Philosophy behind Arcane and Divine separation

[Theodoxus]

So, we've seen a number of domain packages that allow clerics to gain a number of arcane spells, Light grants Fireball, considered by some as the "King" of wizard spells. However, we haven't seen much of anything that allows wizards to gain divine spells - especially healing - in any significant manner.

With 5e's dropping of the divine/arcane divide, and instead presenting them as their origin (patron/god vs innate/study), it seems rather odd.

Sure, there's Bard, with it's access to healing, and the Favored Soul access to cleric domains, but why shouldn't the wizard be able to pick up divine spells as readily as clerics can grab arcane?

Doing a bit of searching, I only came across the discussion in a 3.P forum, wherein the wizard is pretty much god and CoDzilla is a really close second - such that, granting divine spells to the wizard would completely blow the lid off of competition...

But in 5e, especially with the merging of spell slots (outside of warlock, obviously), it seems the line becomes a lot more blurry.

I guess my conundrum boils down to, why play a wizard with all the hassles of tracking down the spells you want, stealing others spellbooks to glean a bit of knowledge and run around in crappy AC with just robes for comfort, when you can get 85% of the wizards bag by going cleric instead, able to pick the exact spells you want, every day without worry, get much better armor options, and even weapons, if that's your thing.

5e took most of the sacred cows and dumped them on their heads... except wizards casting healing spells... sure, a single dip of your toe into the cleric pool gets you all the good healing spells - which really just makes the problem worse...

In my estimation, the various full casters should share 95% of the spell list, and have 5% for specialization. Then, you're just worried about how you get your spells (independent study vs patron/god vs innate ability) and what fluff you want with it - Channel Divinity, non-memorized rituals, patron boons, metamagic or inspiration...

It wouldn't stop dipping for nice things, but it would bring back some semblance of verisimilitude - where magic is magic and origin affects how you see your character rather than what limits their spells have.

[SharkForce]

1) clearly you didn't notice the theurgist in the unearthed arcana a few weeks back. it's overpowered, but if that doesn't bother you, it does a lot of what you seem to want. in fact, i would say that it gives far more of cleric identity than any cleric domain gives of wizard identity.

2) i can assure you, no cleric gets remotely close to doing what a wizard does. the absolute best domain lists give a fair number of wizard spells, but most of them aren't even close to being the best ones, and even arcana only gives you a few high level spells, but not until level 18.

[pwykersotz]

I'd prefer the opposite: 95% separation between lists and 5% overlap. To me, that's the whole point of a class-based system, to make you what it says on the tin.

If magic is just magic, that kills most of what I love about it. I love magic in fantasy, but D&D has worked its butt off to destroy that love. Kitchen sink casters bore me utterly. Give me restrictions! Make it so that my fire sorcerer has trouble casting in frigid cold. Make it so that I channel the power exclusively through a third eye on my forehead and that if it's blinded that my powers are suppressed. Make me think and work to get around the restrictions, and don't give me a feat to handwave them.

Separate spell lists are another form of restriction. If you're going to merge them, you may as well just create a single caster chassis and call it good. Turn Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard into subclasses of "Mage". I'm personally not a fan. Bring back the Arcane/Divine divide! Add mechanical penalties/benefits for them! Make them interesting!

[Theodoxus]

1) clearly you didn't notice the theurgist in the unearthed arcana a few weeks back. it's overpowered, but if that doesn't bother you, it does a lot of what you seem to want. in fact, i would say that it gives far more of cleric identity than any cleric domain gives of wizard identity.

2) i can assure you, no cleric gets remotely close to doing what a wizard does. the absolute best domain lists give a fair number of wizard spells, but most of them aren't even close to being the best ones, and even arcana only gives you a few high level spells, but not until level 18.

But the Theurge's issues isn't the fact that it's a wizard who gets cleric spells, but a wizard who gets access to cleric abilities before the cleric does. If it was just a wizard who got more spells, but the rest of their abilities were derivatives of other wizard schools, would you consider that OP?

@pwykersotz, I get that - but since WotC isn't going in that direction, the oddity that wizards can't heal becomes all the more glaring.

Part of me likes that the caster classes have unique ways of getting their power. I wish there was more differentiation, or at least handwaving in regards to caster stat though. I like that Pathfinder had a witch subtype that used Constitution. I modified the Witch and Cloistered Cleric, swapping Int and Wis on both. An arcanist that used wisdom made more sense, and the cloistered, with all the knowledge they accumulated, also felt better as an Int caster.

I'd be fine with a Knowledge domain cleric using Int; a Wild Magic sorc using Int; a valor bard using Con... That's where I feel the differences should come in. Not who can cast Fireball or Forcecage or Mass Healing Word or Greater Restoration.

If you wanted to play a caster, and use a spellbook for rituals and maybe get some evocation blasts (because you're 10 and think that's cool) but also want Healing Word and Lesser Restoration and Viscous Mockery - do you force the kid to multiclass into two very different classes, requiring Int and Cha; or do you just give him the Bard spell list for the Evocation wizard to access? Seems needlessly restrictive when you're just talking about how you manipulate a tiny bit of power... into a bit of healing or a bit of blasting...

[SharkForce]

But the Theurge's issues isn't the fact that it's a wizard who gets cleric spells, but a wizard who gets access to cleric abilities before the cleric does. If it was just a wizard who got more spells, but the rest of their abilities were derivatives of other wizard schools, would you consider that OP?

depends. the most broken thing they get is the channel divinity for +2 DC on their spells. if that was gone, well, they'd still steal most of the cleric's identity, and would still be extremely powerful, but the spell swiping doesn't really get off the ground until level 10 or 11 anyways. and for the record, the only ability the theurge steals before the cleric gets it is the last one... the power of theurge isn't that it gets the level 18 ability at level 14 (which is frankly irrelevant in a lot of campaigns that will never get that far anyways). that's certainly bad design, giving the wizard cleric abilities before the cleric gets them, but not inherently broken.

that said, stealing spells from the cleric list is still somewhat of a problem, mostly because the full cleric list tends to see a lot less use than others. in particular, the cleric list tends to have a handful of specific standout spells that they use in most situations, in comparison to the wizard where their strength comes primarily from having many different spells, each useful in different situations.

as to the specifics of getting extra spells and then grabbing stuff from various wizard schools... depending on which school abilities you're grabbing, then yes it would be OP. each school has some awesome stuff, each school has some not-so-awesome stuff. grabbing the best stuff at each tier would indeed be OP.

[Regitnui]

I thought this was going to be a fluff topic and marshalled a post on that. Sorry, I have no opinion on the crunch.

[pwykersotz]

I get that - but since WotC isn't going in that direction, the oddity that wizards can't heal becomes all the more glaring.

Part of me likes that the caster classes have unique ways of getting their power. I wish there was more differentiation, or at least handwaving in regards to caster stat though. I like that Pathfinder had a witch subtype that used Constitution. I modified the Witch and Cloistered Cleric, swapping Int and Wis on both. An arcanist that used wisdom made more sense, and the cloistered, with all the knowledge they accumulated, also felt better as an Int caster.

I'd be fine with a Knowledge domain cleric using Int; a Wild Magic sorc using Int; a valor bard using Con... That's where I feel the differences should come in. Not who can cast Fireball or Forcecage or Mass Healing Word or Greater Restoration.

If you wanted to play a caster, and use a spellbook for rituals and maybe get some evocation blasts (because you're 10 and think that's cool) but also want Healing Word and Lesser Restoration and Viscous Mockery - do you force the kid to multiclass into two very different classes, requiring Int and Cha; or do you just give him the Bard spell list for the Evocation wizard to access? Seems needlessly restrictive when you're just talking about how you manipulate a tiny bit of power... into a bit of healing or a bit of blasting...

In the same way that the runt of the Barbarian tribe should be able to use Int for attacking? Sure. It's one of many subsystem ideas that could be a lot of fun. But it has dangers associated with it, namely excessive min-maxing. I saw this a lot with 3.5, where cool archetypes were sacrificed at the altar of raw performance. Now for your example with the kid or with someone who's playing casually, it sounds like a great idea.

In terms of the spell list, my preference would be something like to have spells give form and your nature give the function. So anyone who wanted to learn could make a "cage" spell that was formed from their style of magic. The fire demon makes a fire cage, the necromancer makes a bone/necrotic cage, etc. But this isn't really D&D magic and is just wishful thinking on my part. You're right, WOTC isn't going anywhere near this.

Overall, I think it's a table thing. I could be convinced to come down on the "all spells for all casters" side in certain circumstances. Especially in casual games. But I'd much rather do the opposite.

[Kobard]

Check out Malhavoc Press' Arcana Evolved, if you haven't already. If you haven't, you have at least seen its echoes in 5E, namely the spontaneous casting of prepared spells. (Mearls wrote a little for AE for Malhavoc Press back in the day.) There is a "universal" spell list for spellcasters, but each level of spells has tiers: simple, complex, and exotic. Each spell also has "descriptors" attached, such as Plant or Positive Energy, which becomes particularly useful for class access. Spellcasting classes grant varying degrees of access to these spells based on spell level, spell complexity, and spell tags. For example, the Greenbond gains all simple spells to 9th level and all spells with the plant or positive energy descriptor. But the Witch only gets simple spells up to 7th level at level 20. And spellcasting classes are built more around playstyle (e.g. the master of magic magister, the nature healer greenbond, the gish mageblade, etc.).

I'm not advocating for AE per se, but I do think that AE provides a useful model for creating an intuitive model for a universal spell list within the d20 system that would be relatively easy to adopt for the 5e rules.