New Spells in Strixhaven

[Chaos Jackal]

Think if it like a control group for testing just how much unbounded subsystems (magic) interact with additional option compared to linear mechanical progress everything else has. It's not a better/worse statement as much as a starting point of comparison.

The comparison has to take into account the fact that feats don't affect the power of spells (outside of Elemental Adept).

Yes, boosting your concentration is important, but staying out of harm's way is something you were already doing while you had Resilient: Con. A spellcaster doesn't pick Resilient to boost their spells, they pick Resilient to make their lives easier in case something goes wrong. Similarly, while they may pick, say, Fey Touched to boost their utility they already have bigger utility than most mundanes. Meanwhile, martials need feats both to make their lives easier (Resilient: Wis, for example) or to gain some utility at all and to directly impact their primary schtick (hitting stuff).

A greatsword attack without GWM is decidedly weaker than a greatsword attack with GWM for a certain armor range. Hypnotic pattern, bless and spike growth always do the same thing regardless of your feat selection; sure, you may need to be more cautious with keeping them up, but a good player was cautious regardless, since the best way to succeed on a concentration check is to never roll said check.

Featless spellcasters can, for the most part, do the same things spellcasters in games with feats can do. Something that can't be said for mundanes.

Similarly, outside of the Extra Attack issue and certain really powerful combinations, multiclassing is more favorable to mundanes than to spellcasters; spellcasters lose spell progression every time they multiclass, and while the trade is sometimes worth it, there's no doubt that you're giving away something quite important, seeing as your spells are both you most used feature and what you rely on to scale as the levels increase. On the other hand, from a practical perspective, a number of mundanes benefit little from staying single-classed. Most fighters for example don't really have anything big to gain after their lv12 ASI until they hit their capstone, and the same can be said for the majority of barbarians even earlier. While even for something like a nuclear wizard the delay in spell progression you have from the very first level is gonna be nagging you until lv18.

And, for what it's worth, I believe that it also impacts the enjoyment of classes disproportionately too. My first few sessions in 5e were in tables that allowed no feats or multiclassing. Playing mundanes myself in such scenarios or seeing others play them was so boring to me that, combined with punctuality issues plaguing said groups, it made me drop the game completely for two years. It just wasn't worth the hassle. Why bother scheduling and being there on time when there would either be delays or, if there weren't, me and/or someone else would just be swinging a sword another ten times? It was way better being a warlock or watching someone else play a sorcerer.

I've never played in a featless game since, but if I did, I'd most definitely choose to run a caster rather than a mundane; at least I'd have more than one thing to do, unlike every poor mundane stuck with the same attack routine and no extra tricks for however many levels the game lasts.

[stoutstien]

The comparison has to take into account the fact that feats don't affect the power of spells (outside of Elemental Adept).

Yes, boosting your concentration is important, but staying out of harm's way is something you were already doing while you had Resilient: Con. A spellcaster doesn't pick Resilient to boost their spells, they pick Resilient to make their lives easier in case something goes wrong. Similarly, while they may pick, say, Fey Touched to boost their utility they already have bigger utility than most mundanes. Meanwhile, martials need feats both to make their lives easier (Resilient: Wis, for example) or to gain some utility at all and to directly impact their primary schtick (hitting stuff).

A greatsword attack without GWM is decidedly weaker than a greatsword attack with GWM for a certain armor range. Hypnotic pattern, bless and spike growth always do the same thing regardless of your feat selection; sure, you may need to be more cautious with keeping them up, but a good player was cautious regardless, since the best way to succeed on a concentration check is to never roll said check.

Featless spellcasters can, for the most part, do the same things spellcasters in games with feats can do. Something that can't be said for mundanes.

Similarly, outside of the Extra Attack issue and certain really powerful combinations, multiclassing is more favorable to mundanes than to spellcasters; spellcasters lose spell progression every time they multiclass, and while the trade is sometimes worth it, there's no doubt that you're giving away something quite important, seeing as your spells are both you most used feature and what you rely on to scale as the levels increase. On the other hand, from a practical perspective, a number of mundanes benefit little from staying single-classed. Most fighters for example don't really have anything big to gain after their lv12 ASI until they hit their capstone, and the same can be said for the majority of barbarians even earlier. While even for something like a nuclear wizard the delay in spell progression you have from the very first level is gonna be nagging you until lv18.

And, for what it's worth, I believe that it also impacts the enjoyment of classes disproportionately too. My first few sessions in 5e were in tables that allowed no feats or multiclassing. Playing mundanes myself in such scenarios or seeing others play them was so boring to me that, combined with punctuality issues plaguing said groups, it made me drop the game completely for two years. It just wasn't worth the hassle. Why bother scheduling and being there on time when there would either be delays or, if there weren't, me and/or someone else would just be swinging a sword another ten times? It was way better being a warlock or watching someone else play a sorcerer.

I've never played in a featless game since, but if I did, I'd most definitely choose to run a caster rather than a mundane; at least I'd have more than one thing to do, unlike every poor mundane stuck with the same attack routine and no extra tricks for however many levels the game lasts.

That's kind of my point that the feat system is false progression for Martial characters. Either they gain something that just makes their attack stronger/ they just do more attacks or they pick up spell casting.

I do agree most classes that aren't casters have very poor progression going into the second half of the game. Of course half the casters also have poor progression going the second half of the game if you were trying to give a class an identity at that point because spellcasting is spellcasting.

The point was for people to try a fearless game is that the conceptual Gap shrinks, it doesn't disappear but it does shrink, and that feats/multiclass/additional material don't help the issues. When you add more options for martials that have large opportunity to pick and compared to giving additional options to spell casting, sometimes with absolutely no cost, it's not making the game better as a system.

Giving classes that are relatively boring bigger numbers that are just as boring doesn't change anything. It's even worse when one of the most common reaction to this on the DM side is just to make the opposing numbers larger so it's a net loss. I just need to stop adding good new spells for a while and focus on the other parts of the game. They did a little bit this with Tasha's and then canceled it out with a bunch of powerful spell forced options and items. Here's some rather elegant solution to people's complaints about the Monk and here clerics have a packet archer that is almost as powerful as a PC. I get that the upper half of cleric spellis is rather boring but damage wasn't the problem. Adding more and bigger damage options is rarely a good solution for a game that already has it in spades.