Spell Versatility and Class Identity

[micahaphone]

I guess I'm confused, I didn't think I was ever twisting your words. In post 286, you ended with an example build that uses cleric, sorcerer, and warlock. You point out (correctly) that without SV, a cleric would have more cleric spells to choose from and to grab niche cases, but with SV, your triple-class setting-specific build is a better cleric than going straight cleric.
I objected to your balance critique that uses a triple multiclass. Your response was "I'm not obligated to defend obviously-stupid claims that came out of other people's imaginations instead of my mouth. I'm not your NPC."

I didn't put words in your mouth, and you're declaring my opinion to be "obviously stupid". I'm not trying to puppet you, you're not an NPC in my world.

And for the record, calling another person's claims "obviously stupid" is kind of name calling.


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What is the Sorcerer or Bard doing that is causing him to learn a new spell overnight, from scratch, but forget another one?
"I need my special rare delicacies or my muse deserts me!" "How can I create without the inspiring presence of a beautiful courtesan?" "My bed sheets must be the finest satin, and my practice garb silk, or I just can't properly prepare." "My voice needs the soothing wines of the finest grapes in Champaigne, or my vocal chords will not be up to my exacting standards." "I need paints made from EXACTLY these herbs and flowers, or the colors are wrong!"

The bard needs to create the ambiance, to gather music and inspiring art and even study people in the right environments, possibly throw or get invited to the right party, in order to inspire himself and change his outlook on music so that his magical effects shift to the new spell.

Segev, I'm loving this imagery. I want to see more prima donna bards storming out of inns. "You said this place would have 2000 thread count sheets. That couldn't have been more than 500!"


I agree that it shouldn't be an every night thing, as the purpose is to give the players a way to correct a poor spell choice when they have a while between level ups. But tying it to gold is too campaign-dependent, and is effectively the same thing as asking the DM. If I'm in a game where we find piles of gold in every dungeon, SV will be easy for me. In a survival campaign, it'd suck to have to scrape and save every penny I find to try and do it.

As for making it a DM-dependent request, I think this rule is trying to codify it so a DM will have guidance. It'd be nice for a player to have something to point towards, that says "hey can I have this mulligan". It's kind of like the problem with Wild Magic Sorcerer RAW, that if your DM isn't feeling it or forgets, they are 100% in the right to make you effectively a sorcerer without subclass.

As a DM, I've done this for a wizard player of mine, who chose a spell on level up that he hadn't actually used once, that he felt was lacking compared to what he had hoped to accomplish with it. I was just fine with it then, and I'm happy to see the game designers suggesting something similar.

Maybe a section of informal DM advice in a next Xanathar-style book would be good, where one of several tips could be "hey if your players are really regretting their spell choices, let them swap. Just don't let them do it all the time."