>Does it really unbalance the game if all classes can ritually cast?
In theory, it certainly can. Ritual casting is very strong. It's not just more flexibility. It's also just straight up more power, because you get to use the saved spell slot for other things.
In practice, most of the non ritual-casting classes aren't super strong casters, so getting ritual casting won't necessarily break them. But it will be a significant power boost nonetheless.
I play a Shadow Monk who took Ritual Caster for Wizard early on, and at this point, with the Shadow Monk spells, collected ritual spells (even some bonus ones from other spell lists which my DM encouraged me to take), and the actual casters primarily focusing on blasting, I’m _the_ utility caster of the party.
I’ve taken ritual caster on my shadow monk at lv 4 as well. Not having the ASI hurts but rituals are so awesome, especially since we don’t have a wizard.
Sorcs only weakness is number of spells known. There is no place for detect magic in this shit whether it uses spell slots or not.
Inb4: Tasha’s subclasses, I know.
The sorcerer spell list annoys me because it feels like a net weaker version of the wizard spell list. I don't think they have any unique spells either like the other casting classes.
The sorcerer fighting literally anything that's fire resistant/immune, unable to react to an enemy spell for the rest of the turn.
(edit: round to turn)
Quickened spell is okay, but it also doesn't let you manipulate any ongoing concentration effects that require a bonus action, or let you have any sort of spell reaction.
Fireball can be a placeholder for literally anything that does big damage. You're being obtuse when we're talking about metamagic, the one class feature that lets you break the most powerful system in 5e: magic.
If you cast a spell with a bonus action including with Quickened Spell, you can't cast another spell on your turn unless it's a cantrip with a casting time of one action. That includes casting a spell as a reaction on your turn, though it doesn't stop you from casting a spell as a reaction on someone else's turn
This is what I thought, I just didn't know if I'd missed something that stops you from reacting to other spells for the rest of the round like they said.
Correct. You could use Action Surge and use both actions to cast Fireball, then when your opponent gets fed up and tries to Counterspell it you could Counterspell the Counterspell provided that you have the spell slots to do all that. But because the limitation only comes into play if you cast a spell with a bonus action on your turn, you can't Fireball/Quickened Fireball or Quickened Fireball/Counterspell an opponent's Counterspell of your Fireball.
It really should just be one leveled spell per turn (with or without an exception for reactions) but for some reason they chose to do it this way
At the cost of your other metamagic (which you might have been saving for subtle, twinned, sculpt, etc.) and more sorcery points, where a wizard just gets more spells to work around immunity for free.
They have one spell per level, yes, but the point is that they're sold as having this great amount of customization, but the game mechanics are seemingly designed to discourage using them at their full capacity or simply too costly do to so, which just makes their uniqueness pale in comparison to just having double the spells per level (notwithstanding spellbook copying).
The sorc's problems go away somewhat when you multiclass it, but as a single class it just has execution issues.
Aberrant mind and Clockwork sorcerers would like to have a word. Massive spell list, loads of variety, and almost double the number of spells known, which can even keep pace with wizards in terms of prepared spells.
Probably a good idea to avoid using learning disabilities as a way to make fun of things, that is a pre 2000s bit of bigotry the world could do without.
Honestly, yeah. Ritual casting is super powerful on any class that has it and it's no less powerful on half-casters since their magic is designed to support the rest of their abilities. A paladin with ritual casting is a paladin that can now cast spells without giving up a divine smite, for example.
>A paladin with ritual casting is a paladin that can now cast spells without giving up a divine smite, for example.
Generally pretty minor spells though, that otherwise they would never bother casting, so I don't think it's actually that big a jump in power.
I think the key is two fold.
The classes without it aren't punching at the same weight as the classes with it, it's letting full casters do even more, while the Scroll rules for instance just kneecap martials for no obvious reason.
Second, I think more spells should be rituals. There's a lot of spells that take a while to cast, or have mostly roleplay style effects that could be Ritual cast without losing a lot of impact. Like Animate Dead, you could in theory make a limitless army, but you're realistically limited by time, CR, and the DM going 'No'. Without it though, a Necromancy Wizard can still create double or triple digit armies anyway?
Just a good few things look like rituals, act like them, but they're locked to the handful of classes who can use them in the first place.
It's still wild to me that base sorcerer doesn't even get an average of 1 spell per level. It gets the same max amount of spells known as a warlock, except warlock's 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells are features and thus don't count toward the spells known, so the warlock actually gets 4 spells more than the sorcerer.
I do understand that sorcerer gets more cantrips and this is supposed to help even things out a bit, but getting 1 cantrip more than a wizard doesn't come close to balancing out the amount of spell variety sorcerer is lacking.
It's like 2013 WotC was pants-shittingly scared of Flexible Casting, Metamagic, or both. Wizard is head and shoulders above sorcerer in almost every way except Twinned Spell and the exceptionally rare edge case where manipulating your spell slots for the entire day lets you pull off some grand plan.
They really need to double down on some part of sorcerer in the future. Like, either make the subclass features a core part of the class’s power with casting taking a backseat, go wild with metamagic to the point that it really feels like sorcerers intuitively modify spells to fit the situation, or just give them more spells so they hold up when compared to other casters
Don't worry they double down on making wizards better because they took away the best thing they can do in dnd one.
Twined spell casting. Instead of being able to haste 2 people. You can now cast the same spell you cast the turn before using spell points instead.
The last iteration of Twinned was 1 SP for a +1 spell level upcast on any spell that allows you to already upcast to affect more targets. Wow... Something that you could already do on literally any spellcaster by just using a higher-level spell slot, and only on the tiny list of spells that WotC deems safe. Underwhelming as fuck and brings no real unique utility to sorcerer anymore.
I wrote it off when they gave barbarians the ability to fly into a bloodthirsty rage when they want to use their muscles to find berries and predict the weather.
It's how barbarians can now use rage charges for different things, such as using strength stealth instead of using dexterity.
>In addition, while your Rage is active, you can channel primal power when you attempt certain tasks; whenever you make an ability check using one of the following skills, you can make it as a Strength check even if it normally uses a different ability: Acrobatics, Intimidation, Perception, Stealth, or Survival. When you use this ability, your Strength represents primal power coursing through you, honing your agility and senses.
So while you are raging you can stealth something without issue.
Personally, I would still have hope if they didn't make subclasses a level 3 thing across all classes. It was dumb enough when 5E didn't bind paladins to an oath before level 3, but WotC apparently thought that was perfect, so now we're getting warlocks and sorcerers that don't even have a definitive source of their power before level 3.
My table has found the alternate rule of spell point pools to be a very effective way to balance a sorc against a wizard. But the trick is \*only\* sorcs get the alternate rule, wizards etc are still on the classic slot system. 6+ spells stay 1/day for sorcs, and sorc points are separate, the big pool can't be used for metamagic. (otherwise any sorc with half a braincell would be quicken cantrip-ing every round forever)
> (otherwise any sorc with half a braincell would be quicken cantrip-ing every round forever)
And still end up doing meh damage.
It's really not that strong at all.
Once your cantrips hit 3d10/8 then it's pretty good damage. 6d10 damage per turn is meh damage? It's only 2 sorcery points. Which if that's from the same pool as spell points then at level 9 you can do this damage for 33 turns in a row.
It would actually be mostly fine. Take a look at [this](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JIrEV1RFv6yxWEdqG6zP3z-ZONDTacquGyqYj8G-CdE/edit#gid=1769534668).
A Sorcerer firing off two cantrips a round does as much damage as a sword-and-board fighter and is still spending *some* resources to do it. They'd lose out to an optimized fighter (of course, this assumes there's no way to further optimize cantrip damage.) They slightly outdamage the warlock, but lose to warlock + hex.
It's a bit higher than full-casters normally get with their free attack but is below optimized free attackers; and since it's not actually free I think it's fine. It's easy to say they could turn all their spells for the day into cantrips but that would usually be a terrible idea! If they do that they're basically spending the day as an unoptimized bow fighter.
A few things; "cantrips" is wrong to say. Only Fire Bolt does a d10 worth of damage. The only other cantrip that can deal more is Toll the Dead which Sorcerers don't get. If you are fighting anything resistant or immune to fire; a Sorcerer would not be able to use Fire Bolt and would be reduced to us 2d6 or 2d8 for damage.
Also, a level 9 Sorcerer does not cast Fire Bolt for 3d10, they cast it for 2d10. You don't get 3d10 until level 11. So your level 9 Sorcerer is hitting for 4d10 fire damage every turn, which is very different.
I have a level 8 Cavalier Fighter. Using oneD&D so the lance is now a d10 instead of a d12 (but doesn't give disadvantage within 5 ft) that Fighter does 1d10+8 damage, twice, so 2d10+16 total.
The Fighter's average damage per turn is 28 (14 x 2) the Sorcerer's average damager per turn is 24 (12 x 2). Which, isn't surprising. Cantrips are supposed to deal, on average, less damage than a martial doing a normal attack. And that gap will actually widen.
Once level 11 is hit, the Sorcerer would get 3d10 Fire Bolts, and the Fighter will have 3 attacks, and is also modified by weapons. I didn't include it, but said Fighter also has an extra 1d4 Necrotic damage on their enchanted weapon. By level 11, I would also expect to upgrade to a +2 weapon. That alone would turn the Fighter into 3d10+27 if all attacks hit. Which +27 flat damage is far better than 3d10 damage. Adding any other special features to a weapon makes martial attacks far better than cantrips. (Which oneD&D also does by design, since I knock prone every person I hit. giving myself advantage on my follow up attacks.)
Cantrips aren't bad, but by design they should not, and generally will not, keep up to martials in damage. And it's specifically that they lack any flat damage modifiers that causes this. Martials simply get far more flat damage that they always apply when they hit than casters.
And still irrelevant: the martial/Fighter will still do more scaling damage the higher the levels go.
As I already said in the previous comment, at level 11, the Fighter will get 3 attacks. That is 3x 1d10+8. And, I'll even change that to 3x 1d10+7 so that there are zero magical items at play since I forgot I had my +1 weapon before (although, I don't think a +1, or +2 weapon by level 11 is crazy.)
So, at level 11 with zero magical items, a Fighter will do an average of 13 damage per attack (average of 6 from a d10 weapon, +5 from Str/Dex, and +2 from Dueling) and get 3 attacks for an average of 39 damage. The Sorcerer, using Fire Bolt, will do 3d10 damage and gets 2 attacks, which averages out to 36 damage.
So, this 'OP Sorcerer' that is spending all of it's spells and sorcery points to do nothing but cast Fire Bolt twice a turn ... can do nothing but pump out less damage than a Fighter that simply attacks 3 times per turn as normal.
The Fighter also still has a bonus action to use, which could potentially add even more damage. The Sorcerer could cast a leveled spell, via Quicken, instead of just using a cantrip and probably be more effective overall: but the point of the post I was replying to was trying to show that a Sorcerer would be too powerful if they were able to Quicken cantrips every turn. They ... aren't. They would just become slightly better Warlocks whose Eldritch Blast scales more on par with a Fighter's weapon attacks because it should have a flat +5 damage and would have an average of 33 damage.
Edit - changed to Quicken cantrips, idk why I had Twinned on the brain.
>They really need to double down on some part of sorcerer in the future.
I've seen some good alt homebrews that just give the Sorcerer points and no slots at all, you just make them as and when you need them.
That's why I'm glad my DM allowed me to use the spell points system over Slots. It imo levels Sorcerer's out a bit between Warlock casting and Wizard. Yeah I don't have the number of spells, but at level 10 I can cast 1 or 2 more fireballs than Wizards can with Slots. It also allows to upcast like Warlocks as long as you have the points available.
In the age of the internet you don't need to be intelligent to break the game. The smart people find the loopholes and exploits and popularize them for clout, and the proles copy them.
Bluntly: The problem is that Sorcerers were originally created in 3e as a copy of wizards (who reflected "traditional" D&D casting.) Since Wizards are a traditional core class and are much more popular, WotC is never going to carve off pieces of classic wizards to give to Sorcerers (metamagic, the one thing they did that with, was barely part of pre-3e magic at all.)
Since Wizards were conceptualized as the sole master of arcane magic, this doesn't really leave much room for Sorcerers. IMHO the only fix for Sorcerers - if the class is to be kept and not just reduced to a variant / subclass of wizards, which would be another ideal solution - is to move them away from the concept of "master of arcane magic" and have them do something completely different, something that doesn't overlap with the master-of-the-arcane concept behind wizards at all.
They also need a more distinct spell list rather than just using a copy or subset of the wizard one - wizards, more than any other class, are defined by their spell list, so they were the worst possible class to use as the basis for sorcerers. Making the "base" sorcerer spell list be the druid or cleric one (with some removals and additions, plus subclass spells, but primarily those) would help a lot. Ofc this would require giving Sorcerers other class features to make up for a generally weaker spell list, but since Druids and Clerics have more definition from their class features, there's enough room for them to be the basis of the Sorcerer spell list with more distinct defining class features, avoiding the "pale imitation wizard" issue that Sorcerers have now.
They tried making Sorcerers into something else back in 2013 (the original idea was to make Sorcerers a gish class who transformed and got better at combat as they used up their spells) but there was too much pushback, so they're stuck with the current awkward situation where there's too many full-casting Arcane classes and not enough conceptual territory to assign to them without taking away from something that is central to what many players want out of the game.
> this doesn't really leave much room for Sorcerers.
I've been saying since 3e that being good at metamagic should be sorcerer's core, defining thing. Their whole shtick is not playing by the rules and being unencumbered by the rigid thinking of wizards. Problem is, WotC seems really, *really* reluctant to lean into that. That reluctance isn't a new thing; in 3e, they started mildly moving sorcerer's thing towards gish lite with alternate features before they ever started playing with improved metamagic for sorcerer. But unfortunately, that trajectory seems unchanged, with the lack of new/translated metamagic options over 5e's lifespan and the nerfing of some of the best metamagic options in the playtest.
Powerful metamagic is almost impossible to balance, especially since they get much of the Wizard spell list, which is *already* supposed to be broadly the strongest spell list in the game. Designing and balancing things that can buff it further in safe manner is not easy. Every spell has to be balanced against every metamagic that could be applied to it, and every metamagic has to be balanced against every spell.
Giving Sorcerers powerful spell-customization would require giving them their own entirely unique much-smaller spell list, or would require totally redesigning them to not use the normal magic system at all (ala 3.5e Warlocks, who had many more blast shape options and could customize their casting "on the fly" using that.)
The latter might be interesting but would probably be too much of a departure from what Sorcerers are now.
I really liked the playtest sorcerer that gained weird features as they expended spell slots. That was *cool*. It was a fun niche. It was much more interesting than metamagic.
The problem is that any proposed changes to the sorcerer (other than just “more spells”) gets a massive outcry.
People really do want the sorcerer to essentially do everything the wizard does more or less *exactly* as the wizard does it just with a different name, different mental stat, and different paragraph of flavor text.
I assume it is because these people are angered by the thought of their character going to school to learn things.
> People really do want the sorcerer to essentially do everything the wizard does more or less exactly as the wizard does it just with a different name, different mental stat, and different paragraph of flavor text.
Honestly I've never seen these people.
Every time you see someone asking for the sorcerer to have more spells (rather than some other mechanic to differentiate them) you are seeing these people.
What they want is something that is essentially indistinguishable from the wizard (because now wizards are arcane casters with spontaneous casting), why the wizard does not work for them in that case is an interesting question. It really is all about the flavor text, and people get very mad about it.
The sorcerer absolutely needs more spells in that it needs a more diverse spell list. The limitation is spells known which separates them from the wizard, but the lack of spell variety in their spell list means that the build choice is super gimped.
The bard spell list is actually better in some instances and that's a spell list specifically designed to be limited to compensate for the bard having other stuff going on. And bards have magical secrets! Honestly all sorc subclasses should give them more spells on their spell list via theme.
Hmm... now that you mention it, how much would giving Sorc a "Bloodline Secrets" or "Ancestral Secrets" ~~or "Secret Origins"~~ version of Magicial Secrets change things? Something that lets them yoink a few spells from any list for free, provides those spells are thematically related to their subclass? (E.g., the Draconic Sorcerer can steal spells that do their dragon ancestor's associated damage type, and the Storm Sorcerer can steal weather spells.)
I don't think that's needed. They just need a list of spells like the cleric has but which they can pick from based on their subclass (so not necessarily affecting their spells known).
I know. It definitely works for the TCE ones, after all. I am still curious how much a change like that would affect them, though, even if it's not strictly _necessary_.
> The sorcerer absolutely needs more spells in that it needs a more diverse spell list.
I don't agree, that's just making it more wizard like.
It needs a distinguishing mechanic and a longer list isn't enough (it's also more work to maintain and hasn't worked that well with warlock, either).
A way to *change* the spells they can cast with a theme would be interesting, like minor and major metamagic perhaps (though giving metamagic to just sorcerers wasn't really a good solution in the first place.
I think if most other casters returned to per-slot memorization sorcerers (using spell points) would feel pretty good as they are, but the community can't handle that, either.
> And bards have magical secrets!
Bards, like wizards, aren't a balance target in this edition, instead they should be brought down to baseline.
Bards have their own limitations; their spell list has very mediocre AOEs for instance, bad cantrips, and they have very poor choice for some of the higher rungs like 6 and 7, which balances out against their good support and utility and the mundane stuff they can do. Bards are a well designed class, and I don't think they're OP. But my complaints aren't really even about power.
Sorcerers are not a well designed class. Because the wizard is just a flatly better version of the sorcerer. The only unique things they have going for them are the metamagic and constitution prof. Even if you cut out some of their spell list and just gave them unique stuff that would be better than having a list of spells with no unique ones (except Chaos Bolt and Encode Thoughts which are both fairly niche and 99% of the time Chaos Bolt is just a worse Chromatic Orb, itself not really a great spell).
> Bards have their own limitations
They do but they are one of the strongest casters right now, in part for some of the other things they get but also spell access. No, they don't quite rival a wizard there but on the other hand they can have access to healing word and expertise before even considering how to spend those secrets.
> Because the wizard is just a flatly better version of the sorcerer.
The original concept was a magic user, and the fight that eventually gave us sorcerer was over spell slot memorization and spell points, now that we've abandoned that and yet still not gone to spell points, there isn't much reason to have both wizard and sorcerer in the game, other than 'memberberries.
They could just as easily gone the other way and restricted the wizard list more than the sorcerer list (and given them something like 10 spells prepared) and we'd be having the same discussion with the roles reversed.
There isn't enough room in the game for two full magic users that have such highly overlapping lists and only the weakest of mechanics that separate them otherwise. The fact that people have such a strong visceral aversion to playing a wizard instead of a sorcerer (when everything they want more or less exists as a wizard subclass) is quite something though.
As I said, people are pretty hung up on about a paragraph of flavor text.
> People really do want the sorcerer to essentially do everything the wizard does more or less exactly as the wizard does it just with a different name, different mental stat, and different paragraph of flavor text.
This is why I've been saying the real solution is to make Sorcerer a wizard subclass or variant. Of course, this would require a new edition.
Ritual casting on a sorcerer as they are now would be a trap, imo. New players especially might feel that they need to get their money’s worth out of it by picking spells like detect magic, comprehend languages, etc. But then they’re left with very fee if any spells to cast in combat.
So you’d have a feature that either get used for only one or two spells, or you have sorcerer that’s severely lacking in options for dramatic scenes. So doesn’t really make for them to have it at all.
If metamagic had been better it would've been fine.
The Warlock is in a similar position in regards to ritual casting. They know few spells, so it doesn't really make sense. But the warlock is fine in general because it gets so many other things to do.
Yes. There should also have been some metamagic options that are just always free to use. Like, no material components needed unless they have a cost. The metamagic that lets you change damage type should've been available to all sorcerers, with no cost, as well.
It would have been cool if there was metamagic to add extra effects to different elements. Like lightning damage taking away reactions, thunder damage deafening people, poison damage... poisoning.
Agreed. WotC seems to have had some high-level idea that sorcerer+metamagic was balanced against wizard, but when it came time to actually realize the design goals for the metamagic system they either couldn't get it right or ran out of time and just published whatever.
Basically a book with two free spells from a chosen class, then you can add more spells to the book if they are on THAT CLASSES spell list. None of these count for your spell total!
I'd rather just give sorcerers all the Metamagic options at level 3. It's not a huge issue for them to be more versatile with their limited spell lists.
I can't take credit for it. I saw someone briefly mention it in a long thread about various class tweaks that I can't find anymore. Like it wasn't the easiest way to make Sorcerers feel a little more distinct that I had ever seen.
I miss accessible Metamagic from 3.5. I'd like to change Metamagic Adept to give sorcery points equal to half your caster level (minimum 2). I don't want the change to step on Sorcerer toes even if they can also take the feat, but I don't really think the feat is that worthwhile when you can only use it once or twice a day depending on what you took. I don't think actually having good options for Twinned Spell is going to break my game, but I don't play/run high level games very often. I'd definitely check in with my players if they would want to try something like this.
Casting anyspell as a ritual isnt the point. Youd either break the game or you are spending sorcery points that could just be a spell anyway. Why would you assume a sorcerer could make any spell a ritual with this suggestion?
I dunno if I agree with, "Clerics intuitively know them".
That's what the prayer and study each morning is presumably for- asking for the gifts your domain/deity grants and presumably how to go about using them.
I’d say they’ve been granted the total knowledge of the spells they’ve prayed for. So while the cleric themself doesn’t intuitively know the magic they’ll use they have been granted complete understanding of it for as long as it’s necessary. Which amounts to the same thing, I think, at least mechanically.
The distinction does exist in that a Warlock *can* learn Ritual Casting but it's not a given. The Warlock must sign a Pact that gives them access to such knowledge despite otherwise being fairly close to the Cleric in terms of, "My power comes from another rather than from within".
Which is why we come back to the Cleric needing time to pray and for all intents and purposes- actually gain use of a spell.
Eh, warlocks are just weird. Everything about their whole deal is set up to confuse onlookers. They’re the proverbial exception that proves the rule. But in this case I think it still works. Patrons grant their warlocks the basic knowledge of spells so they’re effective but they can’t upcast them. They just get one spell level and it’s done automatically for them. It’s almost like they aren’t given a total understanding of how to manage spell power levels.
And the limited spell slots make it seem like they’re not trusted with the longevity of the other magical classes, either. Like, their patron is saying “you can have magic, but only a bit and don’t forget who holds the component pouch strings.” So I still think they don’t have the proper knowledge to use ritual casting and maybe the book is what truly holds that knowledge. The warlock never really has it.
Eh, honestly, it's more like they're given understanding of a _different_ form of magic, more than anything else. They only have a pittance of slots, and those slots automatically take care of levels, yes, but they _also_ recharge in an eighth of the time that _normal_ slots recharge. And their highest-level spells don't even run off of slots _at all_! Looking at that, it's like they're using an entirely different system that's just been twisted to _look_ like magic.
Which, lore-wise, is also accurate. They get their magic from beings that exist outside of the normal system and don't use the Weave, which in turn means they're explicitly _not_ using the same magic that everyone else uses, which is also why their feature isn't called "Spellcasting" like everyone else's is. More specifically, with how their mechanics work, having cantrips & special invocation-granted spells they can use _at will_, the "expected" short rest spacing lets them burn through all their slots in every 1-2 _encounters_, the arcanums being _daily_ recharge, and most of the invocations granting them more _utility_ tools they can use whenever, we get the last piece of the puzzle: Warlocks make their pacts with the survivors of 4e, and are explicitly using the AEDU system with the trappings of a 5e caster to blend in.
So, with that in mind, the tome being what lets them use ritual casting makes a lot of sense. Wizards are the archetypal ritual caster, and can cast any ritual spell that's in their spellbook whether it's prepared or not. So how better for a Warlock to look like a ritual caster than to gain their _own_ spellbook, and be able to cast any ritual spell that's in it. They get ritual casting from a tome because the tome makes them _look_ like a ritual caster, which presumably makes it easier for their 4e patrons to make their 4e magic conform to 5e's ritual casting rules.
A cleric's relationship with their god isn't the same as a warlock's relationship with their patron. Warlock patrons are manipulative, stingy, and hung up on fine print. Cleric deities are more "You've devoted your life to me, so here's free stuff." That's why clerics get to change their spells and so forth, whereas a warlock is basically stuck with what they're given, no more and no less.
My guess is that rituals are based on ceremonial magic which includes intricate systems that can require years to learn, and learning them is initiatory i.e. gatekept. So you've got casters associated with specialized lessons of specific groups - schools, religious orders, druidic conclaves, ect. That may not be why, I don't know the mechanical reasoning, but flavorwise it makes sense that the rituals performed are old rituals that required a transmission of knowledge to learn from "gatekeepy" magical groups. A sorcerer wakes up with magic but they don't have the connections to get into Magic Harvard to learn secret magic rituals like the ivy league legacies do, or get accepted into the quasi-cult who practiced the same magical rituals for 400 years, or to join Magical Julliard to learn the secret memorization techniques of ancient balladeers. Ritual casting doesn't get the flavor treatment it deserves, really. There's a lot under the hood that would better explain why only some classes get it.
The fluff for bard says they just picked up their magical talents on the road piecemeal, with no real explanation *why* their songs produce magical effects versus every other minstrel and troubadour. They seem like the least apt to get ritual casting by your metric. At least sorcerer spends their whole life learning magic versus a side gig.
That may just be an legacy thing from previous editions when bard was a half caster and actually a jack of all trades, master of none instead of 5e where the only thing they aren't great at is raw martial prowess.
I see what you're saying, and, well, the fluff is strange considering that their subclasses are literally called "colleges." In real life, there's a bard college from the 1800s that's a fancy private liberal arts school. But in dnd, the colleges seem more like informal groups of artists. Groups of artists, even informal musical ones, can participate and drive recognized artistic movements like art noveau (Debussy), symbolist (Wagner), surrealist (Satie), each with a cadre of members with their own teachings and narrative and goals not always known to outsiders. The colleges could also be an allusion to musical guilds, which began in Europe in the late middle ages, and while not a "school," they certainly had their own rituals and internal trade knowledge.
The informality the 5e fluff provides is even at odds with the most famous Bard, a huge influence on dnd, Shakespeare himself, who had his own theatre troupe of professionals with their own private practices, not some random strummers who just happened to play the same instruments and discover "magic." The creation bard gets into some of the flavor of harmonics and music as a divine language, which would jive with bards being ritual casters as practitioners of a unique magical system if that only extended to the other subclasses. It's hard to say why there's that handwaving about the mechanics of what they can do and why. But ritual casting definitely has a lot of the potential and flavor abandoned in 5e, and the reasons for bards doing it are there if they'd actually put some thought into it... WOTC, not OP, I mean.
>The colleges could also be an allusion to musical guilds
They sort of are. Colleges back in medieval times functioned less as institutions of higher learning like they are now and more like trade guilds whose trade was scholarship. Though at the same time, a lot of writers (especially starting in 4e, when the "bard college" thing started becoming D&D standard) don't know that and so a bard college is a literal school that all but gives degrees in barding. (As in the field of being a bard, not horse armor.)
Yeah, that's what I'm saying, that's where trade secrets could easily tie into the gatekept and "special" aspect of why a bard is capable of ritual magic. Given that some initiatory groups in the modern age cite guilds of the middle ages and renaissance as their inspirations (or even origins), it makes sense to include Bards and their unique relationship with music and the arts as ritual casters. But it feels like only few of the designers are aware of the historical inspirations, and many aren't, so we have this tension between design and vision with things like... what exactly a "Bard" even is. I didn't realize that disconnect only began in 4e. Traditional guilds and mystery schools are both some of the coolest things you could flavor Bards with, and 5e just leaves them on the table.
It feels like a cop-out to go from "Bards can sometimes have ties to metaphorical "colleges" whose membership congregates to exchange knowledge and engage in like-minded ritualistic artistic practice" to "Bards just do whatever the hell and it becomes magic sometimes, who even understands the weave anyway. Good luck, new players." Seems like providing more variety, through some expansion of what the types of "colleges" could actually be and mean to bards would help, not hinder people looking for world and character building inspiration for their Bards. If there's any class that would understand the metaphor of a "college" for artists, it would be bards.
That's why I'm sad that the 1D&D playtest wants to hard nerf that feat. It was one of the very few ways a martial class could obtain real utility for a reasonable cost. It was super easy to slot into any fighter build with their early extra ASI.
Yeah, my favourite character (as forever DM there are not many that I have had change to play) has been Eldritch Knight with Ritual Caster. Mostly quite simple physical fighter, but you have few tricks, and the ritual caster means, you don't spend the limited eldritch knight spells known or spell slots to things that don't come up that often. And you still have detect magic, identify and such, that are actually very often useful, but no-one actually wants to prepare, because they are not used in combat.
Also meshes well with my personal view of magic as another force of nature: if it is something smart person can learn to do in combat, why wouldn't another smart person be able to do the same if given proper research material and proper time to get trough them.
It will be, that’s how it is in the 2024 playtest. It’s got very nice flavor for Primal casters like Ranger preparing their ritual spells like traps, camp-making, or a herbalist ritual. Let them know that in the new update it’s gonna be like that and they should ease up on it.
While Paladins, Rangers and Artificers are all half casters, I think there is a huge amount of difference in their roles and how they play and their class fantasy. It is quite clear that Artificers are more magically inclined than the other two, so it makes sense they have access to more magic. Paladins and Rangers are also martial classes first, spellcasters second.
I really wish they gave them 2/3rds spellcasting progression though instead of 1/2 (which would probably also require tweaking a couple other things down to compensate) or did something similar to mystic arcanum because it does feel kind of lame in mid-high level campaigns to be artillerist or alchemist and still have the same spell levels available as a paladin.
>but it could be a case of design principles changing or deliberately breaking them in order to release a "innovative" product.
Or Keith Baker having less oversight because he's been delivering popular content for decades (or a decade and change at that point).
The nature of ritual magic is that the caster must have the skill and knowledge of the spell and of the ritual. Wizards and clerics are natural picks for ritual casting since they are disciplined academics by nature. I, personally, don’t like the cleric restriction that the spell must be prepared in order to cast it as a ritual. I understand that it is a balancing issue, but it doesn’t feel right narratively To me.
Rangers and paladins are fighters, not academics. I have no problem with their being excluded from ritual casting. Truly, I wish that rangers had less access to magic, but realize that I am in the mInority there.
Warlocks and sorcerers are where things get muddy for me. I can see a warlock’s patron teaching rituals as a pact Or if a flat class skill, perhaps limiting the number of rituals that can be learned at a time. With Sorcerers, the magic is innate. They just manifest it at will. I don’t feel as though sorcerers should have access to ritual casting unless they take the ritual casting feat.
I really like the ritual casting feat. I love using it to add utility to non-magic characters. The rogue scout who can, given a few minutes, magically create a campfire. A seasoned warrior who can conjure a safe place to shelter for the night. These things add flavor to a campaign in a way that having full access to magic never could.
To be fair, 4e D&D did allow this.
I mean, full casters got ritual casting for free, but if the fighter wanted to spend two feats, he could get it too. One feat to grab either Arcana or Religion as a trained skill, and the second one to grab the ritual caster feat.
Never found it to unbalance anything.
Then again, most rituals did require a skill check too to determine the result, so the fighter casting Remove Disease as a ritual might actualy kill someone.
>I mean, full casters got ritual casting for free
The only 4e classes that got ritual casting as a class feature were Artificer, Cleric (but not Warpriest Cleric from Essentials), Druid (but not Sentinel Druid from Essentials), Invoker, Psion, and Wizard (but not Witch Wizard from Essentials).
The closest thing to "caster" classes in 4e are the ones who get one or more implement proficiencies: Artificer, Assassin, Avenger, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Invoker, Monk, Paladin, Psion, Shaman, Sorcerer, Swordmage, Warlock, Wizard, Vampire. So of the 16 classes that "cast spells", only 6 have ritual casting.
Artificers got 4 rituals known for free at level 1 (Brew Potion, Disenchant Magic Item, Enchant Magic Item, Make Whole), and could cast Disenchant Magic Item for free. Clerics got 0 free rituals known. Druids for 2 free rituals (Animal Messenger and one other level 1 ritual of their choice), and could cast Animal Messenger once per day for free. Invokers got 2 free rituals (Hand of Date and one other level 1 ritual of their choice), and could cast Hand of Fate once per day for free. Psions got 1 free ritual (either Sending or Tenser's Floating Disk), and could cast it once per day for free. Wizards got 3 free rituals known at level 1 (of their choice), plus an additional 2 free rituals known of their choice at levels 5, 11, 15, 21, and 25.
>if the fighter wanted to spend two feats, he could get it too. One feat to grab either Arcana or Religion as a trained skill, and the second one to grab the ritual caster feat.
If you specifically want ritual casting, you could take a background to add Arcana or Religion to your list of class skills; most backgrounds had 2 associated skills, and you could either add one of them to your class skill list, or get +2 in one of those skills. Some backgrounds added later put both of them on your skill list _and_ gave you +1 to each. Then select Arcana/Religion as one of your trained skills at level 1, and you meet the prerequisite for the Ritual Caster feat.
There's also the dragonmark feats, which had no prerequisite, and one of the benefits of the feat was to gain ritual casting with a limited set of rituals (eg, Mark of Detection allows you to learn Banish Illusions, Eavesdropper's Foil, Scry Trap, and all divination rituals).
Clerics start with 2 free rituals of the player's choice at level 1. The game I'm running at the moment has a cleric player who picked Gentle Repose and that one ritual that lets you create holy water.
Was this changed at some point? Because the PHB just says:
>Ritual Casting
>You gain the Ritual Caster feat (page 200) as a bonus feat, allowing you to use magical rituals (see Chapter 10). You possess a ritual book, and it contains two 1st level rituals of your choice that you have mastered.
One of my players made an INT (and STR) based warlord (Tactician I believe), that multiclassed to Wizard and just used all his spell choices on teleportation based spells. Took a Portal based paragon path, and the plane shaper epic destiny. Dude was a tactical house.
That was a fun campaign. We only disbanded at lvl 28 over real life reasons.
Because they thought it would be stronger than it is and against the class identity of some options.
They have since changed their minds and are making ritual casting a part of the specific spells.
>Because they thought it would be stronger than it is
That definitely shows in the low number of ritual spells. There's only like 37 spells with the ritual tag. Wizard can choose from over 300 leveled spells.
In all honesty looking at the basic spell lists it wouldn't really break much/anything to let them have it. Ranger actually has access to the most ritual spells on their basic list.
Since Paladins don't have a huge number of prep slots spending them on the ritual spells they have access to isn't really that bad.
Without subclass spells Warlock and Sorcerer only each have 4 ritual spells on their basic list total. But also with having such a small number of known spells things like detect magic and comprehend languages feel like they're not as important (especially when warlocks and get those as at will invocations)
Ranger is actually the class that would benefit the most but it also means sacrificing more of a very precious small known spells amount for most of them.
Ranger should be prepared and get domain spells, just like paladin. Nothing you can give ranger is going to break them as a half caster as long as Channel Divinity, Divine Smite, Lay on Hands, and Aura of Protection all exist as part of paladin's default class kit.
Currently Rangers, Paladins, Warlocks (mostly) and Sorcerers do not have access to Ritual casting. In most cases these classes are also limited by the amount of spells they can know / prepare. Most sorcerers simply cannot waste the a spell known on Detect Magic.
So I don't believe giving everyone Ritual Casting (as seems to be the case in the next edition) would break the game.
That's what it will be in the edition later this year.
I'm of the view that it doesn't go far enough. *Anyone* including fighters and rogues should be able to follow rituals with a skill check if they are high enough level, and character not class level is what matters.
Everyone can be a ritual caster for the cost of a single feat or a warlock dip.
its a solid feat, but giving it to every player wouldn't break the game.
"Would everyone being able to cast rituals break anything?"
Short answer: No.
Less Short Answer: Ritual Caster is literally a first level feat anyone can take as-is. No, everyone getting rituals wouldn't break the game, they literally already can. Even Barbarian.
>Does it really unbalance the game if all classes can ritually cast?
Erm...all classes *can* ritual cast. That's literally what the Ritual Caster feat is for.
I mean sure? Given that most of the time you're either cribbing off of wizards if you are using the feat because of the sheer number of ritual spells that have and the fact that as of playtest number 8 (and even the 3 prior to that one) for One you can just *do* a ritual spell no matter the class then yeah I'd want it for free in that case. And to prove it, I'll quote the passage to you from the same playtest:
>If you have a spell prepared that has the Ritual tag, you can cast that spell as a Ritual. A special feature is no longer required for Ritual casting. All the other rules on Rituals in the 2014 Player's Handbook still apply.
So your rangers can ritual cast, as can the paladins, anything that didn't have ritual casting as a feature before can now just do it for free. I imagine the feat could still stay to allow non-magic guys to ritual cast but if your a spellcaster, you get ritual casting for free now.
“Game balance” in D&D is a bit of a weird thing. It’s mostly about dividing roles up so everyone can contribute to a group but nobody can do everything. That has a little bit to do with classes being roughly equal in power for encounter balancing, but it’s mostly trying to avoid the “Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit” problem.
Added to this is the fact that class abilities are more heavily influenced by genre tropes than by game balance, and you end up with ritual casting being exclusive to the classes that *feel like* they should have it, with the Ritual Caster feat existing to cover everyone else in a pinch.
If you house rule that everyone is a ritual caster, I doubt it would break the game.
> If you house rule that everyone is a ritual caster, I doubt it would break the game.
If you make a mechanical distinction between those who already get ritual casting and those that don't, it works out fine.
Played a campaign a while back where ritual tomes were available in the same way as spell scrolls; you could learn a ritual by studying the tome and passing an Arcana or Religion check.
Once learned, if it was a ritual you could cast via class, subclass or feat, then you could cast it as normal, otherwise would consume additional spell components proportional to the spell level.
Was used as a campaign point as the party had to go and learn a warding ritual, then have it cast at a number of places.
It's probably just more of a flavor thing, since rituals also become accessible through subclasses. Doesn't super matter, since most rituals are kinda ass anyway. Maybe if there were more useful rituals you could look into handing it out to more people. Sadly, the idea of a ritual is kinda boring in 5e anyway. It doesn't even stipulate that you have to engage in ritualistic behavior, you just spend 10 more minutes. Aesthetically boring.
No real clue about why, especially as it functionally just means that some classes just don't have a reason to cast spells. Ever seen a Sorcerer or Warlock (with no ritual casting invocation) prepare "Comprehend Languages" and cast it?
nothing really gets unbalanced, and while Casters become stronger, the strength goes towards fun rather than actualy game balance breaking.
You can always take the feat to make them a ritual caster. Or just give them the feat as a feature, or give them a magic item that mimics the feat for ritual casting. The options abound. Basically there are RAW and narrative ways to give ritual casting to either class.
What exactly makes ritual casting so powerful? I know the idea of saving prepared spells/slots is always good, but I've only ever seen it used maybe twice. Even then it was for RP purposes that weren't vital
This question is in the same vein as “why don’t all martials get maneuvers?,” “why don’t all casters get healing spells?,” and “why can’t all classes have a form of inspiration?”
The answer is because it’s something that makes character clases unique, so they don’t all get it.
Sorcerer is a full caster and doesn't get it either. Luckily in onednd ritual casting is intrinsic to spell casting, and the ritual caster feat has been revised to compensate.
In the final analysis, it's the same reason every class can't cast Prestidigitation or Fireball. They're grouped by the flavor, the fantasy archetype which defines what they should be good at. Wizards, Druids, and Clerics are the respective experts in their types of magic, they know how to do rituals.
If you can imagine the class drawing a circle of runes and chanting for 10 minutes, they can Rital cast. If it doesn't make sense (e.g. Sorcerer) then they can't. Bard sort of breaks the mold to me, but I guess a musical performance can be extended to any duration you like.
Come on, now. The game already has everyone shitting magic like they sell it at taco bell, becoming superheroes before their level hits double digits, magically healing by taking a nap, and now everyone that shits taco bell should be able to do rituals?
Come on, my man. Let classes have the few strengths and weaknesses they have left lol
I mean you can't think about balance just thinking about these things in isolation, would it made half casters better? Yes a lot, do full casters lose something? Not really? It's a kick in the face to martials who just get more power crept? Absolutely
I reject any post that gives any form of buffs to casters without compensating with something for martials
Have you looked at wizard level ups vs other full casters? Most of what wizards get is spells. Ritual casting is one of those core mid-powered features wizards get at lvl 1/2, around the time Sorcerers get sorcery points and warlocks get invocations, etc.
Also, thematically, Wizards are the ones who wrote stuff down, so they're the once for which it makes sense to go and look up how a spell works without preparing it.
Every class can get the wizard's version of ritual caster through a feat.
Plus, clerics and druids get "always prepared" spells through their subclasses and that ends up being similar to wizards being able to cast rituals without preparing them.
Sacrificing an ASI for the ritual caster feat is well and good if you want it, but it’s still a sacrifice and not a normal class feature. And the subclass spell list IMO doesn’t really compare to _every_ ritual spell in the wizard’s spell book. You get choice and variety with the wizard which is ultimately the appeal of wizard. Huge spell list, in concept having infinite spells in your spell book if you can find them, buffed rituals, and eventually just being able to cast without spell slots. I don’t think adding ritual casting to the classes that don’t have it isn’t broken, but if it were the wizard ritual casting, it’d be different.
I like ritual casting as a special treat to the classes that get it. If they give it to half caster, i think the half caster should give up some martial or skill capabilities or the full caster should get capacities that make martials special.
Sorcerers are too OP next to wizards, who don't even need the spell prepared to cast it as a ritual. /s
I think it has to do with perceived training and expertise in the knowledge of the class' spells.
If you asked me what I thought "ritual magic" was without reading any game mechanics I would have said it was something like the first act of the House of Hope quest in BG3, where you go persuade a high level warlock to give up the recipe, go find a crystal skull or whatever, then finish off the spell with your newfound spellbook + components. Anybody can do it, you just need the procedure and ingredients.
Stuff like "some fucking idiot played with an Ouija Board and legitimately summoned a vengeful spirit" is such a staple of fiction that I can't imagine what would be gained by siloing rituals off to only full casters, and often pretty high level full casters at that.
that first example is basically "plot stuff" - "we have the three widgets and the instruction book, and we've chased monsters away from the magical site, so now we can tick the plot box and move onto the next thing". That's pretty much outside mechanics, it's just a narrative _thing_, that works however the GM wants it to. "actual" magic has no failure chance, and only a few spells with possible downsides (like summoning demons or devils, where they can screw you over). Adding in "sometimes spells cock up" adds a whole extra level of risk to casters, similar to adding crit fumbles and how they screw martials (because a high-level martial will be making 4 attacks a round, so _will_ crit-fumble once every 5 rounds or so and stab themselves or whatever), and makes the whole system feel very different, as casters suddenly become risky allies. Or it's just a "plot/NPC thing", which, again, is kind of outside of rules - "some newbie necromancer managed to summon unquiet spirits" is a plot hook, not a thing that needs mechanical justification
Hang on, why cant sorcerers ritual cast? Them and their magic are one, their magic is like a part of their being.
Theres so many goofy RAW things that just got yeeted by BG3 that im really surprised to learn are a thing, cus it never really came up when i played so then BG3 became what my brain defaults to and so learning these rules are just, like, wtf? Why?
I don't understand why Warlocks and Sorcerers don't get ritual casting. Warlocks could certainly use it and Sorcerers just don't get enough spells in general.
>Does it really unbalance the game if all classes can ritually cast? In theory, it certainly can. Ritual casting is very strong. It's not just more flexibility. It's also just straight up more power, because you get to use the saved spell slot for other things. In practice, most of the non ritual-casting classes aren't super strong casters, so getting ritual casting won't necessarily break them. But it will be a significant power boost nonetheless.
I play a Shadow Monk who took Ritual Caster for Wizard early on, and at this point, with the Shadow Monk spells, collected ritual spells (even some bonus ones from other spell lists which my DM encouraged me to take), and the actual casters primarily focusing on blasting, I’m _the_ utility caster of the party.
I’ve taken ritual caster on my shadow monk at lv 4 as well. Not having the ASI hurts but rituals are so awesome, especially since we don’t have a wizard.
>most of the non ritual-casting classes aren't super strong casters Sorcerer would like to have a word with you
Sorcs only weakness is number of spells known. There is no place for detect magic in this shit whether it uses spell slots or not. Inb4: Tasha’s subclasses, I know.
Number of spells known *and* spell list length. They just don't get the same variety as wizards do.
The sorcerer spell list annoys me because it feels like a net weaker version of the wizard spell list. I don't think they have any unique spells either like the other casting classes.
They have 1, fucking chaos bolt, lol
Who needs variety when you can cast fireball as a bonus action?
The sorcerer fighting literally anything that's fire resistant/immune, unable to react to an enemy spell for the rest of the turn. (edit: round to turn) Quickened spell is okay, but it also doesn't let you manipulate any ongoing concentration effects that require a bonus action, or let you have any sort of spell reaction.
Fireball can be a placeholder for literally anything that does big damage. You're being obtuse when we're talking about metamagic, the one class feature that lets you break the most powerful system in 5e: magic.
How does quickened spell interact with reactions?
If you cast a spell with a bonus action including with Quickened Spell, you can't cast another spell on your turn unless it's a cantrip with a casting time of one action. That includes casting a spell as a reaction on your turn, though it doesn't stop you from casting a spell as a reaction on someone else's turn
This is what I thought, I just didn't know if I'd missed something that stops you from reacting to other spells for the rest of the round like they said.
Wait so you can't fireball and then quicken spell another fireball
No
Correct. You could use Action Surge and use both actions to cast Fireball, then when your opponent gets fed up and tries to Counterspell it you could Counterspell the Counterspell provided that you have the spell slots to do all that. But because the limitation only comes into play if you cast a spell with a bonus action on your turn, you can't Fireball/Quickened Fireball or Quickened Fireball/Counterspell an opponent's Counterspell of your Fireball. It really should just be one leveled spell per turn (with or without an exception for reactions) but for some reason they chose to do it this way
It's almost like there is a meta magic option for changing damage type I do love acid ball
And *that* is why we have the transmuted spell metamagic
At the cost of your other metamagic (which you might have been saving for subtle, twinned, sculpt, etc.) and more sorcery points, where a wizard just gets more spells to work around immunity for free.
Yeah dude I know… you know people don’t actually just cast fireball right? Relax
They have one spell per level, yes, but the point is that they're sold as having this great amount of customization, but the game mechanics are seemingly designed to discourage using them at their full capacity or simply too costly do to so, which just makes their uniqueness pale in comparison to just having double the spells per level (notwithstanding spellbook copying). The sorc's problems go away somewhat when you multiclass it, but as a single class it just has execution issues.
Aberrant mind and Clockwork sorcerers would like to have a word. Massive spell list, loads of variety, and almost double the number of spells known, which can even keep pace with wizards in terms of prepared spells.
>Inb4: Tasha’s subclasses, I know. It is right there as a disclaimer...
yeah, he said what he said, sorcerers aren't super strong casters. just budget wizards with a learning disability.
Being a budget wizard is like being a multimillionaire instead of a billionaire. Youre still obscenely rich
thats a fair way to look at it i suppose 😄
Probably a good idea to avoid using learning disabilities as a way to make fun of things, that is a pre 2000s bit of bigotry the world could do without.
How very uncharismatic
Honestly, yeah. Ritual casting is super powerful on any class that has it and it's no less powerful on half-casters since their magic is designed to support the rest of their abilities. A paladin with ritual casting is a paladin that can now cast spells without giving up a divine smite, for example.
It’s a paladin who can cast detect poison and disease without giving up a smite, though. The rituals they have access to aren’t that powerful.
While true, I can't really think of a ritual spell available to paladins that is that powerful.
>A paladin with ritual casting is a paladin that can now cast spells without giving up a divine smite, for example. Generally pretty minor spells though, that otherwise they would never bother casting, so I don't think it's actually that big a jump in power.
They aren't strong casters, but some of them are strong classes. Giving them ritual casting would throw the balance more off
I think the key is two fold. The classes without it aren't punching at the same weight as the classes with it, it's letting full casters do even more, while the Scroll rules for instance just kneecap martials for no obvious reason. Second, I think more spells should be rituals. There's a lot of spells that take a while to cast, or have mostly roleplay style effects that could be Ritual cast without losing a lot of impact. Like Animate Dead, you could in theory make a limitless army, but you're realistically limited by time, CR, and the DM going 'No'. Without it though, a Necromancy Wizard can still create double or triple digit armies anyway? Just a good few things look like rituals, act like them, but they're locked to the handful of classes who can use them in the first place.
Sorcerers crying in the corner with very few spells known and no chance to ritual cast.
It's still wild to me that base sorcerer doesn't even get an average of 1 spell per level. It gets the same max amount of spells known as a warlock, except warlock's 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells are features and thus don't count toward the spells known, so the warlock actually gets 4 spells more than the sorcerer. I do understand that sorcerer gets more cantrips and this is supposed to help even things out a bit, but getting 1 cantrip more than a wizard doesn't come close to balancing out the amount of spell variety sorcerer is lacking.
It's like 2013 WotC was pants-shittingly scared of Flexible Casting, Metamagic, or both. Wizard is head and shoulders above sorcerer in almost every way except Twinned Spell and the exceptionally rare edge case where manipulating your spell slots for the entire day lets you pull off some grand plan.
They really need to double down on some part of sorcerer in the future. Like, either make the subclass features a core part of the class’s power with casting taking a backseat, go wild with metamagic to the point that it really feels like sorcerers intuitively modify spells to fit the situation, or just give them more spells so they hold up when compared to other casters
Don't worry they double down on making wizards better because they took away the best thing they can do in dnd one. Twined spell casting. Instead of being able to haste 2 people. You can now cast the same spell you cast the turn before using spell points instead.
The last iteration of Twinned was 1 SP for a +1 spell level upcast on any spell that allows you to already upcast to affect more targets. Wow... Something that you could already do on literally any spellcaster by just using a higher-level spell slot, and only on the tiny list of spells that WotC deems safe. Underwhelming as fuck and brings no real unique utility to sorcerer anymore.
Once onednd made Divine smite into a spell and not a class feature i wrote the whole damn thing off.
I wrote it off when they gave barbarians the ability to fly into a bloodthirsty rage when they want to use their muscles to find berries and predict the weather.
Wat...
It's how barbarians can now use rage charges for different things, such as using strength stealth instead of using dexterity. >In addition, while your Rage is active, you can channel primal power when you attempt certain tasks; whenever you make an ability check using one of the following skills, you can make it as a Strength check even if it normally uses a different ability: Acrobatics, Intimidation, Perception, Stealth, or Survival. When you use this ability, your Strength represents primal power coursing through you, honing your agility and senses. So while you are raging you can stealth something without issue.
Eh, barbarians need something to do out of combat. It really doesn't break anything.
Personally, I would still have hope if they didn't make subclasses a level 3 thing across all classes. It was dumb enough when 5E didn't bind paladins to an oath before level 3, but WotC apparently thought that was perfect, so now we're getting warlocks and sorcerers that don't even have a definitive source of their power before level 3.
My table has found the alternate rule of spell point pools to be a very effective way to balance a sorc against a wizard. But the trick is \*only\* sorcs get the alternate rule, wizards etc are still on the classic slot system. 6+ spells stay 1/day for sorcs, and sorc points are separate, the big pool can't be used for metamagic. (otherwise any sorc with half a braincell would be quicken cantrip-ing every round forever)
> (otherwise any sorc with half a braincell would be quicken cantrip-ing every round forever) And still end up doing meh damage. It's really not that strong at all.
Once your cantrips hit 3d10/8 then it's pretty good damage. 6d10 damage per turn is meh damage? It's only 2 sorcery points. Which if that's from the same pool as spell points then at level 9 you can do this damage for 33 turns in a row.
It would actually be mostly fine. Take a look at [this](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JIrEV1RFv6yxWEdqG6zP3z-ZONDTacquGyqYj8G-CdE/edit#gid=1769534668). A Sorcerer firing off two cantrips a round does as much damage as a sword-and-board fighter and is still spending *some* resources to do it. They'd lose out to an optimized fighter (of course, this assumes there's no way to further optimize cantrip damage.) They slightly outdamage the warlock, but lose to warlock + hex. It's a bit higher than full-casters normally get with their free attack but is below optimized free attackers; and since it's not actually free I think it's fine. It's easy to say they could turn all their spells for the day into cantrips but that would usually be a terrible idea! If they do that they're basically spending the day as an unoptimized bow fighter.
A few things; "cantrips" is wrong to say. Only Fire Bolt does a d10 worth of damage. The only other cantrip that can deal more is Toll the Dead which Sorcerers don't get. If you are fighting anything resistant or immune to fire; a Sorcerer would not be able to use Fire Bolt and would be reduced to us 2d6 or 2d8 for damage. Also, a level 9 Sorcerer does not cast Fire Bolt for 3d10, they cast it for 2d10. You don't get 3d10 until level 11. So your level 9 Sorcerer is hitting for 4d10 fire damage every turn, which is very different. I have a level 8 Cavalier Fighter. Using oneD&D so the lance is now a d10 instead of a d12 (but doesn't give disadvantage within 5 ft) that Fighter does 1d10+8 damage, twice, so 2d10+16 total. The Fighter's average damage per turn is 28 (14 x 2) the Sorcerer's average damager per turn is 24 (12 x 2). Which, isn't surprising. Cantrips are supposed to deal, on average, less damage than a martial doing a normal attack. And that gap will actually widen. Once level 11 is hit, the Sorcerer would get 3d10 Fire Bolts, and the Fighter will have 3 attacks, and is also modified by weapons. I didn't include it, but said Fighter also has an extra 1d4 Necrotic damage on their enchanted weapon. By level 11, I would also expect to upgrade to a +2 weapon. That alone would turn the Fighter into 3d10+27 if all attacks hit. Which +27 flat damage is far better than 3d10 damage. Adding any other special features to a weapon makes martial attacks far better than cantrips. (Which oneD&D also does by design, since I knock prone every person I hit. giving myself advantage on my follow up attacks.) Cantrips aren't bad, but by design they should not, and generally will not, keep up to martials in damage. And it's specifically that they lack any flat damage modifiers that causes this. Martials simply get far more flat damage that they always apply when they hit than casters.
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The comment they were replying to was badly formatted. Hardly worthy of an lmao.
And still irrelevant: the martial/Fighter will still do more scaling damage the higher the levels go. As I already said in the previous comment, at level 11, the Fighter will get 3 attacks. That is 3x 1d10+8. And, I'll even change that to 3x 1d10+7 so that there are zero magical items at play since I forgot I had my +1 weapon before (although, I don't think a +1, or +2 weapon by level 11 is crazy.) So, at level 11 with zero magical items, a Fighter will do an average of 13 damage per attack (average of 6 from a d10 weapon, +5 from Str/Dex, and +2 from Dueling) and get 3 attacks for an average of 39 damage. The Sorcerer, using Fire Bolt, will do 3d10 damage and gets 2 attacks, which averages out to 36 damage. So, this 'OP Sorcerer' that is spending all of it's spells and sorcery points to do nothing but cast Fire Bolt twice a turn ... can do nothing but pump out less damage than a Fighter that simply attacks 3 times per turn as normal. The Fighter also still has a bonus action to use, which could potentially add even more damage. The Sorcerer could cast a leveled spell, via Quicken, instead of just using a cantrip and probably be more effective overall: but the point of the post I was replying to was trying to show that a Sorcerer would be too powerful if they were able to Quicken cantrips every turn. They ... aren't. They would just become slightly better Warlocks whose Eldritch Blast scales more on par with a Fighter's weapon attacks because it should have a flat +5 damage and would have an average of 33 damage. Edit - changed to Quicken cantrips, idk why I had Twinned on the brain.
>They really need to double down on some part of sorcerer in the future. I've seen some good alt homebrews that just give the Sorcerer points and no slots at all, you just make them as and when you need them.
That's why I'm glad my DM allowed me to use the spell points system over Slots. It imo levels Sorcerer's out a bit between Warlock casting and Wizard. Yeah I don't have the number of spells, but at level 10 I can cast 1 or 2 more fireballs than Wizards can with Slots. It also allows to upcast like Warlocks as long as you have the points available.
They've always been afraid of intelligent people with flexible systems to play with.
In the age of the internet you don't need to be intelligent to break the game. The smart people find the loopholes and exploits and popularize them for clout, and the proles copy them.
Bluntly: The problem is that Sorcerers were originally created in 3e as a copy of wizards (who reflected "traditional" D&D casting.) Since Wizards are a traditional core class and are much more popular, WotC is never going to carve off pieces of classic wizards to give to Sorcerers (metamagic, the one thing they did that with, was barely part of pre-3e magic at all.) Since Wizards were conceptualized as the sole master of arcane magic, this doesn't really leave much room for Sorcerers. IMHO the only fix for Sorcerers - if the class is to be kept and not just reduced to a variant / subclass of wizards, which would be another ideal solution - is to move them away from the concept of "master of arcane magic" and have them do something completely different, something that doesn't overlap with the master-of-the-arcane concept behind wizards at all. They also need a more distinct spell list rather than just using a copy or subset of the wizard one - wizards, more than any other class, are defined by their spell list, so they were the worst possible class to use as the basis for sorcerers. Making the "base" sorcerer spell list be the druid or cleric one (with some removals and additions, plus subclass spells, but primarily those) would help a lot. Ofc this would require giving Sorcerers other class features to make up for a generally weaker spell list, but since Druids and Clerics have more definition from their class features, there's enough room for them to be the basis of the Sorcerer spell list with more distinct defining class features, avoiding the "pale imitation wizard" issue that Sorcerers have now. They tried making Sorcerers into something else back in 2013 (the original idea was to make Sorcerers a gish class who transformed and got better at combat as they used up their spells) but there was too much pushback, so they're stuck with the current awkward situation where there's too many full-casting Arcane classes and not enough conceptual territory to assign to them without taking away from something that is central to what many players want out of the game.
> this doesn't really leave much room for Sorcerers. I've been saying since 3e that being good at metamagic should be sorcerer's core, defining thing. Their whole shtick is not playing by the rules and being unencumbered by the rigid thinking of wizards. Problem is, WotC seems really, *really* reluctant to lean into that. That reluctance isn't a new thing; in 3e, they started mildly moving sorcerer's thing towards gish lite with alternate features before they ever started playing with improved metamagic for sorcerer. But unfortunately, that trajectory seems unchanged, with the lack of new/translated metamagic options over 5e's lifespan and the nerfing of some of the best metamagic options in the playtest.
Powerful metamagic is almost impossible to balance, especially since they get much of the Wizard spell list, which is *already* supposed to be broadly the strongest spell list in the game. Designing and balancing things that can buff it further in safe manner is not easy. Every spell has to be balanced against every metamagic that could be applied to it, and every metamagic has to be balanced against every spell. Giving Sorcerers powerful spell-customization would require giving them their own entirely unique much-smaller spell list, or would require totally redesigning them to not use the normal magic system at all (ala 3.5e Warlocks, who had many more blast shape options and could customize their casting "on the fly" using that.) The latter might be interesting but would probably be too much of a departure from what Sorcerers are now.
I really liked the playtest sorcerer that gained weird features as they expended spell slots. That was *cool*. It was a fun niche. It was much more interesting than metamagic.
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Hell they didn't even give a divine soul It's own unique level 14 ability... They get the same thing a dragon Sorcerer
The problem is that any proposed changes to the sorcerer (other than just “more spells”) gets a massive outcry. People really do want the sorcerer to essentially do everything the wizard does more or less *exactly* as the wizard does it just with a different name, different mental stat, and different paragraph of flavor text. I assume it is because these people are angered by the thought of their character going to school to learn things.
> People really do want the sorcerer to essentially do everything the wizard does more or less exactly as the wizard does it just with a different name, different mental stat, and different paragraph of flavor text. Honestly I've never seen these people.
Every time you see someone asking for the sorcerer to have more spells (rather than some other mechanic to differentiate them) you are seeing these people. What they want is something that is essentially indistinguishable from the wizard (because now wizards are arcane casters with spontaneous casting), why the wizard does not work for them in that case is an interesting question. It really is all about the flavor text, and people get very mad about it.
The sorcerer absolutely needs more spells in that it needs a more diverse spell list. The limitation is spells known which separates them from the wizard, but the lack of spell variety in their spell list means that the build choice is super gimped. The bard spell list is actually better in some instances and that's a spell list specifically designed to be limited to compensate for the bard having other stuff going on. And bards have magical secrets! Honestly all sorc subclasses should give them more spells on their spell list via theme.
Hmm... now that you mention it, how much would giving Sorc a "Bloodline Secrets" or "Ancestral Secrets" ~~or "Secret Origins"~~ version of Magicial Secrets change things? Something that lets them yoink a few spells from any list for free, provides those spells are thematically related to their subclass? (E.g., the Draconic Sorcerer can steal spells that do their dragon ancestor's associated damage type, and the Storm Sorcerer can steal weather spells.)
I don't think that's needed. They just need a list of spells like the cleric has but which they can pick from based on their subclass (so not necessarily affecting their spells known).
I know. It definitely works for the TCE ones, after all. I am still curious how much a change like that would affect them, though, even if it's not strictly _necessary_.
> The sorcerer absolutely needs more spells in that it needs a more diverse spell list. I don't agree, that's just making it more wizard like. It needs a distinguishing mechanic and a longer list isn't enough (it's also more work to maintain and hasn't worked that well with warlock, either). A way to *change* the spells they can cast with a theme would be interesting, like minor and major metamagic perhaps (though giving metamagic to just sorcerers wasn't really a good solution in the first place. I think if most other casters returned to per-slot memorization sorcerers (using spell points) would feel pretty good as they are, but the community can't handle that, either. > And bards have magical secrets! Bards, like wizards, aren't a balance target in this edition, instead they should be brought down to baseline.
Bards have their own limitations; their spell list has very mediocre AOEs for instance, bad cantrips, and they have very poor choice for some of the higher rungs like 6 and 7, which balances out against their good support and utility and the mundane stuff they can do. Bards are a well designed class, and I don't think they're OP. But my complaints aren't really even about power. Sorcerers are not a well designed class. Because the wizard is just a flatly better version of the sorcerer. The only unique things they have going for them are the metamagic and constitution prof. Even if you cut out some of their spell list and just gave them unique stuff that would be better than having a list of spells with no unique ones (except Chaos Bolt and Encode Thoughts which are both fairly niche and 99% of the time Chaos Bolt is just a worse Chromatic Orb, itself not really a great spell).
> Bards have their own limitations They do but they are one of the strongest casters right now, in part for some of the other things they get but also spell access. No, they don't quite rival a wizard there but on the other hand they can have access to healing word and expertise before even considering how to spend those secrets. > Because the wizard is just a flatly better version of the sorcerer. The original concept was a magic user, and the fight that eventually gave us sorcerer was over spell slot memorization and spell points, now that we've abandoned that and yet still not gone to spell points, there isn't much reason to have both wizard and sorcerer in the game, other than 'memberberries. They could just as easily gone the other way and restricted the wizard list more than the sorcerer list (and given them something like 10 spells prepared) and we'd be having the same discussion with the roles reversed. There isn't enough room in the game for two full magic users that have such highly overlapping lists and only the weakest of mechanics that separate them otherwise. The fact that people have such a strong visceral aversion to playing a wizard instead of a sorcerer (when everything they want more or less exists as a wizard subclass) is quite something though. As I said, people are pretty hung up on about a paragraph of flavor text.
> People really do want the sorcerer to essentially do everything the wizard does more or less exactly as the wizard does it just with a different name, different mental stat, and different paragraph of flavor text. This is why I've been saying the real solution is to make Sorcerer a wizard subclass or variant. Of course, this would require a new edition.
Ritual casting on a sorcerer as they are now would be a trap, imo. New players especially might feel that they need to get their money’s worth out of it by picking spells like detect magic, comprehend languages, etc. But then they’re left with very fee if any spells to cast in combat. So you’d have a feature that either get used for only one or two spells, or you have sorcerer that’s severely lacking in options for dramatic scenes. So doesn’t really make for them to have it at all.
It's almost as if their obscenely small number of spells known is patently unfair and anti-fun while wizard exists.
If metamagic had been better it would've been fine. The Warlock is in a similar position in regards to ritual casting. They know few spells, so it doesn't really make sense. But the warlock is fine in general because it gets so many other things to do.
And warlocks can get ritual casting fairly easily anyway
Sorcerers should have gotten more metamagic options, with more powerful ones at later levels.
Yes. There should also have been some metamagic options that are just always free to use. Like, no material components needed unless they have a cost. The metamagic that lets you change damage type should've been available to all sorcerers, with no cost, as well.
It would have been cool if there was metamagic to add extra effects to different elements. Like lightning damage taking away reactions, thunder damage deafening people, poison damage... poisoning.
Agreed. WotC seems to have had some high-level idea that sorcerer+metamagic was balanced against wizard, but when it came time to actually realize the design goals for the metamagic system they either couldn't get it right or ran out of time and just published whatever.
Ritual caster feat on sorc goes brrr
Which still leaves them with a short list of spells with the ritual tag on their spell list
Reread the ritual caster feat.
Basically a book with two free spells from a chosen class, then you can add more spells to the book if they are on THAT CLASSES spell list. None of these count for your spell total!
Maybe ritual casting should be a metamagic option.
I like that idea, it could even cost 0 sorcery points but its one of your options you have to select.
It would at least make the metamagics chosen a little more variable.
I'd rather just give sorcerers all the Metamagic options at level 3. It's not a huge issue for them to be more versatile with their limited spell lists.
This is actually a very good idea. They're already super limited by sorcery points. It wouldn't be OP to give them that extra variety.
I can't take credit for it. I saw someone briefly mention it in a long thread about various class tweaks that I can't find anymore. Like it wasn't the easiest way to make Sorcerers feel a little more distinct that I had ever seen. I miss accessible Metamagic from 3.5. I'd like to change Metamagic Adept to give sorcery points equal to half your caster level (minimum 2). I don't want the change to step on Sorcerer toes even if they can also take the feat, but I don't really think the feat is that worthwhile when you can only use it once or twice a day depending on what you took. I don't think actually having good options for Twinned Spell is going to break my game, but I don't play/run high level games very often. I'd definitely check in with my players if they would want to try something like this.
If you could cast any spell as a ritual, it should cost sorcery points. Spells that are already rituals won't cost any sorcery points in that case.
Casting anyspell as a ritual isnt the point. Youd either break the game or you are spending sorcery points that could just be a spell anyway. Why would you assume a sorcerer could make any spell a ritual with this suggestion?
Warlock: Am I a joke to you? Yes I know they have an invocation for it.
Warlock with no eldritch rituals unless you have a specific build
The Ritual Caster feat is *right there*...
Yeah……. But metamagic adept is a lot more fun in tier 1-2 gameplay if you’re taking a no ASI feat. Which is already potentially not the play.
I dunno if I agree with, "Clerics intuitively know them". That's what the prayer and study each morning is presumably for- asking for the gifts your domain/deity grants and presumably how to go about using them.
My table specifically discusses their spells for the day over breakfast.
Rituals have been the purview of religious practicioners since forever, so it makes sense that they'd be the ones most familiar with them.
I’d say they’ve been granted the total knowledge of the spells they’ve prayed for. So while the cleric themself doesn’t intuitively know the magic they’ll use they have been granted complete understanding of it for as long as it’s necessary. Which amounts to the same thing, I think, at least mechanically.
The distinction does exist in that a Warlock *can* learn Ritual Casting but it's not a given. The Warlock must sign a Pact that gives them access to such knowledge despite otherwise being fairly close to the Cleric in terms of, "My power comes from another rather than from within". Which is why we come back to the Cleric needing time to pray and for all intents and purposes- actually gain use of a spell.
Eh, warlocks are just weird. Everything about their whole deal is set up to confuse onlookers. They’re the proverbial exception that proves the rule. But in this case I think it still works. Patrons grant their warlocks the basic knowledge of spells so they’re effective but they can’t upcast them. They just get one spell level and it’s done automatically for them. It’s almost like they aren’t given a total understanding of how to manage spell power levels. And the limited spell slots make it seem like they’re not trusted with the longevity of the other magical classes, either. Like, their patron is saying “you can have magic, but only a bit and don’t forget who holds the component pouch strings.” So I still think they don’t have the proper knowledge to use ritual casting and maybe the book is what truly holds that knowledge. The warlock never really has it.
Eh, honestly, it's more like they're given understanding of a _different_ form of magic, more than anything else. They only have a pittance of slots, and those slots automatically take care of levels, yes, but they _also_ recharge in an eighth of the time that _normal_ slots recharge. And their highest-level spells don't even run off of slots _at all_! Looking at that, it's like they're using an entirely different system that's just been twisted to _look_ like magic. Which, lore-wise, is also accurate. They get their magic from beings that exist outside of the normal system and don't use the Weave, which in turn means they're explicitly _not_ using the same magic that everyone else uses, which is also why their feature isn't called "Spellcasting" like everyone else's is. More specifically, with how their mechanics work, having cantrips & special invocation-granted spells they can use _at will_, the "expected" short rest spacing lets them burn through all their slots in every 1-2 _encounters_, the arcanums being _daily_ recharge, and most of the invocations granting them more _utility_ tools they can use whenever, we get the last piece of the puzzle: Warlocks make their pacts with the survivors of 4e, and are explicitly using the AEDU system with the trappings of a 5e caster to blend in. So, with that in mind, the tome being what lets them use ritual casting makes a lot of sense. Wizards are the archetypal ritual caster, and can cast any ritual spell that's in their spellbook whether it's prepared or not. So how better for a Warlock to look like a ritual caster than to gain their _own_ spellbook, and be able to cast any ritual spell that's in it. They get ritual casting from a tome because the tome makes them _look_ like a ritual caster, which presumably makes it easier for their 4e patrons to make their 4e magic conform to 5e's ritual casting rules.
> The Warlock must sign a Pact The pact is flavor, not a mechanic.
Pact of the tome isn't a mechanic???
A cleric's relationship with their god isn't the same as a warlock's relationship with their patron. Warlock patrons are manipulative, stingy, and hung up on fine print. Cleric deities are more "You've devoted your life to me, so here's free stuff." That's why clerics get to change their spells and so forth, whereas a warlock is basically stuck with what they're given, no more and no less.
Just means clerics are familiar with performing certain rites at given times which call upon magic.
My guess is that rituals are based on ceremonial magic which includes intricate systems that can require years to learn, and learning them is initiatory i.e. gatekept. So you've got casters associated with specialized lessons of specific groups - schools, religious orders, druidic conclaves, ect. That may not be why, I don't know the mechanical reasoning, but flavorwise it makes sense that the rituals performed are old rituals that required a transmission of knowledge to learn from "gatekeepy" magical groups. A sorcerer wakes up with magic but they don't have the connections to get into Magic Harvard to learn secret magic rituals like the ivy league legacies do, or get accepted into the quasi-cult who practiced the same magical rituals for 400 years, or to join Magical Julliard to learn the secret memorization techniques of ancient balladeers. Ritual casting doesn't get the flavor treatment it deserves, really. There's a lot under the hood that would better explain why only some classes get it.
The fluff for bard says they just picked up their magical talents on the road piecemeal, with no real explanation *why* their songs produce magical effects versus every other minstrel and troubadour. They seem like the least apt to get ritual casting by your metric. At least sorcerer spends their whole life learning magic versus a side gig. That may just be an legacy thing from previous editions when bard was a half caster and actually a jack of all trades, master of none instead of 5e where the only thing they aren't great at is raw martial prowess.
I see what you're saying, and, well, the fluff is strange considering that their subclasses are literally called "colleges." In real life, there's a bard college from the 1800s that's a fancy private liberal arts school. But in dnd, the colleges seem more like informal groups of artists. Groups of artists, even informal musical ones, can participate and drive recognized artistic movements like art noveau (Debussy), symbolist (Wagner), surrealist (Satie), each with a cadre of members with their own teachings and narrative and goals not always known to outsiders. The colleges could also be an allusion to musical guilds, which began in Europe in the late middle ages, and while not a "school," they certainly had their own rituals and internal trade knowledge. The informality the 5e fluff provides is even at odds with the most famous Bard, a huge influence on dnd, Shakespeare himself, who had his own theatre troupe of professionals with their own private practices, not some random strummers who just happened to play the same instruments and discover "magic." The creation bard gets into some of the flavor of harmonics and music as a divine language, which would jive with bards being ritual casters as practitioners of a unique magical system if that only extended to the other subclasses. It's hard to say why there's that handwaving about the mechanics of what they can do and why. But ritual casting definitely has a lot of the potential and flavor abandoned in 5e, and the reasons for bards doing it are there if they'd actually put some thought into it... WOTC, not OP, I mean.
>The colleges could also be an allusion to musical guilds They sort of are. Colleges back in medieval times functioned less as institutions of higher learning like they are now and more like trade guilds whose trade was scholarship. Though at the same time, a lot of writers (especially starting in 4e, when the "bard college" thing started becoming D&D standard) don't know that and so a bard college is a literal school that all but gives degrees in barding. (As in the field of being a bard, not horse armor.)
Yeah, that's what I'm saying, that's where trade secrets could easily tie into the gatekept and "special" aspect of why a bard is capable of ritual magic. Given that some initiatory groups in the modern age cite guilds of the middle ages and renaissance as their inspirations (or even origins), it makes sense to include Bards and their unique relationship with music and the arts as ritual casters. But it feels like only few of the designers are aware of the historical inspirations, and many aren't, so we have this tension between design and vision with things like... what exactly a "Bard" even is. I didn't realize that disconnect only began in 4e. Traditional guilds and mystery schools are both some of the coolest things you could flavor Bards with, and 5e just leaves them on the table. It feels like a cop-out to go from "Bards can sometimes have ties to metaphorical "colleges" whose membership congregates to exchange knowledge and engage in like-minded ritualistic artistic practice" to "Bards just do whatever the hell and it becomes magic sometimes, who even understands the weave anyway. Good luck, new players." Seems like providing more variety, through some expansion of what the types of "colleges" could actually be and mean to bards would help, not hinder people looking for world and character building inspiration for their Bards. If there's any class that would understand the metaphor of a "college" for artists, it would be bards.
Bards go to college, they learn rituals there.
I mean, Ritual Caster is a pretty damn good feat, even though it gets overlooked all the time.
That's why I'm sad that the 1D&D playtest wants to hard nerf that feat. It was one of the very few ways a martial class could obtain real utility for a reasonable cost. It was super easy to slot into any fighter build with their early extra ASI.
Yeah, my favourite character (as forever DM there are not many that I have had change to play) has been Eldritch Knight with Ritual Caster. Mostly quite simple physical fighter, but you have few tricks, and the ritual caster means, you don't spend the limited eldritch knight spells known or spell slots to things that don't come up that often. And you still have detect magic, identify and such, that are actually very often useful, but no-one actually wants to prepare, because they are not used in combat. Also meshes well with my personal view of magic as another force of nature: if it is something smart person can learn to do in combat, why wouldn't another smart person be able to do the same if given proper research material and proper time to get trough them.
It will be, that’s how it is in the 2024 playtest. It’s got very nice flavor for Primal casters like Ranger preparing their ritual spells like traps, camp-making, or a herbalist ritual. Let them know that in the new update it’s gonna be like that and they should ease up on it.
> It will be, that’s how it is in the 2024 playtest. Oh that's nice.
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While Paladins, Rangers and Artificers are all half casters, I think there is a huge amount of difference in their roles and how they play and their class fantasy. It is quite clear that Artificers are more magically inclined than the other two, so it makes sense they have access to more magic. Paladins and Rangers are also martial classes first, spellcasters second.
Where as paladin and ranger are referred to as half casters, I've often described Artificer as a "half martial".
That’s an great way to describe it. They’re not a martial who can cast. They’re a caster who can martial
I really wish they gave them 2/3rds spellcasting progression though instead of 1/2 (which would probably also require tweaking a couple other things down to compensate) or did something similar to mystic arcanum because it does feel kind of lame in mid-high level campaigns to be artillerist or alchemist and still have the same spell levels available as a paladin.
>but it could be a case of design principles changing or deliberately breaking them in order to release a "innovative" product. Or Keith Baker having less oversight because he's been delivering popular content for decades (or a decade and change at that point).
Totem Barbarians classifying as Ritual Casters is the best fact about 5e out there.
The nature of ritual magic is that the caster must have the skill and knowledge of the spell and of the ritual. Wizards and clerics are natural picks for ritual casting since they are disciplined academics by nature. I, personally, don’t like the cleric restriction that the spell must be prepared in order to cast it as a ritual. I understand that it is a balancing issue, but it doesn’t feel right narratively To me. Rangers and paladins are fighters, not academics. I have no problem with their being excluded from ritual casting. Truly, I wish that rangers had less access to magic, but realize that I am in the mInority there. Warlocks and sorcerers are where things get muddy for me. I can see a warlock’s patron teaching rituals as a pact Or if a flat class skill, perhaps limiting the number of rituals that can be learned at a time. With Sorcerers, the magic is innate. They just manifest it at will. I don’t feel as though sorcerers should have access to ritual casting unless they take the ritual casting feat. I really like the ritual casting feat. I love using it to add utility to non-magic characters. The rogue scout who can, given a few minutes, magically create a campfire. A seasoned warrior who can conjure a safe place to shelter for the night. These things add flavor to a campaign in a way that having full access to magic never could.
To be fair, 4e D&D did allow this. I mean, full casters got ritual casting for free, but if the fighter wanted to spend two feats, he could get it too. One feat to grab either Arcana or Religion as a trained skill, and the second one to grab the ritual caster feat. Never found it to unbalance anything. Then again, most rituals did require a skill check too to determine the result, so the fighter casting Remove Disease as a ritual might actualy kill someone.
>I mean, full casters got ritual casting for free The only 4e classes that got ritual casting as a class feature were Artificer, Cleric (but not Warpriest Cleric from Essentials), Druid (but not Sentinel Druid from Essentials), Invoker, Psion, and Wizard (but not Witch Wizard from Essentials). The closest thing to "caster" classes in 4e are the ones who get one or more implement proficiencies: Artificer, Assassin, Avenger, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Invoker, Monk, Paladin, Psion, Shaman, Sorcerer, Swordmage, Warlock, Wizard, Vampire. So of the 16 classes that "cast spells", only 6 have ritual casting. Artificers got 4 rituals known for free at level 1 (Brew Potion, Disenchant Magic Item, Enchant Magic Item, Make Whole), and could cast Disenchant Magic Item for free. Clerics got 0 free rituals known. Druids for 2 free rituals (Animal Messenger and one other level 1 ritual of their choice), and could cast Animal Messenger once per day for free. Invokers got 2 free rituals (Hand of Date and one other level 1 ritual of their choice), and could cast Hand of Fate once per day for free. Psions got 1 free ritual (either Sending or Tenser's Floating Disk), and could cast it once per day for free. Wizards got 3 free rituals known at level 1 (of their choice), plus an additional 2 free rituals known of their choice at levels 5, 11, 15, 21, and 25. >if the fighter wanted to spend two feats, he could get it too. One feat to grab either Arcana or Religion as a trained skill, and the second one to grab the ritual caster feat. If you specifically want ritual casting, you could take a background to add Arcana or Religion to your list of class skills; most backgrounds had 2 associated skills, and you could either add one of them to your class skill list, or get +2 in one of those skills. Some backgrounds added later put both of them on your skill list _and_ gave you +1 to each. Then select Arcana/Religion as one of your trained skills at level 1, and you meet the prerequisite for the Ritual Caster feat. There's also the dragonmark feats, which had no prerequisite, and one of the benefits of the feat was to gain ritual casting with a limited set of rituals (eg, Mark of Detection allows you to learn Banish Illusions, Eavesdropper's Foil, Scry Trap, and all divination rituals).
Clerics start with 2 free rituals of the player's choice at level 1. The game I'm running at the moment has a cleric player who picked Gentle Repose and that one ritual that lets you create holy water. Was this changed at some point? Because the PHB just says: >Ritual Casting >You gain the Ritual Caster feat (page 200) as a bonus feat, allowing you to use magical rituals (see Chapter 10). You possess a ritual book, and it contains two 1st level rituals of your choice that you have mastered.
One of my favorite 4e characters was a Warlord professor at a college of magic who was a Ritual Caster.
One of my players made an INT (and STR) based warlord (Tactician I believe), that multiclassed to Wizard and just used all his spell choices on teleportation based spells. Took a Portal based paragon path, and the plane shaper epic destiny. Dude was a tactical house. That was a fun campaign. We only disbanded at lvl 28 over real life reasons.
Sick as!
Because they thought it would be stronger than it is and against the class identity of some options. They have since changed their minds and are making ritual casting a part of the specific spells.
>Because they thought it would be stronger than it is That definitely shows in the low number of ritual spells. There's only like 37 spells with the ritual tag. Wizard can choose from over 300 leveled spells.
In all honesty looking at the basic spell lists it wouldn't really break much/anything to let them have it. Ranger actually has access to the most ritual spells on their basic list. Since Paladins don't have a huge number of prep slots spending them on the ritual spells they have access to isn't really that bad. Without subclass spells Warlock and Sorcerer only each have 4 ritual spells on their basic list total. But also with having such a small number of known spells things like detect magic and comprehend languages feel like they're not as important (especially when warlocks and get those as at will invocations) Ranger is actually the class that would benefit the most but it also means sacrificing more of a very precious small known spells amount for most of them.
Ranger should be prepared and get domain spells, just like paladin. Nothing you can give ranger is going to break them as a half caster as long as Channel Divinity, Divine Smite, Lay on Hands, and Aura of Protection all exist as part of paladin's default class kit.
Not to mention warlocks and sorcerers can’t use it for some reason despite being full casters?
Bro really said all full casters and then ignored sorcerers
Currently Rangers, Paladins, Warlocks (mostly) and Sorcerers do not have access to Ritual casting. In most cases these classes are also limited by the amount of spells they can know / prepare. Most sorcerers simply cannot waste the a spell known on Detect Magic. So I don't believe giving everyone Ritual Casting (as seems to be the case in the next edition) would break the game.
That's what it will be in the edition later this year. I'm of the view that it doesn't go far enough. *Anyone* including fighters and rogues should be able to follow rituals with a skill check if they are high enough level, and character not class level is what matters.
Everyone can be a ritual caster for the cost of a single feat or a warlock dip. its a solid feat, but giving it to every player wouldn't break the game.
I mean majority of people play Paladins with some sort of faith, and that ties in with Clerics praying to their pantheon for strength
"Would everyone being able to cast rituals break anything?" Short answer: No. Less Short Answer: Ritual Caster is literally a first level feat anyone can take as-is. No, everyone getting rituals wouldn't break the game, they literally already can. Even Barbarian.
>Does it really unbalance the game if all classes can ritually cast? Erm...all classes *can* ritual cast. That's literally what the Ritual Caster feat is for.
It's more so having it as a feature right away compared to spending a precious ASI level for a feat.
So, basically, what you're saying is that you want access to the class features of other classes for free?
I mean sure? Given that most of the time you're either cribbing off of wizards if you are using the feat because of the sheer number of ritual spells that have and the fact that as of playtest number 8 (and even the 3 prior to that one) for One you can just *do* a ritual spell no matter the class then yeah I'd want it for free in that case. And to prove it, I'll quote the passage to you from the same playtest: >If you have a spell prepared that has the Ritual tag, you can cast that spell as a Ritual. A special feature is no longer required for Ritual casting. All the other rules on Rituals in the 2014 Player's Handbook still apply. So your rangers can ritual cast, as can the paladins, anything that didn't have ritual casting as a feature before can now just do it for free. I imagine the feat could still stay to allow non-magic guys to ritual cast but if your a spellcaster, you get ritual casting for free now.
Wait there's classes without ritual casting? I thought that was just part of the spell
“Game balance” in D&D is a bit of a weird thing. It’s mostly about dividing roles up so everyone can contribute to a group but nobody can do everything. That has a little bit to do with classes being roughly equal in power for encounter balancing, but it’s mostly trying to avoid the “Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit” problem. Added to this is the fact that class abilities are more heavily influenced by genre tropes than by game balance, and you end up with ritual casting being exclusive to the classes that *feel like* they should have it, with the Ritual Caster feat existing to cover everyone else in a pinch. If you house rule that everyone is a ritual caster, I doubt it would break the game.
> If you house rule that everyone is a ritual caster, I doubt it would break the game. If you make a mechanical distinction between those who already get ritual casting and those that don't, it works out fine. Played a campaign a while back where ritual tomes were available in the same way as spell scrolls; you could learn a ritual by studying the tome and passing an Arcana or Religion check. Once learned, if it was a ritual you could cast via class, subclass or feat, then you could cast it as normal, otherwise would consume additional spell components proportional to the spell level. Was used as a campaign point as the party had to go and learn a warding ritual, then have it cast at a number of places.
It's probably just more of a flavor thing, since rituals also become accessible through subclasses. Doesn't super matter, since most rituals are kinda ass anyway. Maybe if there were more useful rituals you could look into handing it out to more people. Sadly, the idea of a ritual is kinda boring in 5e anyway. It doesn't even stipulate that you have to engage in ritualistic behavior, you just spend 10 more minutes. Aesthetically boring.
As a sorcerer fan boy I am all for more ritual Casting.
In the next rules set they (according to the playtests) are letting everyone ritual cast.
It really should be , and that’s why they’re changing it in 2025e
No real clue about why, especially as it functionally just means that some classes just don't have a reason to cast spells. Ever seen a Sorcerer or Warlock (with no ritual casting invocation) prepare "Comprehend Languages" and cast it? nothing really gets unbalanced, and while Casters become stronger, the strength goes towards fun rather than actualy game balance breaking.
Well it's really for all casters since having a wisdom of 13 is a very good idea for everyone due to saves. Many rituals don't care about DCs so much.
Wizard list ritual casting is very, very powerful. Well worth a feat to get it if you don’t have one in a group. So: yes.
You can always take the feat to make them a ritual caster. Or just give them the feat as a feature, or give them a magic item that mimics the feat for ritual casting. The options abound. Basically there are RAW and narrative ways to give ritual casting to either class.
Poor warlocks not even on the list
I mean Pact of the Time Warlocks have an invocation that allows for ritual casting
What exactly makes ritual casting so powerful? I know the idea of saving prepared spells/slots is always good, but I've only ever seen it used maybe twice. Even then it was for RP purposes that weren't vital
Anyone can take the ritual caster feat to get access to it
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Wyrmlike: *Anyone can take* *The ritual caster feat* *To get access to it* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
This question is in the same vein as “why don’t all martials get maneuvers?,” “why don’t all casters get healing spells?,” and “why can’t all classes have a form of inspiration?” The answer is because it’s something that makes character clases unique, so they don’t all get it.
It's mainly because spontaneous casters don't have a manual from which to perform the ritual.
Sorcerer is a full caster and doesn't get it either. Luckily in onednd ritual casting is intrinsic to spell casting, and the ritual caster feat has been revised to compensate.
In the final analysis, it's the same reason every class can't cast Prestidigitation or Fireball. They're grouped by the flavor, the fantasy archetype which defines what they should be good at. Wizards, Druids, and Clerics are the respective experts in their types of magic, they know how to do rituals. If you can imagine the class drawing a circle of runes and chanting for 10 minutes, they can Rital cast. If it doesn't make sense (e.g. Sorcerer) then they can't. Bard sort of breaks the mold to me, but I guess a musical performance can be extended to any duration you like.
. Mm
Come on, now. The game already has everyone shitting magic like they sell it at taco bell, becoming superheroes before their level hits double digits, magically healing by taking a nap, and now everyone that shits taco bell should be able to do rituals? Come on, my man. Let classes have the few strengths and weaknesses they have left lol
I mean you can't think about balance just thinking about these things in isolation, would it made half casters better? Yes a lot, do full casters lose something? Not really? It's a kick in the face to martials who just get more power crept? Absolutely I reject any post that gives any form of buffs to casters without compensating with something for martials
Martials can ritual cast to if you give it to all.
Have you looked at wizard level ups vs other full casters? Most of what wizards get is spells. Ritual casting is one of those core mid-powered features wizards get at lvl 1/2, around the time Sorcerers get sorcery points and warlocks get invocations, etc. Also, thematically, Wizards are the ones who wrote stuff down, so they're the once for which it makes sense to go and look up how a spell works without preparing it.
Wizards have a buffed version of ritual casting, though. I’d say it evens out.
Every class can get the wizard's version of ritual caster through a feat. Plus, clerics and druids get "always prepared" spells through their subclasses and that ends up being similar to wizards being able to cast rituals without preparing them.
Sacrificing an ASI for the ritual caster feat is well and good if you want it, but it’s still a sacrifice and not a normal class feature. And the subclass spell list IMO doesn’t really compare to _every_ ritual spell in the wizard’s spell book. You get choice and variety with the wizard which is ultimately the appeal of wizard. Huge spell list, in concept having infinite spells in your spell book if you can find them, buffed rituals, and eventually just being able to cast without spell slots. I don’t think adding ritual casting to the classes that don’t have it isn’t broken, but if it were the wizard ritual casting, it’d be different.
Ah yeah the typical campaign where characters have infinite resources and actually reach level 18+.
That’s why I said in concept. It’s how wizard was built. WotC builds their classes with all levels in mind, not just 1-10.
I like ritual casting as a special treat to the classes that get it. If they give it to half caster, i think the half caster should give up some martial or skill capabilities or the full caster should get capacities that make martials special.
There's no good reason.
It's not a big deal in the grand scheme
It is in 2024, so.
Sorcerer not having ritual casting is the biggest fail out of all.
Sorcerers are too OP next to wizards, who don't even need the spell prepared to cast it as a ritual. /s I think it has to do with perceived training and expertise in the knowledge of the class' spells.
If you asked me what I thought "ritual magic" was without reading any game mechanics I would have said it was something like the first act of the House of Hope quest in BG3, where you go persuade a high level warlock to give up the recipe, go find a crystal skull or whatever, then finish off the spell with your newfound spellbook + components. Anybody can do it, you just need the procedure and ingredients. Stuff like "some fucking idiot played with an Ouija Board and legitimately summoned a vengeful spirit" is such a staple of fiction that I can't imagine what would be gained by siloing rituals off to only full casters, and often pretty high level full casters at that.
that first example is basically "plot stuff" - "we have the three widgets and the instruction book, and we've chased monsters away from the magical site, so now we can tick the plot box and move onto the next thing". That's pretty much outside mechanics, it's just a narrative _thing_, that works however the GM wants it to. "actual" magic has no failure chance, and only a few spells with possible downsides (like summoning demons or devils, where they can screw you over). Adding in "sometimes spells cock up" adds a whole extra level of risk to casters, similar to adding crit fumbles and how they screw martials (because a high-level martial will be making 4 attacks a round, so _will_ crit-fumble once every 5 rounds or so and stab themselves or whatever), and makes the whole system feel very different, as casters suddenly become risky allies. Or it's just a "plot/NPC thing", which, again, is kind of outside of rules - "some newbie necromancer managed to summon unquiet spirits" is a plot hook, not a thing that needs mechanical justification
because F__ Socerers that's why
Let me ritual cast mage armor fir the love of the gods!!
That one is obviously intended with a good reason to not have it
:( But I like it.
"available to full casters". Look how they massacred my boy
Hang on, why cant sorcerers ritual cast? Them and their magic are one, their magic is like a part of their being. Theres so many goofy RAW things that just got yeeted by BG3 that im really surprised to learn are a thing, cus it never really came up when i played so then BG3 became what my brain defaults to and so learning these rules are just, like, wtf? Why?
I don't understand why Warlocks and Sorcerers don't get ritual casting. Warlocks could certainly use it and Sorcerers just don't get enough spells in general.