Gain spells every level and no need to prepare them, balanced or no?

[supergoji18]

I had an idea to have every class gain spells as a wizard does when they level up. In other words, they would start with 6 spells and gain 2 new spells every level. They wouldn't be able to get rid of these spells once learned. Half casters like paladins and rangers would get half as many spells, same with the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster subclasses. In addition, all spells known would be automatically prepared.

There are two reasons for doing this. First is to simplify things for players. With every spellcasting class following the same system its just one less thing for players to have to learn and manage, and having to explain to new players (and even some experienced ones) the whole prepared spells system can get tiresome (at least for me it is). The second is to get rid of the common complaint I've heard about the sorcerer and wizard, namely their extremely limited selection of spells.

What do you think?

Edit: Since this has already caused some confusion, let me be clear: I'm not taking away the Wizard's ability to learn spells via spell scrolls.

[Vekon]

Sorcerer players everywhere will love you.

Wizards are limited because they have to prepare their spells. Bards, Rangers, Sorcerers, and the 3rd casters just kind of know them. I'm not sure how this would effect something like a Cleric, that technically knows ALL of their spells but has to prepare specific ones each day.

[Man_Over_Game]

It's important to note the negative side effects of this.

When players feel like they're locked into their choices, they generally will do everything they can to avoid being worthless rather than being willing to experiment and take risks. That's why you don't see players trying out the Battlerager, the Banneret, or the Redemption Paladin. These are all specific character builds, and people don't want to feel like their effort is wasted because of a mistake they once made.

A more solid example is the Totem Barbarian. Rather than people picking Elk or Tiger (both focused around mobility), they'll choose the most boring/generic option available to never be at risk of being useless (which is Bear).

Not sure if you're a Diablo-esc fan, but that's the comparison between Diablo 2 vs. Diablo 3. Diablo 2 is that you're forced into investing in the choices you made, for better or for worse, so you naturally pick the option that's going to be able to do something all the time, even if it is cliché and uninteresting. Alternatively, Diablo 3 lets you change your build constantly (like a Cleric/Druid in DnD 5e), so people feel like they can experiment and try something unorthodox without being at risk.

If you do this, your Druids/Clerics will no longer be utilitarians. They'll start filling the roles of what the Sorcerer/Warlock were good for: Damage and Combat Control. One of the benefits of a Cleric is the ability to adjust what you need based off of the threats involved, but over half of their spell list are for things out of combat. Compare this to the Warlock or Sorcerer, who almost live to murder things.

Warlocks and Sorcerers would get severely buffed, Wizards would actually get severely nerfed (as their large spell list would be limited to what they learn on level up, and they currently only reserve about 1/2 of their prepared spells for combat as-is), Bards wouldn't care, Paladins would probably get buffed but it's probably be a nerf on Rangers (Paladins are generally more combat/spontaneously focused).

I wouldn't recommend it. Sorcerers need some love for their spell list, but otherwise everything else gets thrown out of whack.

[DeTess]

I had an idea to have every class gain spells as a wizard does when they level up. In other words, they would start with 6 spells and gain 2 new spells every level. They wouldn't be able to get rid of these spells once learned. Half casters like paladins and rangers would get half as many spells, same with the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster subclasses. In addition, all spells known would be automatically prepared.

There are two reasons for doing this. First is to simplify things for players. With every spellcasting class following the same system its just one less thing for players to have to learn and manage, and having to explain to new players (and even some experienced ones) the whole prepared spells system can get tiresome (at least for me it is). The second is to get rid of the common complaint I've heard about the sorcerer and wizard, namely their extremely limited selection of spells.

What do you think?

Man_Over_Game's already touched somewhat on this, but the spell lists for Druids, clerics, paladins etc. are somewhat balanced around them being able to pick situational options. Clerics are generally worse at blasting, but they make up for it by being able to prepare all kinds of situational buffs if they want. Taking that away will definitely hurt them.

I also don't see how this idea will help your stated goal where these classes are considered. If you're locked into your choices, you need to pay far more attention and invest far more tie if you don't want to risk making wrong choices, but if you can change things up every day, you can actually try out what you think might be fun and see if ti works without having to do a lot of research.

[supergoji18]

It's important to note the negative side effects of this.

When players feel like they're locked into their choices, they generally will do everything they can to avoid being worthless rather than being willing to experiment and take risks. That's why you don't see players trying out the Battlerager, the Banneret, or the Redemption Paladin. These are all specific character builds, and people don't want to feel like their effort is wasted because of a mistake they once made.

A more solid example is the Totem Barbarian. Rather than people picking Elk or Tiger (both focused around mobility), they'll choose the most boring/generic option available to never be at risk of being useless (which is Bear).

Not sure if you're a Diablo-esc fan, but that's the comparison between Diablo 2 vs. Diablo 3. Diablo 2 is that you're forced into investing in the choices you made, for better or for worse, so you naturally pick the option that's going to be able to do something all the time, even if it is cliché and uninteresting. Alternatively, Diablo 3 lets you change your build constantly (like a Cleric/Druid in DnD 5e), so people feel like they can experiment and try something unorthodox without being at risk.

If you do this, your Druids/Clerics will no longer be utilitarians. They'll start filling the roles of what the Sorcerer/Warlock were good for: Damage and Combat Control. One of the benefits of a Cleric is the ability to adjust what you need based off of the threats involved, but over half of their spell list are for things out of combat. Compare this to the Warlock or Sorcerer, who almost live to murder things.

Warlocks and Sorcerers would get severely buffed, Wizards would actually get severely nerfed (as their large spell list would be limited to what they learn on level up, and they currently only reserve about 1/2 of their prepared spells for combat as-is), Bards wouldn't care, Paladins would probably get buffed but it's probably be a nerf on Rangers (Paladins are generally more combat/spontaneously focused).

I wouldn't recommend it. Sorcerers need some love for their spell list, but otherwise everything else gets thrown out of whack.

I don't intend to remove the Wizard's ability to learn spells by spell scrolls. As for clerics, druids, etc., the way I see it is that this is an overall increase in their versatility because they don't need to prepare spells. Here's a comparison.

A level 8 cleric with 20 wisdom (+5 modifier) can prepare 13 spells total by RAW. With the rules I am implementing, they will have 20 spells known and automatically prepared (6 at first level and 2 every level after). That's seven more spells the cleric will have ready, which is over a 50% increase in the number of spells they could have ready by RAW.

I was also considering allowing those other classes to learn spells outside of just level ups by various different means (Bards through songs and ballads, Clerics through sacred scriptures and holy books, Druids as rewards from nature spirits for helping them, etc.), but I wanted to get an idea of what effect the initial changes would have first before I decided to include this as well.

[Man_Over_Game]

That's roughly knowing about 1/2 - 1/3 of spell lists.

It's not exactly game breaking, since it's not changing how sustainable a character is (spell slots stay the same) but it does remove some of the individuality of the different spell casters. It's less risk, but a lot of people like that.

I can't really think of a big reason why you shouldn't try it. I would expect a lot of casters, like Clerics, to end up having the same exact spell lists, though, unless they're min-maxing against one another (you pick Speak With Dead, and I'll pick Protection from Energy)