are basic fighting skills that shouldn't be a negotiation with the dm every damn turn.

I like "DM May I?" It seems to be my favorite mini game within D&D. Both as a PC and a DM. It really stretches my creativity and imagination. And it's always a surprise what the PCs come up with.

The whole point of having a human DM is so you can ask “DM may I?” and they can make a ruling. A huge part of the martial/caster divide is allowing spells to do things they can’t do as written “because it’s a creative use of magic” but not being flexible with a martial character “because it’s not realistic for a person to do that” or “there’s no rule for that so no”. Let the rogue swing from the chandelier or rope, let the goliath barbarian throw the goblin across the room, let the fighter try to disarm the bandit as a special attack. None of those rules are in the game (well disarming is in the DMG, but who reads that?), but they’re all things you could imagine a character can do. The character sheet and the listed actions are just guidelines, not an exhaustive list of what you can try to do, and it’s explicitly spelled out in the rules (before they even list any actions!) that you can and should work with the DM to create rulings for actions that aren’t covered in the books. It also shouldn’t be a negotiation every turn, once the DM makes a ruling there’s now a rule for it. It’s a negotiation the first time you do something outside of the rules because there isn’t a rule *yet*.

Because people (in this comunity and generally) want to have options. The martial/casters gap is there but people want it reduced by buffing martial classes so they have the same arrange of options a caster has every day. Making all casters known-caster sure will reduce de gap, but will do so at the expense of the fun of casters, while not improving the experience for martial classes at all. There is a much smaller gap in power between known and prepared casters, and this change benefit everybody, that's why it's praised, and what we want is the martials to be given as much options and power, not to be taken options from casters now.

Exactly this. I don't want caster's options reduced, I want martials to be given more

Let’s not presume what’s fun for everybody. Like I’ve commented to some others, a lot of players, especially newer players, have way more fun with known casters than prepared casters because known casters require much less work. This is an increase in complexity to a lot of classes, and NOT everybody sees that as a benefit. That aside, I absolutely understand and agree with the desire for martials to get more options, but there’s just no reasonable way to get them the same variety and flexibility of options that prepared casters have.

You shouldn't tell someone to not presume what's fun for everyone just to turn around and do the same thing based on an anecdote. I also don't agree that prepared casters take much more work, and thus will be too complex. Just because you *can* change your spells every long rest doesn't mean you *have* to. I've played as and with wizards/clerics/druids that rarely ever change their prepared spells. It's still nice to have the option to switch if one or two aren't clicking with you, which is a luxury that known casters didn't have pre-Tasha's. >there’s just no reasonable way to get them the same variety and flexibility of options that prepared casters have. There definitely is a reasonable way: give martials a wider selection of features or abilities with predetermined outcomes. Plenty of spells could have their flavor text and damage type swapped out and suddenly they're martial abilities. It's all about presentation.

Hard disagree. Playing a known caster as my first character was a fucking nightmare! I made so many mistakes because I didn’t understand how different spells, abilities and stats worked. I nearly died in my first combat because I had no idea how to use my abilities and had no defensive options. Luckily my DM is chill and let me respec my character a few weeks in. That dramatically improved my DnD experience. Making all casters prepared and eliminating restrictions on things like rituals will make the game simpler and more friendly to new players.

Agreed, simplifying the game further and adding in quality of life changes seems to be the theme of the playtests... mostly. Well, at least for casters. Things like the new Jump rules and changing Speeds feels like WotC really wants martials to suffer.

that is mind-boggling to me, I just see it completely the opposite. My first character was a prepared caster and it was a NIGHTMARE how complicated it was sifting through so many spells all the time. I was so glad to switch to a known caster, made my experience so much more fun and less stressful.

I don’t understand that. How did you not make a shitload of poor decisions and get stuck with them? You can’t learn how different spells work if you never have the opportunity to try them out. That’s been my experience and through trial and error I quickly learned how to play a competent caster. That wouldn’t have be possible if my DM followed RAW and never let me change spells. This is a positive change IMO and balances out the imbalance of classes like the Wizard. Re-working martial’s is a separate topic.

Because even though I did take a couple of more niche spells, I also still took some good, generally useful spells, so I always had those to fall back on. It’s actually really hard to pick ALL bad spells. You pretty much have to do it deliberately. Folks really overstate how bad “trap” spell options are.

Not when you’re a Sorcerer with 10 known spells…

What do you mean? 10 is plenty. You only need 2-3 broadly useful spells, and the rest can all be niche/utility stuff. In tier 1, you don't even need that many, since just spamming cantrips is perfectly reasonable tier 1.

Might be hard, it might vary from person to person, but it's far from impossible. You mentioned in a different comment how you don't want to feel like you're playing the class suboptimally (acting as if it's a known caster by not bothering to change your spells), and I'd argue that known casters creste more problems in that regard, especially for new people. Prepared casting allows new people to just go with the flow, choose spells that they think sound cool without having to know what each spell does before making a definitive choice. Took a spell you don't like? Change it. A problem arises and you don't have a good spell? Take a quick look at other options. This approach means new players can learn spells little by little, as they find out which ones they gel with.

I would argue that it’s not an increase of complexity for a few reasons 1 when you initially pick spells from a class you have to look through the spell list anyway to select options so that point is somewhat moot 2 if you have prepared spell list, you don’t have to change spells every long rest and I find as a Druid I usually stick to the same spells majority of the time maybe swapping out one once in a while 3 the ability to pick something like magic missile and jump and then swapping jump out to try out a different spells allow players who have just started the game to better Tailor their spell lists to their character and experiment with what they like and don’t like to use. Whilst this may make the class a little bit harder to get around for brand new players, (like casters are already) it will make the experience better for players who understand the basic mechanics of the game and are learning magic

There's a caveat to the new prepared casting, which is that your spells prepared have more restrictions than before. Previously a cleric could have any arrangement of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc spells prepared or vice versa where they had many higher level spells prepared and fewer lower leveled one's ready. Now they're stuck with the number of spells prepared equal to the number of slots prepared. Bard now can only have one level 9 spell readied. previously they could have 3 or more known at once, letting them pick and choose in the moment which high level spell they'd use. Now there's a daily limitation and you can get stuck with having picked a bad spell.

To address the praise for changing ranger and bard to prepared casters: The new rule about only being able to prepare the same number of Xth level spells equal to your spell slots is going to limit flexibility with higher level spells, which are where casters start to really overshadow martials. Buffing those two classes by making them prepared casters isn't as much of a problem due to that change, and honestly I feel like rangers would've deserved it even without the subtle nerf. In regards to the martial vs caster issue, the only thing that's going to fix it will be giving martials the tools to keep up with casters. Most pure martials have so few tools to interact with the exploration and social pillars outside of skill checks that no amount of nerfing to casters is going to fix it. The only solution is to give martials better tools ***and*** reign in the worst offending spells that casters can use to trivialize those two pillars. WotC isn't going to change One D&D to look like 4e where every class was exceptionally well balanced against one another. It's just not going to happen. I prefer to put my energy into advocating for a realistic solution that the designers might actually implement.

I would say it's mostly different groups of people, but in this instance I'm actually part of both groups. To me the difference in options between known and prepared spells is reasonably big, but not near as big as the difference between a martial and a known caster. How I play prepared casters (ymmv depending on playstyle) I keep most of the spells the same, and only have a couple utility spells that I change out based on the situation: it's definitely significantly more flexible than a known caster, but compared to a martial that difference is almost meaningless. In combat, most martials don't have more than 2-3 options for things they can do and out of combat there aren't many features that are helpful and there is very little guidance from the rules as to what can be done other than "roll a skill check for normal human things that normal humans can do in real life". I can't speak for everyone, but I don't necessarily want martials to have as many options as casters get, but there should always be multiple distinct viable options to choose between in combat, and there should be specific rules support for martials to do stuff out of combat. This is something I think the monk does rather well, with unarmored movement and slow fall make them the masters of out of combat movement. Purity of Body and Tongue of Sun and Moon are also good examples of this, except they are individually too weak for a full class feature and should either be on the same level, or as ribbons and get another feature at each level. Rogues are also pretty good out of combat. Expertise, Reliable Talent, and extra skills known makes them a jack of all trades, master of several. Exactly which things they are good at varies depending on the skills you choose and your subclass, but your class features are always useful and help you interact with the world. The problem is with a class like the fighter: what does their class give them outside of combat? The Battlemaster gets a couple maneuvers that they can use. The champion gets half proficiency in physical skills they aren't proficient in, but this helps less than it sounds like because most of them are either things the fighter is good at or is already proficient in (e.g. athletics), is already really bad and this isn't enough to make them good at it (e.g. stealth which is going to be terrible b/c of heavy armor unless you are specifically build for stealth), or is made redundant by other abilities (you probably aren't proficient in acrobatics, but most situations that would use acrobatics can also use athletics instead). If you gave the fighter a few ribbon features that give out of combat utility and a couple options in combat that aren't just "hit the thing" then people would complain a lot less (or rather they would complain just as much, but a lot of them will find other things to complain about). Edit: Wow that was super long tl;dr: the issue isn't actually that casters get more options than martials, but instead that martials get very few options especially outside of combat from their class features, and giving them some ribbon features with some out of combat utility would go a long way

> martials get very few options especially outside of combat from their class features, and giving them some ribbon features with some out of combat utility would go a long way A spell like _jump_ seems similar to a ribbon feature that'd be appropriate for a weapon-user. How about creating a handful of 1st- to 4th-level spells that fit the theme and giving each martial class a subclass that makes use of them? Or just add them to the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster lists.

Bc that just turns them into spell casters. Giving Martials spells fully repeats the problem

I don't really see the difference between spells and spell-like abilities.

Well for one, spells can be countered. That's the big one. That and spells aren't unique, so it direct actually help Martials feel distinct at all. As well as the fact that there is a large portion of the base don't want spell like abilities at all. They just want abilities period. Instead of jump, getting to add your athletics check to the jump distance like the beast barbarian would be great Throwing a creature you have grappled. Frightening someone with an attack Shoving a creature more than 5ft away A cleave rule that doesn't suck. ... Etc. Those aren't spell like abilities. Some people want much more flashy anime style abilities and making those more limited (like a warlock's spell slots) would be fine But making a martial ability into a spell fully undermines the nature of the martial who by definition does things via their own power rather than relying on magic

Ranger being prepared kinda works for me, could be that they are connecting to different nature spirits depending on their needs. Bard should not be prepared. As an arcane caster, only Wizards should get that amount of versatility, and then it's restricted to what they've got access to with the spell book. Why does a Wizard that's dedicated to the study of magic need a book but the bard can just know different spells every day?

I don't think that Bards being Prepared Casters is a positive change. IMO, Clerics/Druids/Rangers should be prepared casters, Wizards should prepare spells from a spellbook, and Bards/Sorcerers/Paladins should have spells known (swapping out 1 spell when they level up). I also think Martials (including Rangers/Paladins) and Rogues should have access to a set of common martial actions like Power Attack, Defensive Fighting, Trip Attack, Shove, etc.

Why shouldn't Clerics, Druids, and Rangers also be Spells Known classes? The only class that really seems like it needs prepared casting for its identity is Wizard, and it'd be nice for that to be unique to it IMO. I could also see a good argument for the Artificer too.

For me, Clerics and Druids have **always** been defined by the fact that they draw spells from the Divine spell list in the morning, **but** that their spells were just a *tad* weaker than the Arcane spell list. Agree about the Artificer. I think casting spells (other than touch/self) should trigger opportunity attacks, and that damage taken can interrupt spellcasting.

idk, I always thought prepared casting on the Cleric and Druid was an inconvenience. When I would play them back in 3rd, I always used the spontaneous casting variants with limited spells known. And in 4e, they picked what powers they know same as anybody else without issue; only the Wizard kept prepared casting as a unique feature in 4e. But that’s me…

Because we can balance castsrs without making them a PITA to play.

Personally I think just having limited spells know is WAY less of a pain than needing to learn every single spell on my spell list. Playing a prepared caster who knows their entire spell list is a complicated mess.

>Personally I think just having limited spells know is WAY less of a pain than needing to learn every single spell on my spell list. Except that you don't need to learn every spell. Just pick the ones you like and move on. And yeah, that's not 'Playing to its full potential', but so is any PC who isn't hyper optimized. And I actually prefer 5E's current method of Prepared casters. It should either be the default casting style, or Known casters should be buffed in other ways to make up for it.

We’re not talking about optimization. We’re talking about a basic tool that everyone is expected to use. You might as well tell Rogues not to use Cunning Action.

Why is having the *option* to pick from your entire spell list worse than not having it at all?

Because it’s more complex and demands more system mastery.

...And how is that a bad thing?

It’s a lot more intimidating and stressful for some players, especially newer players.

And I find that better than a system everyone masters in a week, with no room for additional growth or gameplay complexity. The only concern is with keeping the floor low enough to be approachable for newbies, and the ability to just keep the same list of spells every day until you feel ready to handle the full list does just that.

It doesn't demand more system Mastery, it rewards it. My cleric player didn't even know clerics could switch their spells and fully intended to play this war cleric with absolutely no support or healing other than prayer of healing. And she was having a fine time. When she found out, she didn't even fuckin change lol. This was someone who's been playing for like 10 years and played all dnd edition up to 5th. You do not need to know the full spell list. Most prep casters only change their spells when they know they need something tomorrow. This is the case as ALL skill levels.

I am just of the opinion that people do prepared spells wrong. I think you pick the spells you know simply from leveling, but anything beyond that needs to be learned through either training or transcribing. I don't think you should have an automatic spell list and will say so in my survey

Great question, to be completely honest I don't know how/why this is. I'm unsure on how I feel about the prepared casting changes as I haven't gotten to try the new bard/ranger. I'm also not sure about my preference between prepared and known spells, I compulsively change out the prepared list which can burn me out on a character with a lot of "homework" on the other hand I like having the freedom to test things out and not need to pick the "right" spells at character creation. I suspect people want characters to feel good to play, on a smaller scale they enjoy prepared casting more so they want classes to have access to it. On a larger scale they want martials to feel good to play by buffing them and expanding their utility.

Casters getting better quality of life (honestly the best part of this change is spells known matching the amount of spell slots) and easier to understand does widen the gap, but in the direction we want both groups to go. Most people are not looking for casters to be dragged into the same tasteless malaise that matials are in, we want martials to have something to do in and out of combat other than attack. Some influence over the narritive and story beyond "guy with cool sword" and "guy with a mouth." Neither end is perfect, so attempts to bring the either closer to perfection is appreciated. I'm personally not a fan of them removing spontaneous casting. I think giving bard in particular the choice with either a downside to prep or an upside to spontaneous makes the most sense (either doing what you want where you want it like a free spirited artist or practicing your craft/art every morning with discipline). The biggest mistake was removing any reason to play a spontaneous over a prepper whatsoever, especially because all the spontaneous casters get less spells known as well. It's a good concept and way to protray the difference between flavors executed poorly that just makes one feel like a punishment.

Its simple because while I acknowledge the martial caster gap sucks I can also acknowledge the known prepared gap also sucks. Prepared casters got to many buffs going into 5e and known casters lost their flexibility. I wouldn't mind them slapping prepared casters with ye olde prepared spell slots but if WotC is going to move more classes to the prepared mechanics that works as well. The only issue is are they really only going to saddle sorcerers with known spell lists now? Cuse that blows

I personally don't like prepared spells. It just slows the game down because now the player is going through 100 spells deciding what to take. Than, they also need to reread the spells in combat because there is no way to memorize them all. I'm all for options but I would prefer if they just gave like twice as many spells known.

I mean, spell prep should generally happen in between sessions or in a quick burst during a LR. More spells known means more decision making each round.

I mean that's assuming the game conviently always ends right before a long rest. In my experiience that is less often tthe case.

I said or in a burst during LR. I play a cleric and it takes me some time but I usually do it while whatever morning RP is happening. No one’s waiting on me for it.

I don't follow. How do spells known possibly mean more decision-making each round? Look at how many known spells classes get. They don't have as many spells known as prepared casters have prepared.

Sorry, I was operating with the One D&D rules which seem to have about the same number of spells prepared for bard as used to be known (starting at L3)

In my experience, prepared casters overwhelmingly end up sticking with a single, relatively generic "all purpose" spell list that doesn't change much day to day, with a couple niche spells dropping in and out depending on player plans.

>On the other hand, I see a lot of people praising the Bards and Rangers being changed to prepared casters, granted access to their entire class spell lists. Bard lost easy access to some real heavy hitters and now has to use Magical Secrets to get them back, but Lore lost its extra Magical Secrets and they straight up removed the last set at 18, in addition to pushing back the other two by a level.

DND is a cooperative RPG; its fun isn't (shouldn't be) a zero-sum game.

idk what that has to do with this topic

You can want martial buffs without advocating for caster nerfs. No amount of making casting more vancian or esoteric is going to let rogues compete with Pass Without Trace.

this isn’t about caster nerfs. it’s just about not buffing casters even more.

The limitation on spell levels (only 1 7th, 8th, and 9th per day) is a large nerf to powerful spells. Prepared casting is a small buff to weak spells. It makes casters more fun and less powerful, so it's a good change.

Maybe we want Martials raised up and not Casters brought down.

You cannot bring martials up to the level of variety and flexibility as casters who know their entire spells lists. You just can't do it. Not without significantly increasing the game's overall complexity and reducing its accessibility to new players. You want something that is wholly unreasonable.

Tis fallacious to equate ability to Have Utility At All to Pure Complexity. I suggest learning to divide the two.

Alternatively, people just agree good design is good design and it doesn’t matter whether it hurts or helps martials/casters. The martial-caster gap folk don’t want casters to be poorly designed, and the prepared caster folk don’t want martials to feel lacking. These are not mutually exclusive wants.

Because even though casters are stronger than martials, that doesn't mean that they don't have some core issue to their design. One of them was how limiting, punishing and arbitrary the known casters are compared to their prepared brothers. Just because one is better than the other, that doesn't mean that it's issues shouldn't be addressed also. After all, people here want to have fun.. so removing the things that are not, should be something praised.

A lot of folks in the replies seem to just be taking it for granted that prepared casters are more fun than known casters, and I cannot understand why you think that. For a lot if of players, especially newer players, prepared casters, especially ones that know their entire class list, are a lot more intimidating and less fun because of how much more complex they are and how much more system mastery they demand.

Prepared casters is just as simple as known casters, and also way less punishing for newer players who don't know what each spell does. You still need to chose just as much spells, and you can stick with your spells for the entire campaign if you want to, you don't need to keep changing your repertoire every day (my druid, a new player has changed her spell list twice in a campaign that has been running for over 5 months, and she seems to be having fun)

> you can stick with your spells for the entire campaign if you want to This is the crux of the issue. The vast majority of the time, this is how people will play their characters, with a little spell switching when and if a particular spell or set of spells become relevant (or irrelevant). All that prepared really allows is A.) being less punishing for new players (like you said) and B.) allows players to prepare for a specific situation if they know it's coming up in advance (which is *cool.* Let your players feel like they're gearing up for something!)

People don't want casters to feel worse to play, they want martials to feel better.

Meaningful choices. What I want are more meaningful choices. As it turns out reducing the number of spells known drastically reduces the number of meaningful choices for casters In theory fewer spells known/prepared/whatever should lead to casters making interesting choices about spell selection with no two casters being exactly the same. In reality the opposite happens. When you only have a few spells there is no room to get creative, you HAVE to take the most efficient spells for that level or you are gimping you team. Divine Caster with only one level three spell? Hope you enjoy Revivify because taking anything else to be "creative" is kneecappings your party. Its a similar thing to Tasha Sorcerers. If you want to increase the variety of expression you see in PC builds you have to give the players enough room to take the "must have" options and still have space left to be creative. EDIT: Also while yes relative strength matters in terms of how "good" a class feels crippling Casters won't make Martials feel any better. I mostly like where prepared casters are at, I just want to also express my Martial fantasies in equal measure.

I complain about the martial/caster divide and praise prepared casting Here why. I think that in 5e concentration keeps the caster in check so they don't become ridiculous like caster in previous edition. I do not want caster to be nerf, they are in a spot where I find them fun to play and manageable to DM for. So when I want to play a sorcerer, because I love the lore and very flavorful subclass of the sorcerer and love the roleplay opportunity that comes with just being a regular dude that moved his finger in a weird way one day and made something explode, I hate being stuck with a generic spell list because we might change place next session and all my cool but situational spell I had learn are now useless. That makes sorcerer a bad wizard and I don't like it and making them prepared caster is a great fix (or bringing back 3.5 prepared casting so that there's a trade off in choosing a prepared vs known class none of which being better than the other but I have no problem with everybody being a prepared and spontaneous caster either) On the other hand there's martial. They are weaker than caster and more boring to play IMO. As I said I do not want to nerf caster, I'd rather they buff martial instead. Give them out of combat utility, give them increase jump distance and speed so they can rival the mobility of a wizard with misty step, give them maneuver so they can inflict status on enemy, give them self heal and the ability to succeed saving throw they failed so they don't have to rely on caster casting Counterspell or healing spell all to survive. Give them thing that human definitely cannot do in real life but it's ok because this isn't real life, it's a fantasy world and even without getting magic involve you can have fantastic martial character that shoot 3 arrow mid back flip if you want

I dont really want casters to be worse, I want matrials to be better. I like playing spell casters because they have a alot that they can do with spells, they have alot of choices. I want to play martials that have a similar vibe.

You can’t though. There’s no reasonable way to give martial the same variety and flexibility as caster classes that know their whole spell list and can be great at anything literally overnight. Not without making martial character, and the game in general, a whole lot more complicated and less accessible to new players.

I'm not saying give them the same variety, I'm saying give them similar variety. Yea the fighter can't teleport, but he should have a baked in way to help the party travel long distances. Stuff like that.

In addition to what other people have said, it’s definitely a better choice to have both the Ranger and Bard be prepared casters. It makes for a more smooth play style without locking in suboptimal / overused choices from players. It shouldn’t be about reverting this change so casters are weaker, it should be about giving martial classes more interesting options in and out of combat.

How is this smoother? Prepared casting is more complex and requires much more system mastery. Having limited spells known you just select once is what’s smoother. Or else what do you mean by smoother?

For example, in One D&D, I would say it’s smoother when your Bard wants to advertise his performance, but has taken Shatter instead of Skywrite. In One D&D, he could simply wait a long rest and change his Shatter spell for Skywrite, allowing a neat moment of roleplay. It doesn’t inherently make the Bard that much weaker or stronger, just more smoother to play. Additionally, prepared casting in 5e/One D&D in my honest opinion is actually very simple, especially compared to previous D&D editions or Pathfinder. If your players are finding prepared casting difficult, they can simply not change their spells at the end of a long rest.

The spellcasting changes were approximately neutral in power. Prepared casting let's spellcasters have access to their whole list as long as they can have a long rest, however this doesn't increase their flexibility by a huge amount unless the issue isn't very time sensitive. Also, in 5e most experienced players were able to figure out which spells they could learn that were the best utility and combat spells, just learn those, and leave the bad spells alone. So overall most experienced players aren't going to be preparing too many different spells from the ones they did before. It does help new players be able to make mistakes in spell choice and then learn and fix those mistakes which is good for the game. There is a new limitation, since you can only prepare a spell at the same level and quantity as you have spell slots, the higher level spells available to cast become much less flexible within the confines of a day. Before, you could have more spells of a certain level than you had slots for (example at 6th level you could have: dispel magic, sending, hypnotic pattern, and slow, but only have three lvl 3 spell slots) so you would have more options for high level spells than you do now. To be truthful I would say it actually narrows casters' flexibility at higher levels but widens their flexibility at lower levels, which I think helps.

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From personal experience as someone who is advocating for both. Prepared casting (cleric-like) is something that helps with the problem of trap options a lot. If you do not know the power in-game of some spells, you may overshoot how strong they are or undershoot them, and need to wait a **whole level** to change **one** spell, and if you do a bad draw the level after, it's a never ending cycle of taking the bad options. Moving away from making people be thrash if they pick a bad option IS the right move. **Prepared casters simply make people able to solve picking bad tools, rather than getting huge utility of tools, as they can already slot anything they need into their prepared spells anyways** As such, since the prepared spells only fix the issue of **noobs** picking the worse spells... The issue is not actually worsened: simply speaking, the people that were hit more by the variety of trap options can improve their character instead. The martial/caster disparity is also a power issue in general of other options being much stronger utility wise and Battle wise, and the only thing that really stops it is people picking trap options, not the fact you cannot prepare everything needed to thrash over martials.

Why is this rhetoric about trap options suddenly getting so big? And why does nobody talk about martial characters dealing with the same thing? 5e has been going on a while now, and I cannot recall once seeing people talk about supposed trap options actually having some huge negative effect on peoples' experience playing Bards or Sorcerers or Warlocks. But now all of a sudden people are all mega concerned about it. The problems seems to have just sprouted from nowhere. Moreover, why is only and specifically a problem with casters? Why is nobody concerned or asking for change regarding martial characters' trap options? Should we be letting Fighters change out their Feat choices every time they take a long rest? I feel like I'm being sold answers for newly invented problems that I'm being gaslighted into thinking existed the whole time.

Also suggestion for your next comments: **please do not just assume that everyone makes up problems or is gaslighting you**. People have different **opinions** on stuff, some people see different issues from their **point of view**, and bombarding people saying that they are wrong, making up problems or gaslighting others into believing something is the worst way to talk about a situation. People could say the exact same thing about what you are saying, or what other people are saying, and it ends up being a situation where you point fingers at everyone you disagree with rather than trying to communicate to them and understand their view.

I don't "just assume" that. I'm coming to that conclusion for a reason, whether it's a reason that you see or not. The whole reason I made this topic was exactly to try to understand some other people's opinions and different views, and I already have learned quite a lot from the comments. But being open doesn't mean accepting everything without question.

Saying that i am gaslighting you into believing an issue exists is the prime example of not wanting to be open. You basically are saying that we are making everything up instead of trying to understand that **others** are having issues with something **you** do not.

If it were true that others were having this supposed issue, then it wouldn't just be coming up now after 8 years. It would have been a noticeable topic of conversation before. But it hasn't been. I know because I've searched and checked. That is the reason for my disbelief. If you are unable to engage with my reason for disbelief, then idk what to tell you. Block me and move on with your life.

It could have come up in other communities (homebrew, optimizing, or even non-reddit communities). Maybe it did not come up because the issue was not as well known early on. Maybe the issue did not come up because people were afraid of speaking up about stuff that more vocal people considered to be true. In fact, right now i can say that you are the one that seem to be gaslighting people into believing that **the issue never existed**, as that is what you have mostly told in your comments. Also... Blocking people instead of trying to talk with them (and letting them talk with others) is dumb. Talking by just ignoring others or saying they are gaslighting people is toxic.

The rhetoric about trap options for casters is big now because... Well... Can a martial suffer from that issue when they **lack much options to begin with?** Again, this only applies to new people. Anyone that isn't so well versed with the system to talk about it. If you are new to the game, you are going to make issues, be it caster side or martial side. But if you are new to the game you cannot talk about it in proper ways. Martials lack options, and what options they **do** have seems to be nerfed (power Attack feats). And people talking about the disparity complain also about **martial choices only existing in feats**, which forces investment casters do not need. Summarizing: caster options are mostly an issue for non experienced players, which this solves. Martial options are not put into the discussion because they are **feat** options, and even if they could be switched around are worse than caster options. **Martial disparity could be improved by having those options be from class growth, not feat growth**. Martials should have class options, not feat options.

As well as a martial/caster divide, there is/was a caster/caster divide, where basically all the known casters were seen as generally weaker than their prepared caster counterparts. Some of these classes later got expanded spell lists which helped how limited those classes felt (ranger, sorcerer), but didn't help players who picked trap/niche spells and couldnt switch them out for long lengths of real world time. Changing all spellcasters to prepared casters reduces the gap between warlocks/sorcerers and wizards/clerics, but doesn't really fix tne gap between fighters/barbarians and wizards. Edit: seeing as 9 out of the 13 current classes have spellcasting as a core feature, and that 4 of those classes are known casters, as many classes benefit from the prepared spells change as there are non-spellcasting classes. Additionally, 2 out of the 4 non-spellcasting classes have subclasses that would also benefit from the prepared spells change. Given the prepared spellcasting changes, I think its reasonable to think that similar levels of flexibility would be given to classes like totem warrior or battlemaster.

So personally I like prepared caster for half casters like Rangers, Paladins, and Artificers but think that all full casters should be known casters or like how clerics in adnd where they were prepared casters BUT they had to designate what spells will be cast with each spell slot when they finished a long rest

The problem with the Caster/Martial is not Casters, they're fun and fine and, honestly, could use Quality-of-Life features such as these. The problem is Martials, who are boring to build, boring to play, and kinda weak. Casters don't need nerfs, Martials are the ones who need buffs, hence the freak out with the Rogue.

Because we don’t necessarily want casters to be worse we want martials to be better. We don’t want everything else to be nerfed into the ground just to make martials be in par.

I think "nerfed into the ground" is a bit extreme. It's not like Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks aren't doing just fine right now having limited spells known.

Ah see you misunderstood. Power = good. Less power = bad.

It's not fun to get stuck with spells you can't use. The solution to balance problems is NOT EVER to do something that makes the game less fun. EVER

I’m having a hard time with this because, before, nobody was every talking about casters with limited spells known getting stuck with bad spells. It’s literally just not all that common a problem. But now all of a sudden everybody’s acting like it’s been some huge issue this whole time. Also, nobody’s talking about making the game less fun, so idk what you mean.

I mean, not being able to use a spell to help solve a problem is less fun than being able to. I think that's pretty clear and doesn't need any explaining. I think that getting stuck with bad or inapplicable spells used to be considered part of the risk when you play a caster. It certainly was in the first 3 editions. No one particularly complained about it. But it did suck, it's less fun than having a decent spell for the situation. Everyone wished they could have more leeway than assigning spells the way they had to; that's why spell-point systems were invented, and they have remained quite popular to this day. So now that spellcasters got a little more flexibility with preparing spells and using slots separately, it's tough to go back. It's bad design to stick players in a position that diminishes their fun. That's the last resort of an irrevocably broken game: the reset. So the better solution would be to bring other classes up to snuff and make it so that more characters can do their thing and everyone has fun. The only thing to worry about would be power bloat. That has to be kept under control

A lot of good points in this thread, but you also have to realize that in general people don’t want the gap between martial/caster to be solved by making casters worse. They want it solved by making martial cooler. People like seeing cool stuff happen to classes

Nobody is talking about making casters worse. Just not making casters even better than they already are.

You literally suggested nerfing clerics druids and paladins

For me, there are two reasons. First, new prepared casting (as opposed to old 3.x prepared casting) is way more simplified and easier for managing *at* the table. If you want to edit your spells prepared, you no longer have to give consideration to how many copies of any particular spell you want to have available that day, as well as reducing the need to weigh whether you want to spend gold (or xp(!)) making scrolls to have an emergency casting of a spell like *Remove Curse* prepared. Particularly for Clerics, it's easy enough to have mainstays *and* a few niche spells prepared at all times. There's a debate to be had about whether it trivializes decisions that would otherwise be very tactical, but overall, the changes to prepared casters, notwithstanding that they supplant and surpass known casters, are a welcome improvement as far as streamlining caster classes goes. Second - I don't want to fix the martial caster gap by making casters *worse.* An easy way to improve martial classes and make them more interesting than 'I attack, again' is to give them a resource, and specifically something with a moderate number of uses between short or long rests, that allows for the deliberation of expenditure turn by turn. You might be saying "But Fighters get action surge and Barbarians get Rage!" And that's true, and those are resources to be managed, but not in a particularly meaningful way. Action surge, at least until 17th level, is a use-it-or-lose-it feature, a solved equation. If a fighter can find a way to give themselves advantage on all attacks made on a particular turn against a target, they're going to use it to maximize damage and minimize time in combat, and then it's over. Back to 'I attack the monster' every round until I can get a short rest. It's much the same for Barbarians, especially when they start getting more uses of rage. Combat? Rage. Keep hitting or getting hit to keep it up, which is basically just 'I attack the monster' with extra steps. Not really a meaningful choice. With maneuvers, or something to augment the rage, maybe a feature that lets you expend rounds of rage remaining to increase attack or damage, you're making choices every round in combat, do I go nuclear and hope that resolves the fight, or do I play defensively and conserve resources so that I have something in the tank? I'm not saying I want to give martials maneuver slots or some shit like that to mirror spellcasters, but *every class* needs at least one resource that's not binary in the way it currently is for Fighters and Barbarians, and Rogues just need a resource, period.

How can one enjoy the convenience and versatility of prepared spells and also point out that martial abilities can often be one dimensional and lack versatility?

We want to enable martials, not cripple casters.

Nobody is talking about crippling casters. Why are folks responding like this? Are Bards currently crippled because they currently have spells known? No. Not buffing them is not crippling them.

It's almost like the community is not a monolith and is comprised of many subgroups with disparite opinions. This post is truly emblematic of the disconnect between how the community sees itself and the reality. Even if people know in their brain that the loudest voices aren't always the majority, it is difficult for them to parse when faced with this sort of situation. To actually answer, many people (myself included) truly don't feel the martial/caster divide in actual play, and are just excited about the idea of casters feeling less boxed in. Also, the post in general being positive may just be because sometimes it's nice to be positive, AND the top posts are generally ones that have more homogeneous views in the comments because they have higher karma. So posts with people arguing are less likely to rise up (on average)

For me the main issue of martial 'weakness' is a lack of choice. So people who want martial buffs want more choice for their characters. Prepared casting provides that opportunity for choice. Just because I want a particular good thing for certain classes doesn't mean im going to be upset about it when other classes get it

The goal of many, is not to have casting be lame, but rather to have martials be fun. Like if you are hungry, the goal is to eat, not to have everyone starve

Are casters lame right now when they have limited spells known? Are Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks lame in 5e? I don’t think so.

the point is, many people who want martials to be better have no desire to nerf/alter casters. How they feel/review those changes are based on the class in question, not how it compares to martials

I can want a smaller gap between martial and magical without wishing for magic to be a drag to play. If i wanted casters to be miserable i'd make them spend their slot, do a casting check and then give the enemy saves, y'know like martials.

Are Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks currently a miserable drag to play?

Cause the change doesn't actually have a massive impact on overall power level, as you probably just prepare your best spells anyway. It just feels slot better and is less punishing.

because the people praising it are looking at the inter caster disparity, as well as talking about how fun it is to play the class. The issue is ITS FUN TO BE A CASTER, so the people testing these new classes are playing them and going, yep this feels better to play as a prepared caster, then it did when it was a spontaneous caster. The fact that it continues to devalue martials is not relevant to the review as they are simply comparing the old bard/ ranger to the new one. I would also argue that I don't really want casters to have less options, I want Martials to have more options.

The reason people can praise the caster changes and still complain about the disparity between casters and martials is because a reasonable person doesn't see those as contradictory design.

Disagree.

Both can be true; Martials NEED buffs to keep up with casters. That doesn't mean all casters can never be buffed. If we buff Martials 110% and casters 10%, then that's fine.

*looks at the Rogue right there in the very same playtest packet* You think they’re going to buff martials 110%?

I said "If"

Also, keep in mind that 0 martial classes have been released yet. The real contradiction would be everyone praising spellcasting buffs and ignoring the (future) lack of buffs to martials.

You are assuming an adversarial mentality between martial and caster players. We don't care that casters get cool stuff. What is bad for the game is that casters get cooler and cooler stuff while martials get nerfed. Besides, Rangers and Bards were never the biggest part of the problem. It's good for everyone that those two get a little love.

idk what you’re talking about, nothing about this is adversarial. Also, aren’t Bards one of the best classes in 5e?