What Spells should be Class Features?

[strangebloke]

Its an idea often floated that certain spells are essentially class features and that this is a problem because of the inevitable cross pollution of spell lists. Its no good to have a signature feature of a class be something universally accessible. Perhaps an exception could be made for features like the bard's arcane secrets, or subclasses that intentionally grant a class access to a powerful option that they normally wouldn't have... But between feats like magic initiate and ritual caster and magic initiate and 1st level dips (which, granted, is a problem all its) I can see the argument. Overall I'm conflicted. On the one hand I like the idea of a fighter with ritual caster picking up ritual caster and getting a familiar. On the other hand hand easy access to something like hex and eldritch blast off the basis of a single feat feels cheesy and unflavorful for classes that would want to do it.

My questions are
(1)to what extent do people think this is actually a problem?

and

(2) If it is a problem, which spells are the primary culprits?


Just to start discussion I was able to think of the following spells that people normally bring up, ordered from most troublesome to least.

eldritch blast
find familiar
find (greater) steed
guidance
hex
hunter's mark

[PhoenixPhyre]

:grumpy-cat: many more of them. In fact, I'd say most of the conjure X spells (not the Tasha's summon X ones) should be (sub)class features. As well as things like polymorph.

More reasonably, having hex, hunter's mark, and eldritch blast be class features with class-based scaling (resource use and/or duration and/or output) and (possibly) not even costing concentration would do a chunk.

My basic rubric is "if there's a spell that most people consider dipping one or two levels to access, it should probably be a class feature of that class that scales with the class levels. But then again, I'm against dip-style multiclassing.

As for find familiar, not sure. Because both wizards and sorcerers have that "in theme". Warlocks already can get it as a class feature, so they're fine.

Find (greater) steed--yeah. Because otherwise bards can snipe it before paladins can even get it, and that's just not right. It's a classic "feature" of paladins. I'd have it be one feature that upgrades at the appropriate level.

[Silly Name]

Spells that are "iconic" of the class or are the basis of its role should be class features, like eldritch blast and hunter's mark. I actually disagree on Hex because A) it's flexible enough other classes can benefit from it, even if it's made to synergise with eldritch blast, and B) I'm ok with having to "pay" for the extra damage boost.

Paladins should get their mounts as a class feature back, wholeheartedly agreed. One could even make subclasses focused on the mount, giving us an actual mounted combatant subclass.

I've always felt that Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy and Druidcraft should have been minor ribbon abilities of their respective classes, rather than cantrips. Like, it's just some minor magical tricks you're able to do, not something you should debate whether to learn or not.

[stoutstien]

I would probably add about half of the healing and recovery spells to the list of spells that should have been a class feature.

[Specter]

Definitely Hunter's Mark. In the case of Eldritch Blast, many others can get it but it won't be as effective as the Warlock's, but in Hunter's Mark case it's sad.

[king_steve]

If I’m not mistaken during one of the Dragon Talk podcast episodes about an UA the designers talk about how they prefer making things spells and giving a subclass free use of a spell as a feature. That gives them more flexibility for where to place a feature and also allows for it to be more broadly applicable (it can be on more than one spell list).

[LibraryOgre]

I would probably add about half of the healing and recovery spells to the list of spells that should have been a class feature.

I've long disagreed with this. I feel a problem with AD&D was that healing was exclusively for priests; not giving others the ability to heal too often trapped priests in the band-aid box role, because no one else could do it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I've long disagreed with this. I feel a problem with AD&D was that healing was exclusively for priests; not giving others the ability to heal too often trapped priests in the band-aid box role, because no one else could do it.

Agree with this. If
a) you need healing/curing
b) only one class can do it
then c) you always need a member of that class, and they're going to have to do it all.

Which goes against 5e's "no class meta" design (you don't need a cleric in every group, or even a dedicated healer, because often natural healing or saves is enough, plus incidental healing from other sources).

[KorvinStarmast]

Its an idea often floated that certain spells are essentially class features and that this is a problem because of the inevitable cross pollution of spell lists. A pretty solid no to this entire line of thinking. Mark Hall's point on how it pigeon holes various classes or builds is where I am coming from, while the proposal you outline prevents the very flavorful use of Domain and Circle spells from other classes from adding the extra depth that they do. (Things like Hunters Mark as a paladin oath of vengeance spell being a good example).

If you want certain features and spells gated by class, don't allow multiclassing - which is a variant/optional rule - and you have solved your problem.

[LibraryOgre]

A couple that COULD be spells but should also be class features:

Speak with Animals and Speak with Plants.

Druids have had these as spells since at least 1e, but they really SHOULD be class features (especially in 1e, where they're features for Monks but not for Druids).

[KorvinStarmast]

A couple that COULD be spells but should also be class features:

Speak with Animals and Speak with Plants.

Druids have had these as spells since at least 1e, but they really SHOULD be class features (especially in 1e, where they're features for Monks but not for Druids). IIRC, the ability to communicate with plants and animals was a class feature for druids in Eldritch Wizardry, but IIRC there was also a cleric spell that did that thing also. Checking.
EDIT: I remembered wrongly. Spells of 4th / 2d level respectively for speak with plants/animals.
Following your train of thought, speak with plant and speak with animals needs to be available to rangers as well, for example.

The OP seeks to overcomplicate the game, as I see it, whereas how it works now makes for variety in character concept.

My one point that I'll agree on is a Paladin Summoning their steed (taking us back to Greyhawk) was originally a class feature - IMO it has been badly handled in this edition. for example, all they had to do with the original spell was do a "when cast at higher level, summons can now be (and increase the CR and type accordingly). Didn't need another spell.

@Phoenix:

Find (greater) steed {snip} bards can snipe it before paladins can even get it, and that's just not right. I find it hard to agree. Magical secrets is supposed to be able to plunder other class spells; if you are going to get annoyed by this, you may as well complain about steel wind strike being poachable by a bard before a Ranger can get it. (A wizard, iirc, can already do this ...)

[Segev]

Bards poaching others' spells is deliberate and on-theme. And yet, being able to do so better than the class that gets them is a problem, because it makes the class that gets them natively feel bad next to the bard that has their feature early. The cross-dabbler should be getting things later, not earlier, than the native son.

I think the solution for the niche case of something like find greater steed is to make it an upgrade of find steed that is dependent on both class and level of the spell slot. It's a little off for the way 5e words things, but something like: "At higher levels. If you cast this from a 4th level Paladin spell slot, you may choose from the following animals." Or just, "If you know this as a paladin spell, and cast it from a higher level spell slot..."

[OldTrees1]

Its an idea often floated that certain spells are essentially class features and that this is a problem because of the inevitable cross pollution of spell lists. Its no good to have a signature feature of a class be something universally accessible.

Wait, are you asking about signature spells, or about spells that essentially create class features?

Companion spells (Find Familiar, Find Steed, Animate Dead) give several at-will abilities (some more than others).

Combat math spells (Eldritch Blast's extra attack feature, Spiritual Weapon's bonus action attack feature, Hex/Hunter's Mark's extra damage per attack feature) are used in the same way Barbarian's Extra Attack feature or Paladin's Improved Divine Smite ability are used.

Detect Magic as a Ritual grants the see magic auras at will feature.

These are not signature spells necessarily. However they add more to the character than is normal for knowing +1 spell of that level.

[LibraryOgre]

Bards poaching others' spells is deliberate and on-theme. And yet, being able to do so better than the class that gets them is a problem, because it makes the class that gets them natively feel bad next to the bard that has their feature early. The cross-dabbler should be getting things later, not earlier, than the native son.


TBH, I somewhat liked how 4e handled it. Any leader type was an effective healer, and in slightly different ways... but clerics, in several ways, were better healers. Others weren't BAD, they just weren't as good as clerics. I'm fine with that; everyone fights, but fighters are supposed to be the best at plan metal v. plain metal. Everyone might sneak, but thieves are best at it.

[stoutstien]

I've long disagreed with this. I feel a problem with AD&D was that healing was exclusively for priests; not giving others the ability to heal too often trapped priests in the band-aid box role, because no one else could do it.

There's a plethora of different ways to heal so there is no reason just to use the same 3-4 spells for everyone. Look at the dream druid. If you port it over to ranger you would have an interesting option not related on healing word and AoV.

[Crucius]

Steel Wind Strike should be a class feature.

It would be perfect for a monk or a fighter, zipping across the battlefield, slashing everyone. Ranger too, but it already gets it I suppose.

[strangebloke]

I would probably add about half of the healing and recovery spells to the list of spells that should have been a class feature.
That's pretty extreme, and a lot further than I would take it. Nonmagical healing is abundant in this game, it feels silly to restrict magical healing so much. Plus I really don't like the "healbot" role.

Spells that are "iconic" of the class or are the basis of its role should be class features, like eldritch blast and hunter's mark. I actually disagree on Hex because A) it's flexible enough other classes can benefit from it, even if it's made to synergise with eldritch blast, and B) I'm ok with having to "pay" for the extra damage boost.

Paladins should get their mounts as a class feature back, wholeheartedly agreed. One could even make subclasses focused on the mount, giving us an actual mounted combatant subclass.

I've always felt that Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy and Druidcraft should have been minor ribbon abilities of their respective classes, rather than cantrips. Like, it's just some minor magical tricks you're able to do, not something you should debate whether to learn or not.
Agreed on Paladin mounts.

IMO Hex being a spell is a bigger problem than HM, ironically not because of how easy it is to get for other classes, but because of how weirdly it scales as a spell within warlock itself. It starts out good, then becomes worse at levels 3-4, then better at 5, then worse at levels 7-9... I think it makes more sense as a class feature.

A pretty solid no to this entire line of thinking. Mark Hall's point on how it pigeon holes various classes or builds is where I am coming from, while the proposal you outline prevents the very flavorful use of Domain and Circle spells from other classes from adding the extra depth that they do. (Things like Hunters Mark as a paladin oath of vengeance spell being a good example).

If you want certain features and spells gated by class, don't allow multiclassing - which is a variant/optional rule - and you have solved your problem.
The issue with subclasses isn't that serious. If a spell is made into a class feature, you just give that class feature to subclasses that would have access to the spell as well.

Bards poaching others' spells is deliberate and on-theme. And yet, being able to do so better than the class that gets them is a problem, because it makes the class that gets them natively feel bad next to the bard that has their feature early. The cross-dabbler should be getting things later, not earlier, than the native son.

I think the solution for the niche case of something like find greater steed is to make it an upgrade of find steed that is dependent on both class and level of the spell slot. It's a little off for the way 5e words things, but something like: "At higher levels. If you cast this from a 4th level Paladin spell slot, you may choose from the following animals." Or just, "If you know this as a paladin spell, and cast it from a higher level spell slot..."

Oh, but isn't that way worse? "I poached a 2nd level spell from a paladin and now I have a pegasus because it scales." This is the exact problem with Eldritch Blast.

Maybe if it scaled off paladin level particularly. Either way, I'd rather just make it a class feature. Bardic secrets are fine imo but they don't need find steed specifically, and having it as a spell creates some weird edge cases (like rings of spell storing)

[Xihirli]

Oh, but isn't that way worse? "I poached a 2nd level spell from a paladin and now I have a pegasus because it scales." This is the exact problem with Eldritch Blast.

Maybe if it scaled off paladin level particularly. Either way, I'd rather just make it a class feature. Bardic secrets are fine imo but they don't need find steed specifically, and having it as a spell creates some weird edge cases (like rings of spell storing)

Pure Bards will only cast with Bard spell slots, and their poached spells are Bard spells.

[Valmark]

None of them. A DM bothered by that could just ban the offender feat/multiclass/background/whatever for less hassle and a possibly better outcome.

Generally something that reduces possible builds is a bad idea unless you are guaranteed the group wasn't interested anyway (at which point why do that?). A notable exception being if one of the group really dislikes the build that player wants to do- but at that point talking about it might be more effective then forbidding it through complicated ways.

[Segev]

Oh, but isn't that way worse? "I poached a 2nd level spell from a paladin and now I have a pegasus because it scales." This is the exact problem with Eldritch Blast.

Maybe if it scaled off paladin level particularly. Either way, I'd rather just make it a class feature. Bardic secrets are fine imo but they don't need find steed specifically, and having it as a spell creates some weird edge cases (like rings of spell storing)

My suggestion was that you had to have it as a paladin spell, or upcast from a paladin spell slot. At a minimum, the bard would have to dip 2 levels of paladin to get to paladin spellcasting, and take find steed that way. At which point it's not "a bard poaching find greater steed, but a paladin/bard with his steed scaling with his actual level. This seems in line with the way later development scales things with proficiency modifier.

[ThatDrowPlayer]

It more or less already works that way. Spellcasting is a class feature, and you have to have 1-2 levels depending on the class to get access to the spell lists. By making a spell like eldritch blast exclusive to the Warlock's spell list, you have to be a warlock to get that spell. Feats let you poach those, as does multiclassing, but I believe both are considered optional rules. As a GM, just ban feats and multiclassing, and exclusive spells are class features the way you want.

Someone else mentioned that Wizards might be in the business of making a class feature give you free uses of an existing spell, such as the Variant Class Feature for the Ranger class, which let them cast hunter's mark however many times it was. I'd rather see them get a unique class feature that scratches the same itch, rather than just getting free uses of a spell. I get what you're going for, though. The spells you've listed are basically being poached for builds because they're strong and interesting, when really they feature so much of a class' identity in them. 4e did exactly what you're suggesting, but people hated the edition (my poor 4e :smallfrown:). In 4e, healing word was a cleric class feature, and you had to be a cleric to get access to that ability. There weren't truly spells in the traditional sense in that edition, but what you're looking for is basically what 4e did for many iconic abilities.

[strangebloke]

My suggestion was that you had to have it as a paladin spell, or upcast from a paladin spell slot. At a minimum, the bard would have to dip 2 levels of paladin to get to paladin spellcasting, and take find steed that way. At which point it's not "a bard poaching find greater steed, but a paladin/bard with his steed scaling with his actual level. This seems in line with the way later development scales things with proficiency modifier.

like hexblade?:smallyuk:not making me like this idea chief.

[Mjolnirbear]

Except aren't spell slots deliberately not class-specific? If you Multiclass, you have no way to tell if that 2nd-level spell slot is from bard or paladin. It's why you can use smites as a sorcadin.

Making it usable only from a paladin spell slot would be contrary to how it works currently. If you used it as an exception it would instantly cause problems and questions with multiclassing and take even more effort to iron those out.

I'm nominally in favour of 'class features' instead of spells, but it's a lot, lot harder to give class features to a subclass than a spell.

My suggestion would be "As a class feature, you may cast Hunter's Mark under (insert relevant conditions). This spell is not added to your class spell list, though it counts as a class spell for you."

Keeping it as a spell means you use the same rules for casting. And it can't be poached, because it's not on a class spell list.

Or add a keyword, such as "Iconic" to the relevant spells, and add "You may not learn a spell that has the iconic keyword" to Magical Secrets. Which is also simpler than changing it to class features.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Except aren't spell slots deliberately not class-specific? If you Multiclass, you have no way to tell if that 2nd-level spell slot is from bard or paladin. It's why you can use smites as a sorcadin.

Making it usable only from a paladin spell slot would be contrary to how it works currently. If you used it as an exception it would instantly cause problems and questions with multiclassing and take even more effort to iron those out.This. The only exception that that (and is currently already in the game) is Warlock slots being Different (for example, Eldritch Smite requires a Warlock slot).


Or add a keyword, such as "Iconic" to the relevant spells, and add "You may not learn a spell that has the iconic keyword" to Magical Secrets. Which is also simpler than changing it to class features.This is an interesting thought, and not one that had occurred to me. I actually really like this idea.

[PhantomSoul]

Except aren't spell slots deliberately not class-specific? If you Multiclass, you have no way to tell if that 2nd-level spell slot is from bard or paladin. It's why you can use smites as a sorcadin.

Yeah, you could restrict it based on spells known/prepared for the class (e.g. a Paladin 5 could smite with up to second-level slots or couldn't benefit from slots above second-level slots), but class slots don't work.

[Catullus64]

I think that Steeds and Familiars have a compelling case to be made, given their lineage as class features; they're interesting enough that I like the idea of them being a core part of character progression and class narrative, and it would help make Wizards feel even more distinct.

Eldritch Blast, I suppose, also started out as a class feature, but in an edition where at-will cantrips weren't a thing; now that every spellcaster has at-will damage options that use their primary casting stat, I don't see it as being so unique that we need to defend its sanctity. I feel the same way about largely combat-functional spells like Hex and Hunter's Mark; they're not interesting enough to need niche protection.

Guidance is just a poorly thought-out spell and I want it gone, not embedded into a class's playstyle.

I think Tasha's Cauldron took a right step in its proliferation of a lot of spells, personally, but that might have to do with how I think about spells and the game fiction. Spells aren't one-to-one objects in the game world, they're frameworks with which to model a given system of magic. To put that another way, a Cleric and a Druid who both cast Flame Strike aren't performing the same act of magic, but it's an act of convenience for those two different acts of magic to use the same mechanical template. I enjoy spells having a lot of flexibility in terms of which character archetypes they can be attached to.

[Luccan]

I don't know if any spells should be moved exclusively to class features, but some (like Hunters Mark) are so ubiquitous I certainly wouldn't mind giving them to the appropriate Spells-Known class for free.

[Ionathus]

Nature utility spells are way more granular than they need to be, and the druid class suffers for it.

Even just looking at animal/plant social spells: Animal Friendship, Beast Bond, Speak with Animals, Animal Messenger, Beast Sense, Locate Animals or Plants, Speak with Plants... 7 spells of level 3 or lower that all allow you to interact socially with animals or plants in some way. The situations are too niche to justify that many spells: either condense them or turn them into class features. Druids could use a few baseline (i.e. non-subclass) ribbons like Speak with Animals to help them feel a bit more mystical.

As is, a Moon Druid can't do anything at will until level 14: every single class feature just modifies their 2x/short rest ability. Not very helpful for roleplay or utility, if you ask me. Give druids something small that doesn't take up valuable spell preparation slots, and it would barely change their mechanical balance at all.

[Amnestic]

Bards poaching others' spells is deliberate and on-theme. And yet, being able to do so better than the class that gets them is a problem, because it makes the class that gets them natively feel bad next to the bard that has their feature early. The cross-dabbler should be getting things later, not earlier, than the native son.

I think the solution for the niche case of something like find greater steed is to make it an upgrade of find steed that is dependent on both class and level of the spell slot. It's a little off for the way 5e words things, but something like: "At higher levels. If you cast this from a 4th level Paladin spell slot, you may choose from the following animals." Or just, "If you know this as a paladin spell, and cast it from a higher level spell slot..."

Personally I just wrote it so that you can only get a spell if the original class can get it at that level - Bard 10 can't steal Find Greater Steed, because Paladins don't get it until 13th, but Bard 14 could get it.

[Pex]

I would probably add about half of the healing and recovery spells to the list of spells that should have been a class feature.

Disagree with this. I want healing spells spread around. No single class should be subject to the Healing role. I never again want to be literally yelled at in public by fellow players the day after the game for the audacity of having cast a spell that was not Cure Light Wounds. (2E game).

As for the thread, definitely Find (Greater) Steed. I can accept Eldritch Blast. I like the idea of Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, and Druidcraft. I have no issue with classes other than the iconic having Hex or Hunter's Mark.

[Kuulvheysoon]

For pure hit point restoration, I'd be down with spreading it out. As it has been, to a certain extent. Of the casting classes, only the Sorceror and Warlock lack native access to a healing spell (Wizards sneak through on a technicality with life transference).

I do like that some of the status cleansers are restricted to the more traditional healing classes. Though I'd prefer if they were more along the lines of Lay On Hands; that's one of my favorite abilities in 5E for the "healer".

EDIT: Sidenote, why does the Wizard get life transference while the Sorceror doesn't? Thematically, it seems way more on point to me that the guy bending reality to his will through sheer force of personality would have access rather than the bookish nerd.

[Morty]

I'm going to disagree about Find Steed. 3E's paladin steed feature was a bad idea even on the scale of 3E's bad ideas. Making it a spell instead lets paladins summon magical mounts if they feel like it, but also means they can ignore it if they don't. A class feature is more difficult to ignore than a spell and will feel as though you're wasting part of your class.

Spells that should be class features feel like they cover something central to the class' identity to the point where you can reasonably expect it to use it every session or almost so - like a warlock is going to be blasting away with Eldritch Blast every combat, rangers will use Hunter's Mark and so on. Someone playing a paladin might not necessarily want to have to deal with its being "the mount class", not to mention the impracticality of using mounts in the game's eponymous environment.

It would be easier if spells weren't the game's only source of modular abilities that aren't locked in from level 1-3 (class/subclass features) or severely restricted (feats), but that ship sailed a while ago.

[stoutstien]

Disagree with this. I want healing spells spread around. No single class should be subject to the Healing role. I never again want to be literally yelled at in public by fellow players the day after the game for the audacity of having cast a spell that was not Cure Light Wounds. (2E game).

As for the thread, definitely Find (Greater) Steed. I can accept Eldritch Blast. I like the idea of Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, and Druidcraft. I have no issue with classes other than the iconic having Hex or Hunter's Mark.

The point would be to spread it out without relying on certain spell casting combos to take the bulk which already favors those who have better spell progression in both the level and quality of slots. The battlesmith is a good example of what I mean. It's a small amount for a feature at lv 9 but it is also one of the best as far as action economy goes and isn't fueled by spell casting.LOH for paladins. It's a mediocre sized pool of healing but it's adjustable to prevent waste and has other recovery benefits. The Mercy monk has a nice steady growth and eventually gets 2 heals per ki which isn't gonna take the shear HP recovery a life cleric can put out but it's a lot more interesting than "if you have healing word/AoV available on your spell list you should memorize/prepare it."

[Zevox]

Eldritch Blast is the main one I can see. Warlocks are clearly designed around it, and it would discourage taking a level or two of Warlock just for it if it scaled based on your class level instead of your character level.

Beyond that? Eh. I get why Find Familiar and Find Steed would feel like they should be, since well, they used to be, but I think they work just fine as spells, and I honestly like that it opens them to being used by other classes in rare cases.

Most of the others that were suggested in the OP's original list aren't really class features, they're just so good that everyone who gets access to them will most likely take them. Which in and of itself isn't a good reason for them to be a class feature, I think. I guess I could see an argument for Hunter's Mark, except I feel the main reason for that is because the Ranger's actual class features are mostly pretty underwhelming, so it feels like they rely on Hunter's Mark in this edition just because of that.

[EggKookoo]

Wouldn't this kind of thing curtail bards pretty hard? Magical Secrets and all...

[Luccan]

Wouldn't this kind of thing curtail bards pretty hard? Magical Secrets and all...

I think it depends on which/how many spells you section off. I feel like the spells you often see Bards taking through Magical Secrets aren't really being suggested.

[Pex]

I'm going to disagree about Find Steed. 3E's paladin steed feature was a bad idea even on the scale of 3E's bad ideas. Making it a spell instead lets paladins summon magical mounts if they feel like it, but also means they can ignore it if they don't. A class feature is more difficult to ignore than a spell and will feel as though you're wasting part of your class.

Spells that should be class features feel like they cover something central to the class' identity to the point where you can reasonably expect it to use it every session or almost so - like a warlock is going to be blasting away with Eldritch Blast every combat, rangers will use Hunter's Mark and so on. Someone playing a paladin might not necessarily want to have to deal with its being "the mount class", not to mention the impracticality of using mounts in the game's eponymous environment.

It would be easier if spells weren't the game's only source of modular abilities that aren't locked in from level 1-3 (class/subclass features) or severely restricted (feats), but that ship sailed a while ago.

They can take a page from Pathfinder 1E and Tasha druids (different uses of wild shape). It doesn't necessarily need to be a Steed. It can be a Divine Gift in hypothetical 6E. One subclass gets the Steed. Another gets a special weapon. (At some point Holy Weapon spell as a class feature.). A third subclass gets something else, perhaps stronger uses of Lay On Hands to remove curses and paralysis.

[Kane0]

I doubt locking more spells into class features will really solve much, feels like a very roundabout way of addressing the (and I'm assuming here) underlying problems either with the power of those spells or with the identity of the class.

I'd rather broaden the scope than narrow it, for example allowing Warlock invocations work with other cantrips. I see no reason Chill Touch or Sword Burst couldn't/shouldn't benefit from Agonising Blast, Repelling Blast, etc.

If a spell is so good it's a must-take (Find Familiar), then you nerf it to bring it in line with the baseline the same way you would buff a crappy spell (Witch Bolt). Establishing and measuring against that baseline is often very difficult though.

[Witty Username]

I think we should draw some wisdom from divine smite.
Divine smite is a great example of a class feature with similarities to spells in function and has a similar effect to existing spells. But by being a class feature it lacks some of the elements of spells increasing its power for some players to the point of being beyond acceptable.

I generally think the spells we have should stay spells. There are minor balance concerns but also complexity concerns. Spellcasters already have the most tracking of abilities. Less class features more spells allows for less tracking and access to unified mechanics making the class easier to learn. Warlocks eldritch blast being a must have is a non-issue for players that are aware of it and making it a class feature could just be handled by the DM pointing it out.

[Morty]

They can take a page from Pathfinder 1E and Tasha druids (different uses of wild shape). It doesn't necessarily need to be a Steed. It can be a Divine Gift in hypothetical 6E. One subclass gets the Steed. Another gets a special weapon. (At some point Holy Weapon spell as a class feature.). A third subclass gets something else, perhaps stronger uses of Lay On Hands to remove curses and paralysis.

Or it can stay a spell and let any paladin use it if they want to. Paladin subclasses are based around their oaths and ideals, not around whether or not they have a steed. What precisely is the reasoning behind making it a class or subclass feature?

[luuma]

Fully agree with EB being made a class feature, or at the very least Agonising Blast. Against all odds I have a player that spams EB but has not taken agonising blast because they don't want it. I can safely say that all choice is an illusion and EB/agonising blast is compulsory on warlocks.

I don't really mind whether find greater steed is a go-to 10th level bard spell. I've DMed it, it wasn't overpowered, and I certainly don't think bards would be as good at using it as a 13th level paladin. I'm also happy with all the other spells mentioned - even hunter's mark and find familiar. I agree find familiar is strong, and it's an instant pick with ritual caster, but it feels like the only reason find familiar is considered too strong is because us DMs are kind to the familiar in combat and don't just let it die whenever there's any kind of AoE effect.

On the flipside, I actually think there are a few class features that should be made into spells. i posted a thread a while back that was literally just the beastmaster's animal companion as a Find Steed spell that scaled with Ranger levels - I'd personally much prefer that to the current thing where only one subclass can have an animal friend and all other rangers are lonely. I imagine I'm in the minority though lol

[Kane0]

On the flipside, I actually think there are a few class features that should be made into spells. i posted a thread a while back that was literally just the beastmaster's animal companion as a Find Steed spell that scaled with Ranger levels - I'd personally much prefer that to the current thing where only one subclass can have an animal friend and all other rangers are lonely. I imagine I'm in the minority though lol

*Raises hand*
That was me

[Second Wind]

Or it can stay a spell and let any paladin use it if they want to. Paladin subclasses are based around their oaths and ideals, not around whether or not they have a steed. What precisely is the reasoning behind making it a class or subclass feature?
Find Steed and Find Familiar are permanent buffs. They don't consume your action, spell slot, or Concentration to use. You don't even have to have them memorized on the day you use them! (Technically it takes time and a slot to cast the spell, but you cast it during downtime when the slot and time don't matter.) They behave like class features rather than like spells.

[Kane0]

Find Steed and Find Familiar are permanent buffs. They don't consume your action, spell slot, or Concentration to use. You don't even have to have them memorized on the day you use them! (Technically it takes time and a slot to cast the spell, but you cast it during downtime when the slot and time don't matter.) They behave like class features rather than like spells.

So have it permanently keep the spell slot in the 'used' state while active, similar to what Animate dead tries to do. You cant recover that spell slot and use it for other things because its devoted to your Find X.

[luuma]

*Raises hand*
That was me

Oh no way, then we've both had the same idea! Great minds eh

[Kane0]

Oh no way, we've both had the same idea! Great minds eh

Yeah and I got it originally 2-3 years ago from someome else around here, the minority is around.

[EggKookoo]

I think it depends on which/how many spells you section off. I feel like the spells you often see Bards taking through Magical Secrets aren't really being suggested.

Fair enough, although I think the strengths of Magical Secrets is that the bard can go off-brand as it were.

I don't have a problem with some spells becoming class features, although perhaps a way to preserve both is to grant some classes features that allow the casting of certain spells independently of spell slots (and maybe components in some cases), but still allow the spell to exists as a spell otherwise. For example, an evocation wizard might get a few evocation spells as features that can be used X times per Y rest, but could also cast those same spells via slots, and the spells remain available to other classes.

I feel like magic and spellcasting need an overhaul anyway.

[Theodoxus]

TBH, I somewhat liked how 4e handled it. Any leader type was an effective healer, and in slightly different ways... but clerics, in several ways, were better healers. Others weren't BAD, they just weren't as good as clerics. I'm fine with that; everyone fights, but fighters are supposed to be the best at plan metal v. plain metal. Everyone might sneak, but thieves are best at it.

Yeah, this sounds an awful lot like 4E... I don't know if it's the fog of reminiscence or just new players who never experienced 4E, but more and more ideas are bleeding through from that edition as homebrew or 'fixes' for 5E.

I think it's hilarious after all the drang and sturm about 4E these very forums have had over the years, only to see what had miffed people in the early 2000s is coming back as potential good ideas.

Spells as class abilities is LITERALLY how 4E classes were built from the ground up. Maybe 5E isn't the game for those who would prefer that?

[KorvinStarmast]

I doubt locking more spells into class features will really solve much, feels like a very roundabout way of addressing the (and I'm assuming here) underlying problems either with the power of those spells or with the identity of the class.

I'd rather broaden the scope than narrow it, for example allowing Warlock invocations work with other cantrips. I see no reason Chill Touch or Sword Burst couldn't/shouldn't benefit from Agonising Blast, Repelling Blast, etc.. I'd support this.

I can safely say that all choice is an illusion and EB/agonising blast is compulsory on warlocks. Nope. My warlock never took it. She has repelling blast; she's also mostly a support caster (5-6 person party). I can see how in a three person party she'd need to take that, though.


I don't really mind whether find greater steed is a go-to 10th level bard spell. I've DMed it, it wasn't overpowered, and I certainly don't think bards would be as good at using it as a 13th level paladin. Now you've got me thinking about self buff spells for a bard;

Yeah and I got it originally 2-3 years ago from someome else around here, the minority is around. Any chance to get a link to that thread? Find steed as a ranger spell that has an "at higher level feature" to get the beast companion seems a fine idea. (I can see a high level ranger mounted on a giant scorpion or an alosaurus ... hehe)

[Kuulvheysoon]

Yeah, this sounds an awful lot like 4E... I don't know if it's the fog of reminiscence or just new players who never experienced 4E, but more and more ideas are bleeding through from that edition as homebrew or 'fixes' for 5E.

I think it's hilarious after all the drang and sturm about 4E these very forums have had over the years, only to see what had miffed people in the early 2000s is coming back as potential good ideas.

Spells as class abilities is LITERALLY how 4E classes were built from the ground up. Maybe 5E isn't the game for those who would prefer that?

I wouldn't really agree with that in all cases. Specifically, find steed, find familiar and eldritch blast are spells now that were class features in 3.5E, so the opposite of what you're claiming.

(Though to be fair, Obtain Familiar eventually became a feat as well, but it was originally a class feature).

[KorvinStarmast]

I don't know if it's the fog of reminiscence or just new players who never experienced 4E, but more and more ideas are bleeding through from that edition as homebrew or 'fixes' for 5E. 5e is a fusion of a lot of editions, or was intended to be, so doesn't it make sense that a few of the 'hacks' would draw from all editions? It's taken me a while to appreciate that advantage and the short rest come from that edition and I like both of those features (although SR took me a while to get a grip on).

I think it's hilarious after all the drang and sturm about 4E these very forums have had over the years, only to see what had miffed people in the early 2000s is coming back as potential good ideas. nit pick: Sturm und drang. 4e wasn't out until 2008. (How is that the early 2000s :smallconfused: )

Spells as class abilities is LITERALLY how 4E classes were built from the ground up. Maybe 5E isn't the game for those who would prefer that? Not to mention is limits creativity.

Just as a side note about "take your 4e and shove it" as a reaction

I had taken my 3.5 books to the second hand book place some years before 4e came out and gotten a few bucks for them. Hadn't played in a few years, and my substantial investment in AD&D and D&D stuff from pre WoTC days is still in my possession. I had no desire to go through that again, with two kids needing me to save dough for their education.

When 4e came out in 2008 (one book in Dec 2007 does not count, they were trying to capitalize on the Xmas buying season) I didn't even know until the summer of 2008 when my brother called from Chicago and suggested that we get together on line (forget the virtual table top he suggested) and try the new edition. My nephew was in high school. Had played some 3.5e with him when we visited them in previous years.

My response was "not only no, but hell no." Why? I had no desire to have to start buying D&D books again.

I also had no idea about the sturm und drang among the 3.x player base, nor the OSR (the revolt of the grognards, as it were) since I had stopped D&Ding not very long after 3.5 core was out.

I didn't play D&D for over a decade. When 5e came out and my brother suggested the same thing again, the kids were through college and I was in a better place to try it out. And with both kids through college, I had a little spare change for a few D&D books ... :smallsmile:

[Ashe]

If you want certain features and spells gated by class, don't allow multiclassing - which is a variant/optional rule - and you have solved your problem.

This was my immediate thought on reading the original post. This is just one of the many problems that the half-assed multiclassing we got for 5e causes, and the easiest way to solve all of them (and all at the same time!) is to not use the rule they specifically thought was iffy enough/complex enough to make optional. I already agree with doing this after seeing the absolute shooting-in-the-foot that most multiclass builds I've played with are (not that you shouldn't be capable of making a bad build if you're determined but so many people do it accidentally because the functions at play that cause this aren't immediately obvious).

Grabbing EB/Hex as a whole feat on something like a bard is still available but means you're giving up your entire ASI to do it vs the many useful things bards typically use their ASIs for, so I consider it very much fine.

[KorvinStarmast]

I already agree with doing this after seeing the absolute shooting-in-the-foot that most multiclass builds I've played with are (not that you shouldn't be capable of making a bad build if you're determined but so many people do it accidentally because the functions at play that cause this aren't immediately obvious). Glad it wasn't only me who noticed things like this. Had a player recently (me not DM) who was doing this odd rogue/monk multiclass at low level; he was strikingly ineffective at either, but was still fun to play with.

Grabbing EB/Hex as a whole feat on something like a bard is still available but means you're giving up your entire ASI to do it vs the many useful things bards typically use their ASIs for, so I consider it very much fine. Yes, choices and opportunity costs. :smallsmile:

[Morty]

Find Steed and Find Familiar are permanent buffs. They don't consume your action, spell slot, or Concentration to use. You don't even have to have them memorized on the day you use them! (Technically it takes time and a slot to cast the spell, but you cast it during downtime when the slot and time don't matter.) They behave like class features rather than like spells.


So have it permanently keep the spell slot in the 'used' state while active, similar to what Animate dead tries to do. You cant recover that spell slot and use it for other things because its devoted to your Find X.

Once again, it seems I'm giving 5E too much credit. But I agree with Kane0 in that it's better to give these spells more of an opportunity cost than it is to make them class features.


Yeah, this sounds an awful lot like 4E... I don't know if it's the fog of reminiscence or just new players who never experienced 4E, but more and more ideas are bleeding through from that edition as homebrew or 'fixes' for 5E.

I think it's hilarious after all the drang and sturm about 4E these very forums have had over the years, only to see what had miffed people in the early 2000s is coming back as potential good ideas.

Spells as class abilities is LITERALLY how 4E classes were built from the ground up. Maybe 5E isn't the game for those who would prefer that?

It's almost as if 4E's design had an actual purpose to it, which was a reaction to real problems. Crazy thought.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Find Steed and Find Familiar are permanent buffs.

Fighting Style: Defense is a "permanent buff". The aforementioned Find spells, may not even be summoning the same spirit time over time.

They don't consume your action, spell slot, or Concentration to use.
Find Familiar takes an hour to cast, (70 minutes if cast as a Ritual), Find Steed takes 10 minutes to cast. So technically, you are correct, neither spell requires an Action to cast, both spells require many, many, Actions to cast. 🃏

You don't even have to have them memorized on the day you use them!

Find Familiar is a Wizard spell, it is going to be a rare day any Wizard has a Ritual Spell prepared.

What happens to Mr. Ed, (whom you summoned with the Find Steed spell) goes to Zero HP and you don't have Find Steed Prepared?

Unlike a Druid's Wildshape, Find Steed uses do not recharge on a Short Rest..

They behave like class features rather than like spells.
No by being spells, the features behave like spells. The casting of either spell can disrupted, countered, and of course prevents the caster from maintaining Concentration on their spells or abilities that require Concentration.

If Find Familiar and Find Steed were class abilities then none of the above may be true...it all depends how the ability is worded.

[LibraryOgre]

On the flipside, I actually think there are a few class features that should be made into spells. i posted a thread a while back that was literally just the beastmaster's animal companion as a Find Steed spell that scaled with Ranger levels - I'd personally much prefer that to the current thing where only one subclass can have an animal friend and all other rangers are lonely. I imagine I'm in the minority though lol

That's sort of how it was in AD&D.

Druids (and rangers, at later levels) had the spell Animal Friendship, which let them form a bond with regular animals and teach them some tricks. The HD of the animals was limited to twice the caster's level... so a 1st level druid could have a wolf (2HD), and a 2nd level druid might have a 3 HD Bear and a 1HD hawk, or something like that.* I had a house rule that let you add HD to your animal companion as you leveled up, but no one companion could have more than your level in HD (except at 1st level)... so you could start with a 2HD wolf, add 2 HD of other creatures at level 2, then make your wolf 3HD at level 3, 4HD at level 4, etc. Their AC didn't improve, but their HP, ThAC0, and saves did.

Even without the house rule, though, Animal Friendship scaled with level. Get to 10th level, and you can have 20 HD of animals with you. Wolves dying to easily? Get a Mammoth. Lose them, and they take time to replace, so you have to take care of them, but it was a valuable combination of meat shield and ally (like teaching your monkey to steal things and untie knots, or sending a bird friend to look over things and use Speak with Animals to learn what it saw).

*I had one DM insist that, since 1 HD = +4 HP, you could have a very large number of 1 HP squirrels as your animal companions. He convinced someone to play a druid called the Squirrelmaster, who travelled with a roving pack of 30+ squirrels.

[KorvinStarmast]

Even without the house rule, though, Animal Friendship scaled with level. Get to 10th level, and you can have 20 HD of animals with you. Wolves dying to easily? Get a Mammoth. Lose them, and they take time to replace, so you have to take care of them, but it was a valuable combination of meat shield and ally ... We had a druid in AD&D, early 80's, who did something similar. Mostly a pack of wolves who he referred to as his doggies. :smallsmile:

[Morty]

That's sort of how it was in AD&D.

Druids (and rangers, at later levels) had the spell Animal Friendship, which let them form a bond with regular animals and teach them some tricks. The HD of the animals was limited to twice the caster's level... so a 1st level druid could have a wolf (2HD), and a 2nd level druid might have a 3 HD Bear and a 1HD hawk, or something like that.* I had a house rule that let you add HD to your animal companion as you leveled up, but no one companion could have more than your level in HD (except at 1st level)... so you could start with a 2HD wolf, add 2 HD of other creatures at level 2, then make your wolf 3HD at level 3, 4HD at level 4, etc. Their AC didn't improve, but their HP, ThAC0, and saves did.

Even without the house rule, though, Animal Friendship scaled with level. Get to 10th level, and you can have 20 HD of animals with you. Wolves dying to easily? Get a Mammoth. Lose them, and they take time to replace, so you have to take care of them, but it was a valuable combination of meat shield and ally (like teaching your monkey to steal things and untie knots, or sending a bird friend to look over things and use Speak with Animals to learn what it saw).

*I had one DM insist that, since 1 HD = +4 HP, you could have a very large number of 1 HP squirrels as your animal companions. He convinced someone to play a druid called the Squirrelmaster, who travelled with a roving pack of 30+ squirrels.

One class feature that should have become a spell a while ago is Turn Undead.

[strangebloke]

I'm going to disagree about Find Steed. 3E's paladin steed feature was a bad idea even on the scale of 3E's bad ideas. Making it a spell instead lets paladins summon magical mounts if they feel like it, but also means they can ignore it if they don't. A class feature is more difficult to ignore than a spell and will feel as though you're wasting part of your class.

Spells that should be class features feel like they cover something central to the class' identity to the point where you can reasonably expect it to use it every session or almost so - like a warlock is going to be blasting away with Eldritch Blast every combat, rangers will use Hunter's Mark and so on. Someone playing a paladin might not necessarily want to have to deal with its being "the mount class", not to mention the impracticality of using mounts in the game's eponymous environment.

It would be easier if spells weren't the game's only source of modular abilities that aren't locked in from level 1-3 (class/subclass features) or severely restricted (feats), but that ship sailed a while ago.
Considering that the paladin knows his whole spell list, the only reason not to use find steed is if you're actively trying to avoid it, or you literally never have a spare 2nd level slot. (arguably, this is a problem with the paladin and the paladin should have the same restrictions as everyone else.)

I can see the argument for making it optional and there are a few more examples (the battlemaster) but as you say that hsip sailed a long time ago.

The point would be to spread it out without relying on certain spell casting combos to take the bulk which already favors those who have better spell progression in both the level and quality of slots. The battlesmith is a good example of what I mean. It's a small amount for a feature at lv 9 but it is also one of the best as far as action economy goes and isn't fueled by spell casting.LOH for paladins. It's a mediocre sized pool of healing but it's adjustable to prevent waste and has other recovery benefits. The Mercy monk has a nice steady growth and eventually gets 2 heals per ki which isn't gonna take the shear HP recovery a life cleric can put out but it's a lot more interesting than "if you have healing word/AoV available on your spell list you should memorize/prepare it."
Hm, I can see the argument here. Healing word, AoV, and healing spirit all cover most of the utility felt by healing.

I doubt locking more spells into class features will really solve much, feels like a very roundabout way of addressing the (and I'm assuming here) underlying problems either with the power of those spells or with the identity of the class.

I'd rather broaden the scope than narrow it, for example allowing Warlock invocations work with other cantrips. I see no reason Chill Touch or Sword Burst couldn't/shouldn't benefit from Agonising Blast, Repelling Blast, etc.

If a spell is so good it's a must-take (Find Familiar), then you nerf it to bring it in line with the baseline the same way you would buff a crappy spell (Witch Bolt). Establishing and measuring against that baseline is often very difficult though.
I have mixed feelings on this. For something like Eldritch blast, the problem isn't that its too strong per se, its that it combines too well with too many other things. It's charisma-based so it works for many classes, it gives you a multiplier for on-hit damage boosters (like hex, agonizing blast, hexblade's curse). You can make warlocks intelligence-based and take the piss out of multiclassing... for everyone except EKs, ATs, and wizards. You can make chill touch be effected by Agonizing Blast but most people still wouldn't take it.

nerfing something like Find familiar or Find Steed also feels wrong, as I quite like those features as they are, its just weird that they're class features without being class features.


Fully agree with EB being made a class feature, or at the very least Agonising Blast. Against all odds I have a player that spams EB but has not taken agonising blast because they don't want it. I can safely say that all choice is an illusion and EB/agonising blast is compulsory on warlocks.
Its really annoying how AB just feels like an invocation tax.

The counterargument is that people might deliberately avoid it to focus on support or melee, which... well, I'm pretty sure that's just not a good idea, which is sort of the problem. We're never achieving 'balance' or anything like it but imo there should be a reason to play something a bit different.


I don't really mind whether find greater steed is a go-to 10th level bard spell. I've DMed it, it wasn't overpowered, and I certainly don't think bards would be as good at using it as a 13th level paladin. I'm also happy with all the other spells mentioned - even hunter's mark and find familiar. I agree find familiar is strong, and it's an instant pick with ritual caster, but it feels like the only reason find familiar is considered too strong is because us DMs are kind to the familiar in combat and don't just let it die whenever there's any kind of AoE effect.

On the flipside, I actually think there are a few class features that should be made into spells. i posted a thread a while back that was literally just the beastmaster's animal companion as a Find Steed spell that scaled with Ranger levels - I'd personally much prefer that to the current thing where only one subclass can have an animal friend and all other rangers are lonely. I imagine I'm in the minority though lol

yeah I'm fine with bards, to be clear. I brought it up in the OP as a discussion point. I think I'm coming around on Find Steed as a spell as well. As for rangers, I think if anything that's less problematic because Rangers are limited to spells known and thus can at least sort-of-justifiably avoid that feature if they want to.

[Pex]

Or it can stay a spell and let any paladin use it if they want to. Paladin subclasses are based around their oaths and ideals, not around whether or not they have a steed. What precisely is the reasoning behind making it a class or subclass feature?

So that other classes don't use it. It would be considered a feature a bard can't take it with Magical Secrets. It's a feature only warlocks have Eldritch Blast and even then it's based on warlock level not character level in how it works. The spell is considered iconic to the class, whether it was an old feature made into a spell or a 5E spell shown to be taken by almost every character of said class. Perhaps it's thematically appropriate, though that is subjective but rather the point in expressing one's opinion of the matter.



It's almost as if 4E's design had an actual purpose to it, which was a reaction to real problems. Crazy thought.

There's nothing wrong or hypocritical to say 4E had some good ideas even when one disagrees with or hates the implementation of it.

[Thunderous Mojo]

One class feature that should have become a spell a while ago is Turn Undead.

I'm afraid I don't agree...Turn Undead, as an effect, exceeds what 5e would allow a 1st level spell to be able to do.

Turn Undead- The Spell, would be a 1st level spell that does not require Concentration nor requires Line of Sight, within a range of 30'.

Being able to potentially add the Heighten, Careful, Extend, or Distant Metamagic effects could make Turn Undead- The Spell,
even more powerful.

[KorvinStarmast]

One class feature that should have become a spell a while ago is Turn Undead. Naah. Turn Undead is *the* iconic cleric feature going back to the original game. You got it before you could even cast spells. Yeah, you had to wait for 2d level to cast a spell, but you could turn undead on your first day at the office.
It was a bit disorienting to me, in 5e, to have to wait for level 2 to turn undead, but that's where they chose to put the Channel Divinity class feature. :smallyuk:
Also: what Thunderous Mojo said. :smallsmile:

[Morty]

Considering that the paladin knows his whole spell list, the only reason not to use find steed is if you're actively trying to avoid it, or you literally never have a spare 2nd level slot. (arguably, this is a problem with the paladin and the paladin should have the same restrictions as everyone else.)

I can see the argument for making it optional and there are a few more examples (the battlemaster) but as you say that hsip sailed a long time ago.

You're right that I did underestimate how easy it is to cast the spell. Still - you do need to prepare the spell and prepare it again if you run into a place where your mount can't follow you. Then again, you can leave it behind same as your mundane flesh and blood horse... either way, I don't really see how making it a class feature helps. It's not as central to the paladin as eldritch blast is to warlock or even how hunter's mark is to ranger.


So that other classes don't use it. It would be considered a feature a bard can't take it with Magical Secrets. It's a feature only warlocks have Eldritch Blast and even then it's based on warlock level not character level in how it works. The spell is considered iconic to the class, whether it was an old feature made into a spell or a 5E spell shown to be taken by almost every character of said class. Perhaps it's thematically appropriate, though that is subjective but rather the point in expressing one's opinion of the matter.

I agree about Eldritch Blast and I've never said otherwise. It is central to warlocks to the point where it should be a class feature. I'm talking about Find Steed specifically. It doesn't somehow threaten the paladin's identity if a bard can also learn how to summon a magical mount. Nor does every paladin need to have a special mount. Or even every paladin of a particular subclass.


I'm afraid I don't agree...Turn Undead, as an effect, exceeds what 5e would allow a 1st level spell to be able to do.

Turn Undead- The Spell, would be a 1st level spell that does not require Concentration nor requires Line of Sight, within a range of 30'.

Being able to potentially add the Heighten, Careful, Extend, or Distant Metamagic effects could make Turn Undead- The Spell,
even more powerful.

I'm not talking about a straight translation. I just don't see why "make undead run away" is so important that it's a class feature and not a spell.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I'm not talking about a straight translation. I just don't see why "make undead run away" is so important that it's a class feature and not a spell.

It's not necessarily "so important", but it is iconic. There's smite spells, but paladins still get Divine Smite because it's also an iconic ability.

[Thunderous Mojo]

I'm not talking about a straight translation. I just don't see why "make undead run away" is so important that it's a class feature and not a spell.
One could certainly make a spell that functions similarly to Turn Undead. I have no inherent conceptional objection to spells to the proposal.

The 3rd level Fear spell essentially does just this, only it affects all creatures.

I, in a role of a DM, would be fine with a player created : "Fear to the Undead spell"..that essentially operates like the Fear spell, but Targets only the Undead, doesn't inflict the Frightened condition, and requires the Targets to move on a failed Saving Throw.

[Man_Over_Game]

Its an idea often floated that certain spells are essentially class features and that this is a problem because of the inevitable cross pollution of spell lists. Its no good to have a signature feature of a class be something universally accessible. Perhaps an exception could be made for features like the bard's arcane secrets, or subclasses that intentionally grant a class access to a powerful option that they normally wouldn't have... But between feats like magic initiate and ritual caster and magic initiate and 1st level dips (which, granted, is a problem all its) I can see the argument. Overall I'm conflicted. On the one hand I like the idea of a fighter with ritual caster picking up ritual caster and getting a familiar. On the other hand hand easy access to something like hex and eldritch blast off the basis of a single feat feels cheesy and unflavorful for classes that would want to do it.

My questions are
(1)to what extent do people think this is actually a problem?

and

(2) If it is a problem, which spells are the primary culprits?


Just to start discussion I was able to think of the following spells that people normally bring up, ordered from most troublesome to least.

eldritch blast
find familiar
find (greater) steed
guidance
hex
hunter's mark



I'd like to include the Paladin Smite spells to the list. They're almost completely redundant to the Paladin's Divine Smite, and both the feature and the spells could be streamlined to just work a bit better.

For instance, you could have a number of Paladin Smite features you tack on to your Divine Smite that require a minimum spell slot level, and just tune down the damage of Divine Smite to a d6. That fixes most of the complaints people have about the Smite spells while also making Divine Smite more than just another MOAR DAMAGE feature. It wouldn't be any more confusing, especially since it means you're now trimming away a lot of unnecessary rules from spell descriptions to force them all to use the same foundations through Divine Smite. We'd just memorize the few, small differences between Smites, like how we do with Battlemaster Maneuvers.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I'd like to include the Paladin Smite spells to the list. They're almost completely redundant to the Paladin's Divine Smite, and both the feature and the spells could be streamlined to just work a bit better.

For instance, you could have a number of Paladin Smite features you tack on to your Divine Smite that require a minimum spell slot level, and just tune down the damage of Divine Smite to a 1d6. That fixes most of the complaints people have about the Smite spells while also making Divine Smite more than just another MOAR DAMAGE feature. It wouldn't be any more confusing, especially since it means you're now trimming away a lot of unnecessary rules from spell descriptions to force them all to use the same foundations through Divine Smite.

Actually, something that would have been cool was if each smite spell was instead a Channel Divinity, or something else unique to each subclass. Give Paladin the boring base Divine Smite, and customize based on Oath.

[strangebloke]

I'd like to include the Paladin Smite spells to the list. They're almost completely redundant to the Paladin's Divine Smite, and both the feature and the spells could be streamlined to just work a bit better.

For instance, you could have a number of Paladin Smite features you tack on to your Divine Smite that require a minimum spell slot level, and just tune down the damage of Divine Smite to a 1d6. That fixes most of the complaints people have about the Smite spells while also making Divine Smite more than just another MOAR DAMAGE feature. It wouldn't be any more confusing, especially since it means you're now trimming away a lot of unnecessary rules from spell descriptions to force them all to use the same foundations through Divine Smite.

Would you do that for the ranger's strike spells as well? Ensnaring Strike, Zephyr Strike etc. They're pretty much the same thing, just with a different name

[PhoenixPhyre]

Actually, something that would have been cool was if each smite spell was instead a Channel Divinity, or something else unique to each subclass. Give Paladin the boring base Divine Smite, and customize based on Oath.

I've actually had an idea (never fleshed out or attempted) to basically do the following:

Paladins no longer cast spells from spell slots. Instead, they have a pool of smite dice equal to the amount of extra damage they'd do if they burned all their spell slots on normal (non-crit) smites. Subclasses would get things like
* Cast spells, using smite dice as ersatz spell points.
* Add X rider to your smites
* burn smite dice defensively (for yourself or others)
* etc.

And then clerics would be the ones who get the smite spells, making a difference between the clerics, who are obligate spellcasters and paladins, who can back-door into spell-casting but are the natural smiters.

A side effect (feature in my mind, but I'm sure others disagree) is breaking the sorcadin monopoly. Since you can't burn spell slots to smite any more, that's way less efficient.

NB: I've never gone down this path more than just to think "what if". I have no plans to actually implement anything like this in game. For one thing, way too much work involved.

[Man_Over_Game]

Would you do that for the ranger's strike spells as well? Ensnaring Strike, Zephyr Strike etc. They're pretty much the same thing, just with a different name

Those don't all have the same functionality, though. All of the Paladin smite spells function as:

Concentration for the buff, deal extra damage on your next melee weapon attack, target makes a save or they suffer some kind of negative effect. You can easily summarize that into a single feature and then just have different spell smites that require a minimum spell slot requirement for the bonus effects.

However, Zephyr Strike is a self-buff while Ensnaring Strike requires a target.

I would have liked to see the Ranger getting equal treatment and having its spells be streamlined into a class feature, I'm just not sure how that's going to happen when we're trying to match Ensnaring Strike, Zephyr Strike, and Hunter's Mark all by the same rules.

On the flipside, I could get behind the idea that Rangers cast spells on themselves while Paladins cast spells on enemies, but that actually runs contrary to what we'd expect between the thematical archetypes of Melee + Healing + Aura Warrior vs. Hunter that leverages an enemy's weaknesses.

Ideally, the Paladin should be using buffs and the Ranger should be using smites, which coincidentally lines up with the fact that Smite-like effects get more value from ranged attacks and buffs get more value on someone with a high CON and AC, but alas nothing is going to be perfect.


[EDIT] After thinking about it, I just realized I described the ideal Ranger as the Arcane Archer, with a bunch of extra steps. Maybe a smidge less "Arcane", though.

[KorvinStarmast]

As I dig through some old books, I find that smite didn't show up as a skill or class feature until AD&D 2e, for a priest of level 15 or higher. :smalleek: (Hmm, need to check on if that is actually considered a "2.5e" thing or not. )

It appears that it was in 3e that smite/paladin became a thing.
I guess that "iconic" may be informed by when you entered the hobby in terms of associating a feature with a class. (Mark Hall mentioned the druid features from 1e as an example a page or so back).

I find the smite spells underwhelming until you get to banishing smite.
That one's pretty good.

As a side note: The DM Option Book (High level Adventures) from AD&D 2e has some very good advice for high level games (Which I'd call any game that goes beyond name level in that edition, so 11+) and of the Seven Maxims one of the first is "don't rely in the dice" - give the characters / players adventures and challenges

...that require them to think rather than roll dice - complex political struggles, mysteries, puzzles, and the like challenge the players directly...present the players with situations that make them search for new ways to use t heir characters' abilities...do not try to eliminate dice rolling altogether, however. Everyone likes to trash something once in a while, and players expect to be able to do something with their high level characters' new found powers. The key is to not allow the PCs to become so dominant that every situation descends into a die rolling extravaganza where the only fun involved is determining the number of casualties the party can create in one round... It's got a nice bundle of good advice for DMs in general, but as we've discussed features and spells, I wonder at what level of play the question is directed?

High level play has some quirks in this edition, as it does in other editions, and I've seen them crop up in both of the Tier 3 campaigns I've been involved with. The 7 maxims are still good advice.

And as I look through the list of class features in tiers 3 and 4, I see once again that the quality of features is all over the map. (Bard's 20th level feature compared to a Paladin's capstone being but one example)

[Man_Over_Game]

As I dig through some old books, I find that smite didn't show up as a skill or class feature until AD&D 2e, for a priest of level 15 or higher. :smalleek:

It appears that it was in 3e that smite/paladin became a thing.
I guess that "iconic" may be informed by when you entered the hobby in terms of associating a feature with a class. (Mark Hall mentioned the druid features from 1e as an example a page or so back).

I find the smite spells underwhelming until you get to banishing smite.
That one's pretty good.

I agree, most of them are not worth learning, considering the bonus effects they provide aren't worth the Concentration or the risk of missing, when Divine Smite both doesn't miss and it deals more upfront damage. They're like the least-cast combat spells in the game. They don't even scale all that well, only increasing the base damage by 1d6 per spell slot whereas Divine Smite increases by another 1d8.

[LibraryOgre]

Thinking about Healing, Turn Undead, and Clerics...

Pathfinder kind of did this.

So, the Cure Wounds spells are available to a lot of classes, right? But Pathfinder clerics have a couple advantages as healers over, say, a Druid.

1) Spontaneously cast Cure Spells from other spells. While Bards and Inquisitors spont Cure spells, too, druids and alchemists do not. This makes clerics a more versatile caster
2) Channel Positive Energy. Instead of just turning undead, clerics have a choice... they can either channel a lot of positive energy to heal nearby living creatures, or use it to harm undead in the radius. Since they can heal their allies with it, all at once, this makes them superior healers, while keeping some measure of the Turn Undead ability.

[KorvinStarmast]

They're like the least-cast combat spells in the game. They don't even scale all that well, only increasing the base damage by 1d6 per spell slot whereas Divine Smite increases by another 1d8. They are, IMO, better applied while to cast on yourself and on your mount (due to that class feature) and then the two of you attack separately so that the effect procs twice.

And that may require a DM ruling to implement ... see here for a detailed treatment on that (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/62330/22566).

[Man_Over_Game]

Thinking about Healing, Turn Undead, and Clerics...

Pathfinder kind of did this.

So, the Cure Wounds spells are available to a lot of classes, right? But Pathfinder clerics have a couple advantages as healers over, say, a Druid.

1) Spontaneously cast Cure Spells from other spells. While Bards and Inquisitors spont Cure spells, too, druids and alchemists do not. This makes clerics a more versatile caster
2) Channel Positive Energy. Instead of just turning undead, clerics have a choice... they can either channel a lot of positive energy to heal nearby living creatures, or use it to harm undead in the radius. Since they can heal their allies with it, all at once, this makes them superior healers, while keeping some measure of the Turn Undead ability.

4e did something similar. Each character had a number of Healing Surges that they could spend between fights to recover some HP, while healers could spend those Healing Surges mid-combat for better effects. Different healers could pull Healing Surges from different sources, either spending their own Healing Surges to heal allies, spending the ally's Healing Surges to use a healing ability on them, or even being able to pull healing surges from an ally to heal a different ally (I think the psionic healer did this, can't confirm at the moment).

It was an interesting solution to our equivalent to the Healing Spirit problem of making healing too accessible.

[Pex]

As I dig through some old books, I find that smite didn't show up as a skill or class feature until AD&D 2e, for a priest of level 15 or higher. :smalleek: (Hmm, need to check on if that is actually considered a "2.5e" thing or not. )

It appears that it was in 3e that smite/paladin became a thing.
I guess that "iconic" may be informed by when you entered the hobby in terms of associating a feature with a class. (Mark Hall mentioned the druid features from 1e as an example a page or so back).

I find the smite spells underwhelming until you get to banishing smite.
That one's pretty good.

As a side note: The DM Option Book (High level Adventures) from AD&D 2e has some very good advice for high level games (Which I'd call any game that goes beyond name level in that edition, so 11+) and of the Seven Maxims one of the first is "don't rely in the dice" - give the characters / players adventures and challenges
It's got a nice bundle of good advice for DMs in general, but as we've discussed features and spells, I wonder at what level of play the question is directed?

High level play has some quirks in this edition, as it does in other editions, and I've seen them crop up in both of the Tier 3 campaigns I've been involved with. The 7 maxims are still good advice.

And as I look through the list of class features in tiers 3 and 4, I see once again that the quality of features is all over the map. (Bard's 20th level feature compared to a Paladin's capstone being but one example)

There is argument to debate when something was given to a class to make it iconic by means of tradition, but perhaps something can be iconic by means of Wow Cool! such that despite whenever it was given to a class it was the absolute perfect thing to do to take it away is horrific.

[KorvinStarmast]

There is argument to debate when something was given to a class to make it iconic by means of tradition, but perhaps something can be iconic by means of Wow Cool! such that despite whenever it was given to a class it was the absolute perfect thing to do to take it away is horrific. For sure, when a good design choice is made, why not double down! :smallsmile:
I think that the Paladin+Smite fusion as iconic is a well grounded stance to take - I think it resonated with the whole player base once people saw it in play. It feels right.

We are 20+ years into that, so I'll roll with it. It's also a feature of D&D 5e paladin that I particularly like. What was digging at me was "when did this come into the game?" and I was a bit surprised to find it in a high level cleric first.

[Pex]

Thinking about Healing, Turn Undead, and Clerics...

Pathfinder kind of did this.

So, the Cure Wounds spells are available to a lot of classes, right? But Pathfinder clerics have a couple advantages as healers over, say, a Druid.

1) Spontaneously cast Cure Spells from other spells. While Bards and Inquisitors spont Cure spells, too, druids and alchemists do not. This makes clerics a more versatile caster
2) Channel Positive Energy. Instead of just turning undead, clerics have a choice... they can either channel a lot of positive energy to heal nearby living creatures, or use it to harm undead in the radius. Since they can heal their allies with it, all at once, this makes them superior healers, while keeping some measure of the Turn Undead ability.

Controversially, Pathfinder made Turn Undead a feat. What they did was make the base Channel Energy do damage to undead. Those who prefer this do so because 1) Undead might not be so prevalent in a campaign why have a class feature you hardly use, and/or 2) Turned Undead can just come back later to bother the party all you did was buy time. That time could be important, but you still need to deal with those undead anyway upon your return trip if you need to make one, such as out of a dungeon when you're done with it.

[Man_Over_Game]

There is argument to debate when something was given to a class to make it iconic by means of tradition, but perhaps something can be iconic by means of Wow Cool! such that despite whenever it was given to a class it was the absolute perfect thing to do to take it away is horrific.

I think we've moved past that, though. The DnD worldbuilding is worse than its ever been, most folks aren't running things that are anywhere near canon in the 5e/DnD universe. That means that there is less of a priority on making things fit what Old DnD used to be.

For instance, I'd be willing to bet that if they just took away schools and replaced the Wizard subclasses with stuff that fits more of a "theme", nobody would bat an eye.

Nobody's complaining about Paladins having Smites, but they don't exactly fit very well, do they? Why is the Healing Holy Warrior, with the party-buffing auras, also one that kills things instantly with a single strike? If that was changed, nobody would notice.

I do agree that too much culture shock can create a toxic player perspective of the game (See: 4th Edition), but I think that's just because it didn't match player expectations of what people wanted out of "The Edition that came out after 3.5".

They just need to match player expectations. Smiting isn't really something we expect on our Paladins, so I think it's safe to get rid of. Although I could be projecting here.


We expect Monks to be interesting outside of combat, and we expect Rangers to make the wilderness interesting, and coincidentally neither of those things happen and they're both the biggest complaints folks have about those classes.

[KorvinStarmast]

Controversially, Pathfinder made Turn Undead a feat. What they did was make the base Channel Energy do damage to undead. Those who prefer this do so because 1) Undead might not be so prevalent in a campaign why have a class feature you hardly use, and/or 2) Turned Undead can just come back later to bother the party all you did was buy time. That time could be important, but you still need to deal with those undead anyway upon your return trip if you need to make one, such as out of a dungeon when you're done with it. Have not played PF, so I won't comment beyond saying that it seems like a reasonable variation on the theme of the divine power doing something to the undead.

[Kuulvheysoon]

...

Nobody's complaining about Paladins having Smites, but they don't exactly fit very well, do they? Why is the Healing Holy Warrior, with the party-buffing auras, also one that kills things instantly with a single strike? If that was changed, nobody would notice.

...

They just need to match player expectations. Smiting isn't really something we expect on our Paladins, so I think it's safe to get rid of. Although I could be projecting here.

...

I would definitely disagree with you here. It might not have been an ability that Paladins had in 2E, but for the past 20 years it has been an iconic Paladin ability. If we had to lose something from the base Paladin chassis, I'd rather lose the auras; to me, those are less iconic to the Paladin.

Now, do I feel like it should apply to any attack that it wants to make? Less so. Back in the (iconic) days, it only applied to Evil creatures, and that was reflected by the bonus damage in 5E to Fiends and Undead. Given the HP inflation combined with removing a lot of the extreme damage-dealers of 3.5E, I'm actually fine with the change.

[KorvinStarmast]

Nobody's complaining about Paladins having Smites, but they don't exactly fit very well, do they?
Actually, it fits very well. :smallwink: Let's not pigeonhole a paladin into a healbot warrior and buffer. (Though that's been with them for a long time, and for sure in games like WoW or Diablo).

In a game where a lot of fiends and undead are resistant to normal damage, the added radiant damage from the Paladin fits the paladin holy warrior theme nicely. And it's underpowered as compared to what the original Paladin could do.

Paladins are not themselves subject to disease. They have a 10% higher saving throw against all forms of attack (excluding melee). Paladins of 8th level and above dispel evil (spells, undead, evil enchanted monsters, and the like) simply by ordering it hence, and they detect all evil at a range of 6". {60'} Paladins with any form of "Holy Sword" are virtually immune to all magic (see MONSTERS & TREASURE, MAGIC & TREASURE, Swords). While the "ordering in hence" might be more like the turn undead feature, dispelling undead => destroys them, so it was a destructive power. The smite feature in WoTC era is consistent with that theme, is more concise and is better quantified as an approach. And it's universally applicable to any monster not immune to radiant damage.


We expect Monks to be interesting outside of combat, and we expect Rangers to make survival interesting, and coincidentally neither of those two things happen and they're both the biggest complaints folks have about those classes. My monks don't have problems out side of combat. The Alexandrian had a recent article on how the exploration pillar can be better applied, and having played both a hunter and gloom stalker ranger I find the never ending shade throwing on rangers to be groundless.

@Kuulvheysoon
Paladin auras go back to the beginning, but, and this is a big but, it was tied to having a holy sword.

Holy Sword +5. As a Holy Sword this weapon will display its true worth only in the hands of a Paladin. Wielded by a Paladin it negates all spells (including wands and staves and the like) in a radius of 1", thus making the Paladin virtually magic-proof. I like how it was implemented in 5e: you don't need an item to activate it.

I do not disagree with your point on the limited creature types that smiting was originally directed at, but since it got tied to that clunky alignment implementation, I am glad that for this edition those were decoupled.
The D&D based paladin has taken on a life of its own as can be seen in a number of other game forms.

PS: not every Diablo II paladin was a hammerdin. Really! :smallbiggrin:

[Kuulvheysoon]

@Kuulvheysoon
Paladin auras go back to the beginning, but, and this is a big but, it was tied to having a holy sword.
I like how it was implemented in 5e: you don't need an item to activate it.

I do not disagree with your point on the limited creature types that smiting was originally directed at, but since it got tied to that clunky alignment implementation, I am glad that for this edition those were decoupled.
The D&D based paladin has taken on a life of its own as can be seen in a number of other game forms.:

No, we're absolutely on the same page. I don't think that we need to get rid of any base paladin abilities, I was just saying that if we had to, I'd be most fine with losing the auras. Besides, the Holy Avenger still grants that aura bonus, so we wouldn't be losing anything over 2E if we tossed it.

I actually like the current bonus damage diagnosis system a lot better now as well. It's more thematic, imo, that the bonus damage only apply to Fiends and Undead, the (traditionally) Irredeemably Evil foes that they can face. Humanoids can be evil, sure, but there's always the chance for Redemption. They're not Evil, after all. (I kinda changed my mind halfway through the post and didn't bother to adjust the first half :smallredface: )

[Morty]

Controversially, Pathfinder made Turn Undead a feat. What they did was make the base Channel Energy do damage to undead. Those who prefer this do so because 1) Undead might not be so prevalent in a campaign why have a class feature you hardly use, and/or 2) Turned Undead can just come back later to bother the party all you did was buy time. That time could be important, but you still need to deal with those undead anyway upon your return trip if you need to make one, such as out of a dungeon when you're done with it.

Some people also realize it doesn't make a lot of sense for all clerics to be able to turn undead, regardless of which god they serve and why.

[LibraryOgre]

Controversially, Pathfinder made Turn Undead a feat. What they did was make the base Channel Energy do damage to undead. Those who prefer this do so because 1) Undead might not be so prevalent in a campaign why have a class feature you hardly use, and/or 2) Turned Undead can just come back later to bother the party all you did was buy time. That time could be important, but you still need to deal with those undead anyway upon your return trip if you need to make one, such as out of a dungeon when you're done with it.

Funnily enough, not being familiar with Pathfinder (aside from the Kingmaker video game), I was just thinking how Turn Undead would be a good modification to channel energy... inflicting some sort of shaken/fear effect on any undead that takes damage.

[Theodoxus]

Actually, something that would have been cool was if each smite spell was instead a Channel Divinity, or something else unique to each subclass. Give Paladin the boring base Divine Smite, and customize based on Oath.

Yet another 4th-ism. Channel Divinity is all over the place, in both Cleric and Paladin, different levels, different domains all providing options. When I was incorporating a lot of 4E into my 4/5 hybrid, I was kinda shocked how many CDs there were.


I've actually had an idea (never fleshed out or attempted) to basically do the following:

Paladins no longer cast spells from spell slots. Instead, they have a pool of smite dice equal to the amount of extra damage they'd do if they burned all their spell slots on normal (non-crit) smites. Subclasses would get things like
* Cast spells, using smite dice as ersatz spell points.
* Add X rider to your smites
* burn smite dice defensively (for yourself or others)
* etc.

And then clerics would be the ones who get the smite spells, making a difference between the clerics, who are obligate spellcasters and paladins, who can back-door into spell-casting but are the natural smiters.

A side effect (feature in my mind, but I'm sure others disagree) is breaking the sorcadin monopoly. Since you can't burn spell slots to smite any more, that's way less efficient.

NB: I've never gone down this path more than just to think "what if". I have no plans to actually implement anything like this in game. For one thing, way too much work involved.

I actually really like this idea (though after my ranting on half-casters, I might have to expand it to Ranger and Artificer as well...) I'll muck around with it, see if I can't get something fleshed out.


Controversially, Pathfinder made Turn Undead a feat. What they did was make the base Channel Energy do damage to undead. Those who prefer this do so because 1) Undead might not be so prevalent in a campaign why have a class feature you hardly use, and/or 2) Turned Undead can just come back later to bother the party all you did was buy time. That time could be important, but you still need to deal with those undead anyway upon your return trip if you need to make one, such as out of a dungeon when you're done with it.

5E's TU is so weaksauce, I've never actually seen it used in game. By the level you could effectively turn (much less destroy), it's faster to just burn through them instead of turning. So, I appreciate that TU is part of CD, and every domain has something kinda useful to use CD on. But as above, more optional CDs would be great.


Some people also realize it doesn't make a lot of sense for all clerics to be able to turn undead, regardless of which god they serve and why.

Yeah, there's that too. I kinda miss the Turn/Command dichotomy of elder editions. And then things like Arcana domain's affecting elementals... that should probably be a replacement, not an additional option, but then CD/TU becomes more complex than the devs wanted (via playtesters, I'm sure) [minirant]

[Man_Over_Game]

I would definitely disagree with you here. It might not have been an ability that Paladins had in 2E, but for the past 20 years it has been an iconic Paladin ability. If we had to lose something from the base Paladin chassis, I'd rather lose the auras; to me, those are less iconic to the Paladin.

I guess I always perceived the Paladin concept as a tanky support. I'm not against the idea that they're zealous, melee assassins of light (The 4e Avenger was exactly like this, and is where we got the current version of the Vengeance Paladin), it just feels like a completely separate entity.

I will say that doing so does a lot to separate them from Clerics, though. Theming Paladins as slayers for the light certainly makes them feel a lot more unique than they are now, and it kina lines up with the other Charisma casters that they regularly multiclass with (Warlocks + Sorcerers).

Although I'm starting to think that I'm the odd man out on this topic.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I actually really like this idea (though after my ranting on half-casters, I might have to expand it to Ranger and Artificer as well...) I'll muck around with it, see if I can't get something fleshed out.


I'd be fine with extending it to the other half-casters.

[Zevox]

Nobody's complaining about Paladins having Smites, but they don't exactly fit very well, do they? Why is the Healing Holy Warrior, with the party-buffing auras, also one that kills things instantly with a single strike? If that was changed, nobody would notice.
[...]
They just need to match player expectations. Smiting isn't really something we expect on our Paladins, so I think it's safe to get rid of. Although I could be projecting here.
I don't know who this "we" is that you think don't expect Paladins to smite things, but it definitely doesn't include me. The whole basic idea of the Paladin is "holy warrior," with a strong implication that they're out there to fight the forces of evil, and Smiting is kind of perfect for that. Take that away from the Paladin and I will definitely notice, and ask "what the heck were they smoking when they made that decision?"

[KorvinStarmast]

I guess I always perceived the Paladin concept as a tanky support. That's a video-gamism. The paladin began as The Best Fighter You Could Be (If only you rolled high enough to qualify for the class). WoTC era structural changes (which allow you to be any class at the beginning) made a profound change in how quite a few classes got implemented.

[Tanarii]

It's not necessarily "so important", but it is iconic. There's smite spells, but paladins still get Divine Smite because it's also an iconic ability.Agreed, it's not important any more. It used to be very important, because undead didn't run away. It was somewhere between possible and trivial to win most fights by routing the enemy in TSR D&D. But not undead. They didn't break. That's what made them among the most dangerous enemies, even at very low levels, even before they started getting all sorts of nasty special effects.

Skeletons and Zombies aren't particularly scarier than Goblins and Orcs in 5e. So iconic it is.

[Kane0]

Any chance to get a link to that thread? Find steed as a ranger spell that has an "at higher level feature" to get the beast companion seems a fine idea. (I can see a high level ranger mounted on a giant scorpion or an alosaurus ... hehe)

Sorry I cant seem to dig up the post, IIRC it started as a PM that probably got cleaned from my inbox.

But I do have the end result


Find Companion
2nd-level Conjuration
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Instantaneous

You summon a spirit that assumes the form of an animal. Choose a beast that is of large size or smaller and that has a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the companion has the statistics of the chosen form.
Your companion acts independently of you on your initiative, but it always obeys your commands.
When within 100 feet you can communicate with your companion telepathically, and when you cast a spell with a range of self you can choose to touch your companion to also target them with that spell.
As an action, you can dismiss your companion permanently.
A companion that drops to 0 hit points disappears, leaving behind no physical form.
While you have your companion, you cannot recover the spell slot used to summon it.
If you cast this spell while you already have a companion, you instead restore your companion to its hit point maximum and can cause it to adopt a new form that meets the same requirements above.
At Higher Levels: If you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the companion is up to CR 1/2. If you use a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the companion is up to CR 1. If you use a spell slot of 5th level or higher, the companion is up to CR 2.


Edit: found something from 2016 which may have been the inception point
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?480501-Animal-Companion-Spell-First-Draft-PEACH

[Pex]

I think we've moved past that, though. The DnD worldbuilding is worse than its ever been, most folks aren't running things that are anywhere near canon in the 5e/DnD universe. That means that there is less of a priority on making things fit what Old DnD used to be.

For instance, I'd be willing to bet that if they just took away schools and replaced the Wizard subclasses with stuff that fits more of a "theme", nobody would bat an eye.

Nobody's complaining about Paladins having Smites, but they don't exactly fit very well, do they? Why is the Healing Holy Warrior, with the party-buffing auras, also one that kills things instantly with a single strike? If that was changed, nobody would notice.

I do agree that too much culture shock can create a toxic player perspective of the game (See: 4th Edition), but I think that's just because it didn't match player expectations of what people wanted out of "The Edition that came out after 3.5".

They just need to match player expectations. Smiting isn't really something we expect on our Paladins, so I think it's safe to get rid of. Although I could be projecting here.


We expect Monks to be interesting outside of combat, and we expect Rangers to make the wilderness interesting, and coincidentally neither of those things happen and they're both the biggest complaints folks have about those classes.

I disagree in the general, but there are exceptions. 4E took away a lot of tradition, and there was major backlash. It wasn't just a rules change thing. 2E changed rules from 1E. 3E changed rules from 2E. There was flak because it was inevitable what was changed was someone's favorite thing, but not as much as in 4E where it was everything. When 5E was in playtest people were yelling clerics didn't have Turn Undead. 5E has many rules different from 3E, but it won back the 3E players who were lost from 4E. However, there already exists a D&D thing that was phased out. It's not gone completely, but people barely notice. Alignment. It's proven that it's possible for a D&D Thing to go away, but it's not trivial to dismiss any thought of "no, THAT stays".

[Tanarii]

However, there already exists a D&D thing that was phased out. It's not gone completely, but people barely notice. Alignment. It's proven that it's possible for a D&D Thing to go away, but it's not trivial to dismiss any thought of "no, THAT stays".
It's not gone at all. It's the most useful version of D&D Alignment to date, because it was integrated into a larger personality system.

[Aimeryan]

A pretty solid no to this entire line of thinking. Mark Hall's point on how it pigeon holes various classes or builds is where I am coming from, while the proposal you outline prevents the very flavorful use of Domain and Circle spells from other classes from adding the extra depth that they do. (Things like Hunters Mark as a paladin oath of vengeance spell being a good example).

If you want certain features and spells gated by class, don't allow multiclassing - which is a variant/optional rule - and you have solved your problem.

This, to be honest. A hard-no on picking and mixing features would be a hard-no-not-playing from me. Well, either that or play a Wizard.

The problem for me is not being able to dip into classes/feats, the problem is when there is little incentive to stay in a class - either the main class or the dip. Take for example, Warlock; by level 3 you have most all their goodies, the rest of the levels are mostly caster progression, and Wizard just does that better if that is what you want - dipping occurs here because the incentive to carry on is much diminished. Similarly, most all martials are let down by their post-11 features to the extent that sticking with the class just isn't interesting. This is the problem you need to fix, not making early levels in classes uninteresting.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Some people also realize it doesn't make a lot of sense for all clerics to be able to turn undead, regardless of which god they serve and why.

We had this period..it was called 2e...for a time many people played Speciality Priests that did not have Turn Undead.

It was a time of rationality and reason, until the zombies took over. The zombies ate TSR, and turned the company into a zombie publishing house and then after years of terror, 3e came and restored Turn Dead which restored enough balance for people to forget the past.......(pretty sure that is exactly how history went down🃏)

Morty, have you played 2e AD&D?....you might enjoy it....a different style of class abilities....and a huge catalogue of spells....and everybody eventually gets an army of 0 to 200 Followers. 🍻

Korvin...in what book do AD&D clerics get a Smite Power? It is not the base PHB...is it one of the Powers and Skills books from circa 1995? The Tempest Specialty Priest?

[Kane0]

Id really like my paladins to keep smites as a class ability please. Im happy with some being spells too, to share the smiting around.

[Morty]

Morty, have you played 2e AD&D?....you might enjoy it....a different style of class abilities....and a huge catalogue of spells....and everybody eventually gets an army of 0 to 200 Followers. 🍻


I've only played the Infinity Engine games, but AD&D isn't for me at all, for a variety of reasons. That all classes get followers is part of the reason; I don't like hanger-on NPCs.

At any rate, I'm going to try breaking down the problem at hand. Spells that are specific to a particular class are, in a way, a class feature. They're something this class brings to the table and no other. Spells that aren't exclusive to a specific class can serve this purpose too: Fireball isn't exclusive to sorcerers and wizards, but it's still distinctly theirs. The difference is that spells are far more optional than a class feature. You don't need to touch any class-specific spell if you don't want to. It of course applies a lot less to the classes that always have access to their list - for reasons.

Where it seems to become a problem is if a spell is so important to a class' functioning that it you'll always or almost always want to take it. Like Eldritch Blast for warlocks or Hunter's Mark for rangers. It's bad because it removes the choice that spells should present. Your number of cantrips or spells known is effectively lowered by 1. In this case it might make sense to make it a class feature instead and let the character spend their picks on something that actually makes them stand out.

I'm not sure about the issue with spells being poached because I don't know how easy it is. The bard feature that lets them do it is level 14, so I'm honestly not convinced it's a big deal. But maybe there are other ways I can't think of right now. I think some feats?

[Kuulvheysoon]

The biggest offender is Lore Bard; they get a bonus Magical Secrets at 6th level.

Though more and more it's getting poached through other means, like the Feytouched feat or features like Dragonmarked spellcasting or Ravnica backgrounds.

[EggKookoo]

Where it seems to become a problem is if a spell is so important to a class' functioning that it you'll always or almost always want to take it. Like Eldritch Blast for warlocks or Hunter's Mark for rangers. It's bad because it removes the choice that spells should present. Your number of cantrips or spells known is effectively lowered by 1. In this case it might make sense to make it a class feature instead and let the character spend their picks on something that actually makes them stand out.

Isn't this mostly currently handled by allowing the class to add the spell to its list without it counting against the character's maximum number of spells known/prepared? I get that this is applied inconsistently, but that does solve the problem.

If warlocks get to add EB to their cantrips without it counting against their total number of cantrips, EB remains a cantrip in every other way. Bards can still yoink it with Secrets, and it's still a "spell" mechanically.

[Theodoxus]

If warlocks get to add EB to their cantrips without it counting against their total number of cantrips, EB remains a cantrip in every other way. Bards can still yoink it with Secrets, and it's still a "spell" mechanically.

Which goes back to the issue some folks have with EB in general, that it's arguably the best offensive cantrip, that can be picked up for a measly feat, dip or bard feature. What should ostensibly be a "warlock" only trick, can be grabbed by anyone, for a very low introductory cost (or, depending on class/needs, an ability expanding dip that enhances, making it nigh a tax for optimization).

Making EB a Warlock ability that scales exclusively with Warlock level solves the problem. Of course, having no-feat/no-MC class solves it for everything sans Bard... but then again, Bard hasn't ever been a problem with EB specifically - their choices for at-will damage are pretty abysmal...

[EggKookoo]

Which goes back to the issue some folks have with EB in general, that it's arguably the best offensive cantrip, that can be picked up for a measly feat, dip or bard feature. What should ostensibly be a "warlock" only trick, can be grabbed by anyone, for a very low introductory cost (or, depending on class/needs, an ability expanding dip that enhances, making it nigh a tax for optimization).

Both feats and multiclassing are optional rules. If non-warlocks picking up EB is a problem for a particular table, just ban the pathways that allow it.

This is, of course, assuming that this is even a problem to begin with. Why can't anyone use EB? I guess if you have a warlock in the party it could be an issue of role and identity, but that holds true for any multiclassing features, or feats that allow off-class use of features, like Martial Adept.

And EB in the hands of a non-warlock isn't that much better than stuff like fire bolt. It's not like Agonizing Blast comes with it.

[Pex]

Both feats and multiclassing are optional rules. If non-warlocks picking up EB is a problem for a particular table, just ban the pathways that allow it.

This is, of course, assuming that this is even a problem to begin with. Why can't anyone use EB? I guess if you have a warlock in the party it could be an issue of role and identity, but that holds true for any multiclassing features, or feats that allow off-class use of features, like Martial Adept.

And EB in the hands of a non-warlock isn't that much better than stuff like fire bolt. It's not like Agonizing Blast comes with it.

People don't want to throw away the baby with the bathwater. They like and approve of multiclassing and feats but get annoyed this one particular exploit falls through the cracks. For them, Eldritch Blast as a warlock level based class feature is the appropriate solution.

[Tanarii]

Both feats and multiclassing are optional rules. If non-warlocks picking up EB is a problem for a particular table, just ban the pathways that allow it.You don't ban optional rules. You choose which ones to permit.

Language matters in this case. It frames the point correctly.

[EggKookoo]

People don't want to throw away the baby with the bathwater. They like and approve of multiclassing and feats but get annoyed this one particular exploit falls through the cracks. For them, Eldritch Blast as a warlock level based class feature is the appropriate solution.

I'm just saying a better solution is:

Eldritch Deadeye: You know the eldritch blast cantrip, which does not count against the number of cantrips you can learn.

This solves the purported problem without causing a new one for anyone else. Such as a bard wanting to take EB with Magical Secrets. Further, it's easily expandable and applied to other classes.

[strangebloke]

This, to be honest. A hard-no on picking and mixing features would be a hard-no-not-playing from me. Well, either that or play a Wizard.

The problem for me is not being able to dip into classes/feats, the problem is when there is little incentive to stay in a class - either the main class or the dip. Take for example, Warlock; by level 3 you have most all their goodies, the rest of the levels are mostly caster progression, and Wizard just does that better if that is what you want - dipping occurs here because the incentive to carry on is much diminished. Similarly, most all martials are let down by their post-11 features to the extent that sticking with the class just isn't interesting. This is the problem you need to fix, not making early levels in classes uninteresting.
This feels like a false dichotomy, as though there's a hard line between "banning no specific abuses" and "banning all multiclassing and feats." The latter is extremely far from my actual position, and I'm (at most) talking about 3-5 spells here. 1st level multiclassing is a separate discussion.

Id really like my paladins to keep smites as a class ability please. Im happy with some being spells too, to share the smiting around.
Yeah, its mystifying to me that people are arguing that its not a core ability of the class when its been there for 20 years. Even random korean mmos I played in highschool gave their paladins an ability named 'smite.'

The biggest offender is Lore Bard; they get a bonus Magical Secrets at 6th level.

Though more and more it's getting poached through other means, like the Feytouched feat or features like Dragonmarked spellcasting or Ravnica backgrounds.
I'm fine with people having access to spells from other classes, the problem is more a few specific spells are so good they feel more like class features and a significant part of class identity.

Both feats and multiclassing are optional rules. If non-warlocks picking up EB is a problem for a particular table, just ban the pathways that allow it.

This is, of course, assuming that this is even a problem to begin with. Why can't anyone use EB? I guess if you have a warlock in the party it could be an issue of role and identity, but that holds true for any multiclassing features, or feats that allow off-class use of features, like Martial Adept.

And EB in the hands of a non-warlock isn't that much better than stuff like fire bolt. It's not like Agonizing Blast comes with it.

How is banning "all multiclassing" at all a reasonable course of action to address 2-3 problematic spells?

EB is better than firebolt because its more consistent, but on top of this is stacks very well with on-hit modifiers which are pretty easy to get through eldritch adept, 1 more level of multiclassing, etc.

And yes this applies to a lot of feats and multiclassing, but the problem is that EB and any bonuses to it scale with level. If you go for a two level dip into wizard, you'll get a few features, but almost none of them scale outside of those two levels, which is why people don't multiclass all the time. All cantrips break this rule somewhat, but EB breaks this rule hard.

[EggKookoo]

How is banning "all multiclassing" at all a reasonable course of action to address 2-3 problematic spells?

I'm not sure why you'd need to ban "all multiclassing" to address 2-3 problematic spells. I certainly didn't suggest that. It's possible to allow (per Tanarii) some multiclassing combos but not others.

Even so, it's much cleaner to just grant warlocks EB as a free cantrip than to turn it into a class feature that prevents other classes from taking it via feats or other features. And this can be applied to other classes and class-theme/must-have spells. This becomes more clear if we're talking about a leveled spell. If you provide a leveled spell as a class feature, you need to introduce a resource mechanic to limit it. Keeping it a spell avoids that.

[Tanarii]

A lot of this is from the perspective of players.

From the perspective of a DM, it's nice to be able to give caster monsters (in which I including NPCs) spells from lists. Including swapping some around when they come with a preset list.

OTOH looking up spells you don't have memorized on monsters is certainly one of the more time consuming things as a DM. Non-caster monsters with special abilities directly in the stat block are much easier to run.

I think I just talked myself around on my own point 😂

[LibraryOgre]

Some of this, IMO, comes down to different character design plans between AD&D and 4e on one side, and 3e and, to a lesser extent, 5e on the other.

In AD&D and 4e, you made your character at level 1. For the most part, your character at level 1 was mechanically what they were going to be at level 20... your fighter would have more weapon proficiencies and some followers if they wanted, your wizard would have more spells but, aside from some classes like the druid, most of this was a matter of degree (druids picked up shapeshifting, which opened a lot of things up, but even that could be viewed as a tweaked version of Polymorph Self, a spell wizards could get at 7th level). With only very rare exception (a human with amazing stats, often planned to change classes in advance), your character after level 1 was fairly mechanically static. Even a multiclass character, in the AD&D and 4e sense, was more or less a single class... your fighter/mage was a fighter/mage, whose progression was a bit wonky, but they'd remain a fighter mage their entire career.

In 3.x and 5e, though, your character has the option of getting wildly different as you level, pretty easily; I've said "character creation is an ongoing process". If I want to be a Dragon Disciple, a prestige class, I have to start planning for it immediately... I need to make sure I can meet the requirements at the level I want to get that prestige class. Some of these might be relatively trivial... Dragon Disciple needs 8 ranks in a single skill, and the ability to cast spells spontaneously. Others will be a lost more complex, requiring alignment, race, and feat selection, and locking it behind a certain BAB, spell level, or class feature. But once I meet these requirements, I can radically change my character... the aforementioned Dragon Disciple starts growing scales, claws, teeth, breaths energy, grows stronger, tougher, smarter, etc. By the end, I don't even look like the character I started as, and my abilities have taken a right turn. A Paladin might, with careful planning and tactical evil, might almost completely stop being a Paladin if they turn Blackguard. This is to say nothing of simply multiclassing... I was a fighter for 4 levels, now I'm also a wizard. And a Cleric. And a Bard. And a Barbarian.

As I said, in 5e this is mitigated somewhat, partially because multiclassing is optional, but also because it's possible to get some of the good stuff from other classes via feats. Want more weapon proficiencies? Feat. Want to cast a couple spells? Feat. Multiclassing is also not free (though its cost is relatively minimal, and doesn't require near the planning of AD&D dual-classing). I'd also say that subclasses can cover a lot of this... a fighter who wants to be a wizard can go Eldritch Knight. A cleric who wants to be a thief can take Trickery domain; I'd love to see something like a pseudo-druid fighter without having to go to Ranger or Barbarian.

[Theodoxus]

Sitting at a table with new to me players, it becomes quite clear, quite quickly, who are new to D&D, who are coming at 5E from 4E and who are coming at it from 3E, just by how they've designed their characters.

It would be kinda need to be able to just forget all the baggage of prior editions and see 5E as it is actually written. To utilize the character creation options as they are meant to be - but seeing the game through the lens of 4 other editions makes it difficult for me to quickly hew to the actual rules of the game instead of pining about missing some arcane rule from another edition that "would make this encounter just that much easier to run/fight/endure".

I think it took me about 9 months to unlearn most of the bad concepts I was bringing to the 5E table. I also think this whole "problem" is why I much prefer to mod the crap out of game systems to make a hodgepodge system that does everything I want.

In my homebrew game, someone coming at it from AGE or 13th or D&D will all see familiar aspects and then go 'wait, you did what?!?'

But this is a pretty big deviation from the actual thread...

Going back to spells as class features, I'm not heavily invested either way. I do like the idea of an "Iconic" tag, though is dipping Warlock "iconic" enough, or would rules need to be put in place, much like the old Dual Classing, where you can't cast an iconic spell if the class you get it from has fewer levels than another class you have levels in? So, your Warlock 3/Sorcerer 2 can use EB. But going Warlock 3/Sorcerer 4, you lose access to the cantrip... (I guess justified by your patron closing that knowledge off from you.)

[Pex]

I'm not sure why you'd need to ban "all multiclassing" to address 2-3 problematic spells. I certainly didn't suggest that. It's possible to allow (per Tanarii) some multiclassing combos but not others.

Even so, it's much cleaner to just grant warlocks EB as a free cantrip than to turn it into a class feature that prevents other classes from taking it via feats or other features. And this can be applied to other classes and class-theme/must-have spells. This becomes more clear if we're talking about a leveled spell. If you provide a leveled spell as a class feature, you need to introduce a resource mechanic to limit it. Keeping it a spell avoids that.

The point is they don't want other classes to have Eldritch Blast. They want warlock to be the only class that gets it as a class feature. It's a game feature no other class can get it. Having it scale with warlock level is the patch to solve their angst against multiclass dipping. Warlock has access to other Cantrips and other features, so it's still worth multiclassing into it for those who want it, but it's no longer dipping just to get Eldritch Blast which was the issue. Cantrips scaling with character level is fine. (Admittedly a few people don't like even that.) Eldritch Blast scaling with character level is the specific thing that some people don't like.

[Tanarii]

Some of this, IMO, comes down to different character design plans between AD&D and 4e on one side, and 3e and, to a lesser extent, 5e on the other.
Quoted just the first line for brevity, but having played 4e and 5e, I found 4e characters evolved far more wildly during the leveling process than 5e ones. In terms of class capabilities and features.

I'd say 4e classes capabilities grew at first, then they evolved once they reached the point they started swapping out powers. 5e ones, other than possibly known spell classes, just have capability growth.

[Kane0]

From the perspective of a DM, it's nice to be able to give caster monsters (in which I including NPCs) spells from lists. Including swapping some around when they come with a preset list.

OTOH looking up spells you don't have memorized on monsters is certainly one of the more time consuming things as a DM. Non-caster monsters with special abilities directly in the stat block are much easier to run.

I think I just talked myself around on my own point 😂

A sign of good critical thinking.

[Aimeryan]

This feels like a false dichotomy, as though there's a hard line between "banning no specific abuses" and "banning all multiclassing and feats." The latter is extremely far from my actual position, and I'm (at most) talking about 3-5 spells here. 1st level multiclassing is a separate discussion.

The difference we have here is that I do not see something like the first 3 levels of Warlock as abusive, instead I see the last 17 levels as being disappointing. I do not need to ban/withdraw permission for this, so I have not set up a false dichotomy.

If someone wanted to address the issue for a game I was in, or preferably WotC addressed this in a new edition, I would expect them to make the later levels more appealing, not stop people from taking the more appealing earlier levels of another class.

[Hytheter]

Personally I think the Smite Spells should be Paladin class features, an expansion of the base Divine Smite.


So have it permanently keep the spell slot in the 'used' state while active, similar to what Animate dead tries to do. You cant recover that spell slot and use it for other things because its devoted to your Find X.

This is a potentially interesting design space, locking up slots for enduring effects.

[Morty]

I think it's worth asking just why the entire warlock class seems so dependent on one cantrip and if it's good at it's the case. But since doing something more in-depth about it would be a lot of effort, giving Eldritch Blast to them for free and also potentially blocking other classes from accessing it, is a decent stop-gap measure.

[Theodoxus]

I think it's worth asking just why the entire warlock class seems so dependent on one cantrip and if it's good at it's the case. But since doing something more in-depth about it would be a lot of effort, giving Eldritch Blast to them for free and also potentially blocking other classes from accessing it, is a decent stop-gap measure.

IMO, it's a natural progression of the Warlock from 3rd through 4th and where it ends up in 5th Edition. In 3rd, it basically just spammed eldritch blast (either as a ranged or melee attack) and had something akin to 5E invocations that granted supernatural power/spell-like abilities, but no real spells. In 4th, it kept the spamming EB but added more spell-like powers [I'm loathe to call anything in 4E 'spells', even for Wizards, as they were radically different from your typical 'spell slot/spell point' power structure.] Those spell-like powers morphed into true spells in 5E, but to differentiate the class from other casters still, the auto-maximized spell level with very limited spell slots that regen on a short rest was introduced.

As a fan of half of that mechanic, I'm not going to lambast the 5E Warlock, but I do get the subcurrent by many players to want it to go back to its 3rd Ed roots. No spells, just spell-like powers that can be plug n play for any particular build you're going with.

I suspect that is the core of the problem with letting other classes horn in on EB. It has always been an exclusive, intrinsic Warlock ability. Some aspects of the 3rd Ed class have been brought over in a strange fashion. Eldritch Glaive morphing into Pact of the Blade was an odd choice. I think Hexblade was actually more an attempt to recreate EG than it was a 'rewrite' of Blade. But yes, while the 5E version of Warlock is not wholly dependent on EB, thanks to expanded Invocations and the addition of true spells, EB spam is at the heart of the class, from the very beginning.

[Morty]

IMO, it's a natural progression of the Warlock from 3rd through 4th and where it ends up in 5th Edition. In 3rd, it basically just spammed eldritch blast (either as a ranged or melee attack) and had something akin to 5E invocations that granted supernatural power/spell-like abilities, but no real spells. In 4th, it kept the spamming EB but added more spell-like powers [I'm loathe to call anything in 4E 'spells', even for Wizards, as they were radically different from your typical 'spell slot/spell point' power structure.] Those spell-like powers morphed into true spells in 5E, but to differentiate the class from other casters still, the auto-maximized spell level with very limited spell slots that regen on a short rest was introduced.

As a fan of half of that mechanic, I'm not going to lambast the 5E Warlock, but I do get the subcurrent by many players to want it to go back to its 3rd Ed roots. No spells, just spell-like powers that can be plug n play for any particular build you're going with.

I suspect that is the core of the problem with letting other classes horn in on EB. It has always been an exclusive, intrinsic Warlock ability. Some aspects of the 3rd Ed class have been brought over in a strange fashion. Eldritch Glaive morphing into Pact of the Blade was an odd choice. I think Hexblade was actually more an attempt to recreate EG than it was a 'rewrite' of Blade. But yes, while the 5E version of Warlock is not wholly dependent on EB, thanks to expanded Invocations and the addition of true spells, EB spam is at the heart of the class, from the very beginning.

It was probably a mistake on 4E's part to keep Eldritch Blast, honestly. Back in 3.5, it was the warlock's unique feature, but in 4E everyone had at-will powers, so it didn't stand out as much. It felt like keeping EB because warlocks are supposed to use it - for all the grief people give it for "breaking tradition" and whatever else, 4E did many things simply because D&D is supposed to do them. Warlocks got two at-will powers like everyone else, but EB was "pre-selected" for them. 5E replicated the mistake.

[Theodoxus]

I can get behind that... but it's history, so, we're stuck with it now... I hate tradition for the sake of tradition, but EB is pretty much baked in. I don't foresee an eventual 6E taking it away.

[Kane0]

Let EB invocations work with other attack cantrips. It wont be as good as EB but at least they arent left entirely in the dust.

[OldTrees1]

Let EB invocations work with other attack cantrips. It wont be as good as EB but at least they arent left entirely in the dust.

Repelling Green Flame Blade? Yes Please!

[Thunderous Mojo]

Where it seems to become a problem is if a spell is so important to a class' functioning that it you'll always or almost always want to take it. Like Eldritch Blast for warlocks or Hunter's Mark for rangers. It's bad because it removes the choice that spells should present. Your number of cantrips or spells known is effectively lowered by 1. In this case it might make sense to make it a class feature instead and let the character spend their picks on something that actually makes them stand out.


This was also my opinion when 5e came out, but over time, I've come to believe this perspective de-accentuates the positive and promotes the negative.

Rangers do need to have selected Hunter's Mark as a spell.

Yes, Hunter's Mark was a 4e class feature.. Hunter's Mark is not essential in 5e. A Tier 1 Ranger with Entangle/EnsnaringStrike and Longstrider as their spell selections is just as viable as a Ranger that selected Hunter's Mark.

Eldritch Blast is an excellent cantrip.
Under your contention Morty, shouldn't all clerics have free a preparation for Spirit Guardians or Toll the Dead, since like Eldritch Blast...both are commonly considered a 'best in class' option?

Politely, I contend it is a detrimental mental schema if your response to playing a Warlock is to bemoan that Eldritch Blast isn't given for free.

Warlock's have great cantrips, (and get a 3rd Cantrip at 4th level), and have several different means to acquire many more extra Cantrips either through their selection of subclass or Boon.

A Lore Bard PC that has selected Eldritch Blast, isn't overshadowing a EB focused Warlock in terms of EB usage.

I see where you are coming from, but the 'fix' might very well be more disruptive than the 'problem'.

[Hytheter]

Repelling Green Flame Blade? Yes Please!

I'd say repelling Booming Blade is more interesting.

[OldTrees1]

I'd say repelling Booming Blade is more interesting.

Holding the line? Readied Repelling Booming Blade (knock them back 10ft + stop or 20ft + damage)
Breaking the line? Repelling Green Flame Blade (knock 2 back)

I am being generous with the number of times it triggers. As long as it triggers less than (or equal?) to Eldritch Blast triggers, I think it can be fine.

[sethdmichaels]

Spells aren't one-to-one objects in the game world, they're frameworks with which to model a given system of magic. To put that another way, a Cleric and a Druid who both cast Flame Strike aren't performing the same act of magic, but it's an act of convenience for those two different acts of magic to use the same mechanical template. I enjoy spells having a lot of flexibility in terms of which character archetypes they can be attached to.


Agree with this, and I'd extend it even further: as long as the table is consistent and it all fits together in the DM's fiction, two separate characters classed as paladins or druids might, in the game world, be performing different acts of magic. Classes, to me, aren't one-to-one objects in the game world either; they're for the players and not the characters. As long as the character has a good and world-appropriate explanation for what they're doing, I'm fine with it. (The lore-agnosticism and customizability of 5e is a positive for me, which i know is not a universally held position on this forum!)

Back to the point of the thread, I'm convinced by the others here who say the Paladin's smite spells should be a class feature and operate separately from spells - they aren't super useful in current format.

[Theodoxus]

Agree with this, and I'd extend it even further: as long as the table is consistent and it all fits together in the DM's fiction, two separate characters classed as paladins or druids might, in the game world, be performing different acts of magic. Classes, to me, aren't one-to-one objects in the game world either; they're for the players and not the characters. As long as the character has a good and world-appropriate explanation for what they're doing, I'm fine with it. (The lore-agnosticism and customizability of 5e is a positive for me, which i know is not a universally held position on this forum!)

On this I wholeheartedly agree. I've come to really hate the term class, and the fact that most players end up assuming that it's a profession. But even Bards don't make sense - they go to "College" at 3rd level. Yet they somehow learned spells and cantrips and inspiration somewhere. So, your point goes about 75% of the way for me. Of course, it's all a game, and nobody asks why a dog and shoe and a car are all trying to buy land on a square board, so why should I try to create verisimilitude in my roleplaying game - yet there it is, that splinter in my minds eye, begging for some kind of resolution that makes sense. Where the Guild prized baker becomes a Cleric or the Sailor abandons the sea to traipse about in the woods...

Really, the only class that works on a gut level for me is the Warlock. I can grok that some supernatural otherworldly something wants to use the character as a pawn and downloads data, Matrix style, granting spells and proficiencies. Other backgrounds can make sense, if taken, Soldier, Acolyte, Criminal... but it's not a 1:1 ratio for those either, so... where does one learn to wear heavy armor? Why can an urchin start at 1st level knowing how to wear heavy armor and swing a greatsword with ease if he starts as a Paladin, but not if he starts as a Sorcerer and then multiclasses to Paladin later. Yes, gamism. But at that point, are we playing Diablo 4 or are we playing a roleplaying game with internal consistency... or is it both?

Breaks my damn brain. And it sucks that I've gotten onto this kick late in life. I'd much prefer to go back to the innocence where class is just a meta concept and doesn't mean anything... but I can't.

[PhoenixPhyre]

On this I wholeheartedly agree. I've come to really hate the term class, and the fact that most players end up assuming that it's a profession. But even Bards don't make sense - they go to "College" at 3rd level. Yet they somehow learned spells and cantrips and inspiration somewhere. So, your point goes about 75% of the way for me. Of course, it's all a game, and nobody asks why a dog and shoe and a car are all trying to buy land on a square board, so why should I try to create verisimilitude in my roleplaying game - yet there it is, that splinter in my minds eye, begging for some kind of resolution that makes sense. Where the Guild prized baker becomes a Cleric or the Sailor abandons the sea to traipse about in the woods...

Really, the only class that works on a gut level for me is the Warlock. I can grok that some supernatural otherworldly something wants to use the character as a pawn and downloads data, Matrix style, granting spells and proficiencies. Other backgrounds can make sense, if taken, Soldier, Acolyte, Criminal... but it's not a 1:1 ratio for those either, so... where does one learn to wear heavy armor? Why can an urchin start at 1st level knowing how to wear heavy armor and swing a greatsword with ease if he starts as a Paladin, but not if he starts as a Sorcerer and then multiclasses to Paladin later. Yes, gamism. But at that point, are we playing Diablo 4 or are we playing a roleplaying game with internal consistency... or is it both?

Breaks my damn brain. And it sucks that I've gotten onto this kick late in life. I'd much prefer to go back to the innocence where class is just a meta concept and doesn't mean anything... but I can't.

An urchin was picked off the street by a wandering paladin mentor when the urchin tried to pick his pocket, who taught them to be their squire over the next few years. The other urchin discovered his magical heritage young; when he (during the campaign) found his calling, he didn't have time to train in all the weapons and armor; he has no knightly training. Just the burning conviction of the Oath backing his native magic.

And I've always taken things like bard Colleges and wizard Schools figuratively--it's more of a way of life, rather than an actual institution. If there's an organization behind it, it's loose and mostly a gossip ring.

[EggKookoo]

An urchin was picked off the street by a wandering paladin mentor when the urchin tried to pick his pocket, who taught them to be their squire over the next few years. The other urchin discovered his magical heritage young; when he (during the campaign) found his calling, he didn't have time to train in all the weapons and armor; he has no knightly training. Just the burning conviction of the Oath backing his native magic.

Exactly. It's up to the PC's player to come up with a rationalization for why the PC has the different features, proficiencies, and so forth, rather than up to the class to provide it. That allows you to "seat" your character in any given setting. Playing in a setting that doesn't hew to the conventional fantasy Middle Ages tropes, but want to play a paladin (which at least originally was based very much on such)? You can do that, since "paladin" is really a general concept rather than a literal institution.