Spellcasting was MORE BALANCED in OLD-SCHOOL D&D!?

well one can't say that there aren't Perks to Being A midsized D and and Pathfinder YouTube Creator a source within Wizards of the Coast has provided to me leaked documents that show plans for the next Unearthed Arcana for the next edition of Dungeons and Dragons coming out in 2024 and this promises to be the most radical Unearthed Arcana yet what I have seen are draft scripts for an interview between Jeremy Crawford and Todd Kendrick complete with cues for reac ction shots between the two and also email exchanges within the design team of Wizards of the Coast so I'll read some quotes from the leaked script as we enter a new version of the current edition of the world's greatest role playing game we realized something it has become apparent that spellcasters have more power and options than Marshall characters players of Marshalls have wanted us to address this and we hear you and so we rolled out weapon masteries and have curbed the power of some spells but we realized that that isn't enough fundamentally we realized that magic lets you bend the rules of reality we still want magic to feel well magical and so we set for ourselves the following design goal what if we addressed the Marshall Caster disparity by altering the way magic worked in the game at a fundamental level we have some exciting new mechanics that we will show you in this new Unearthed Arcana no need to be alarmed this is the same game you will recognize the same spells that you've grown to know and love that's not changing but we think it is important to make some changes to balance the power of spellcasting that will instill a feeling of Pride and accomplishment when you unlock those tears of power among the emails that I reviewed sent between the designers they were passing back and forth some old design notes that they discovered in the Wizards of the Coast of vaults and they particularly liked this upcoming one I'm about to read from which gives a overall Bird's eyee view of how they see magic in its place in DND D the the logic behind it all was drawn from game balance as much as from anything else Fighters have their strength weapons and armor to Aid them in their competition magic users must rely upon their spells as they have virtually no Weaponry or armor to protect them if magic is unrestrained in the campaign DND D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show weird wizard show where players get bored quickly or the referee is forced to change the game into a new framework which will comate what he has created by way of player characters it is the opinion of this writer that the most desirable game is one in which the various character types are able to compete with each other as relative equals for that will maintain freshness in the campaign providing that advancement is slow and there is always some new goal to strive for one of the emails to Jeremy Crawford had the scan of a paper character sheet remember those with the level one wizard where they hand wrote In and crossed out things showing the changes that they planed to make in this next uneed Arcana then there were hundreds of pages of emails where the designers were sharing more of these notes with each other I used my lawyer skills to synthesize all this information I went through it all and I hereby distill it for you all my dear viewers first they discussed changing how spellcasters prepare their spells and they call this new system vancian casting there's a lot of talk in these emails about rooting the system in the origins of the hobby which included narrative fantasy fiction here one writes that they don't want the generally weak and relatively ineffectual magic of The Lord of the Rings series nor the ultra powerful magic typical of DeCamp and Pratt nor the Spells requiring long conjuration with much paraphernalia as an adjunct typical of Shakespeare and MC Beth and the Conan Yarns nay they prefer to have their magic system based in the works of of Jack Vance where you can cast spells quickly but you have to prepare them in advance here's a quote that they shared from one of his books turjan closed the book forcing the spell back into Oblivion he robed himself with a short blue Cape tucked a blade into his belt fitted The Amulet holding lacad Del's Rune to his wrist then he sat down and from a journal chose the Spells he would take with him what dangers he might meet he could not know so he selected three spells of General application the excellent capital E Prismatic spray fal's mantle of stealth and the spell of the slow hour the designers preferred this system because it allowed them the design space to have powerful World altering magic but not have it overshadow the nons spellcasting characters the designers Express a little bit of fatigue dealing with uh online debates comparing the DPR of spells versus Weapon attacks they figured why not make spells just have less flexibility inherently sure your spell might do a lot more damage than uh Warrior's swing but you may not have the right spell for the situation the next running theme in the emails that I went over was that they want to make spellcasters more vulnerable here's one of the old notes top level magic users are perhaps the most powerful characters in the game but it is a long hard road to the top and to begin with they are weak so survival is often the question unless Fighters protect protect the low-level magical types until they have worked up so next come these are the shocking screenshots coming up a lot of people I'm expecting will be not happy to see in the next ear Earth Arcana that magic users they're calling the magic users now are turning to D4 hit Dice and also characters won't be starting with a Max hit die at level one anymore so it's possible to start with one hit point and on top of that ability scores will not have much effect effect in improving your stats Constitution you need to have a 15 or higher to have any bonus to your hit points to get anything more than plus two per hit TI you have to be a fighter or something similar no other type of class can get those higher bonuses there's even talk of an alternative rule to roll your ability scores using three six-sided Dice and rolling them in order from first to last and the new dexterity chart that doesn't improve your class unless your deck is 16 or higher that means that most magic users will have at most four hit points if they're lucky and not have any Improvement to their Armor class okay and on top of all this the designers are going really hardcore and are removing the death and dying rules they want to make it so that when you go to zero hit points you die that's crazy and on top of that they want to remove the ways that magic users can get armor proficiency so they cannot get it from multiclassing anymore and are barred from taking an armor proficiency feat and they want to change major armor so that it only improves your armor class by one and it doesn't last 8 hours anymore either it ends once you take eight points of damage plus one per level of your character which by then you're probably going to be dead anyway okay if you thought that was crazy we haven't even gotten started we haven't gotten started next they want to reduce the number of spell slots that magic users get I love one you get one spell slot one and they're removing the Arcane recovery class feature also so this combined with VY and spell casting you only have one spell per day and that is the single thing you're going to cast the whole day but what about cantrips you're wondering well they're removing those that's a direct quote from one of the emails by the way though it was also followed by why have cantrips when you can have darts they talked about how spells need to strain the limits of your intellect and require reagents and planning and preparation not something you just fire off like a missile at will reliable attacks are What marshall characters are good at now they're not of one mind on this change I must admit there was some distension there were some people saying okay let people have cantrips you can only cast them once per day but the actual draft cantrips that they propose to each other are probably not going to please current players some other spells look pretty powerful though like sleep which automatically puts to sleep many lowlevel creatures without a saving throw however this next change that they're talking about is not to let magic users choose their own spells the dungeon master chooses the magic user Spells at character creation here's one proposal for the uner icana not final to give The Apprentice magic user the read magic spell because you cannot add spells from Scrolls to your spell book automatically you need to cast a spell in order to do so and remember you only have one spell uh per day at level one then the DM rolls once on each of these three lists and gives the player the corresponding spells someone else emailed back and said no let's make it a little stricter let's limit them to two Spells at level one one of them is Read Magic and the other is of the DM's Choice then when the magic user levels up they gain only one spell in one version the player can try to learn a spell of their choice but they have to roll on this table to determine whether they can learn it otherwise they move on to a second choice another version has the DM choose that spell for them basically the magic user needs to not just earn experience points but they are desperately looking in the world for Magical Scrolls to add to their Spellbook Jeremy Crawford was especially excited about this idea he said it added texture he really liked the word texture to the World by making magic rarer it becomes more special and you can design entire quest lines around trying to get a certain spell or defeat an evil spellcaster that has a spell book and oh will those spellcasters be jealously guarding their spell books a spell book found is a benison Beyond price defeating enemy spellcasters already awesome can be awesomer why not make it so that you can eat magic ability from your foes next is they want to change some of the combat rules so that it's hard to fire off your spells here's the new design note spellcasters will always insist that they are able to use their powers during combat melee the DM must adjudicate the success ESS of such use consider this the sematic movement portions of a spell must be begun and completed without interruption in a clean smooth motion the spell as a whole must be continuous and uninterrupted from beginning to end once interrupted for any reason whatsoever the spell is spoiled and lost just as if used spells remember you may only be casting one spell in the day spells cannot be cast while violently moving such as running dodging a blow or even walking nor normally you have to stand still on the turn that you're casting a spell they are interrupted by a successful hit be it Blow missile or appropriate spell not saved against or savable against so you have to be hit by an attack roll or fail a saving throw there are more restrictions if it has sematic components you cannot be crouching let alone prone during the casting also because you're not moving during your casting and the combat system the new system that they're now drafting has other characters doing things after you announce the start of your spell that means you can announce casting Fireball but you need to be standing there still and things can change in the battlefield including possibly them not being in a clumped up Fireball formation anymore here's a new combat example that they want to unveil here the magic user immediately begins casting a sleep spell but one blow against that magic user causes the Sleep spell to be spoiled which admittedly could have been worse they could have died given the language of not violently moving and not dodging a blow we can safely rule out that the designers don't want you to be casting in melee anymore more restrictions you declare at the start of the round without any prior knowledge of who wins initiative also because you're standing still you cannot benefit from a dexterity bonus to Armor class if you have one that high they also talk about slowing the level advancement of spellcasters they want different classes to level up at different rates requiring different amounts of experience points they call them to achieve the next level of advancement whereas Rogues need 1,251 experience points to advance to level two magic users need 25001 twice as much so while that Rogue is walking around with two D6 hit points you still have one D4 they do let magic users catch up after about level five but most of them will be dead by then reminds me of a saying about law school on the first day of school the tells everyone sitting in their seats look to your left and your right one of you will not finish law school looks like they want to tell new D and parties still look left and right most magic just won't make it there's talk of mitigating the pain of these new rules in a future UA where they want to introduce a new campaign play mode where people different players can drop in and out and bring in characters from a stable of characters that each player has they also want to buff the Charisma statistic and allow you to hire henchmen other non-player characters who have character classes that can serve your character a magic user could have a retinue of bodyguards sounds interesting I'm looking forward to the next leak now this early difficult period is supposed to be rewarded with great power at higher levels right well the designers are talking about curving the power you can gain as a magic user also and they are talking about several things first they want to to experiment in this Unearthed Arcana with everyone gaining only one spell at level up and they're not able to choose their spell so when you get to level five and unlock third level spells which are usually a significant jump in power you may not necessarily have the spells that you want you might want to have the fireball spell but you might not get it also they want magic user saving throws to advance at a slower rate as they level up compared to other characters here's a draft advancement chart for saving throws Fighters can advance their saving throws every two levels but magic users are limited to advancing every five levels and remember you need more experience points to get to level six than other classes do so let's say you're a magic user in a party that has a fighter and you both reach 2 million and one experience points at the same time which of course is ridiculous it assumes that you survive but let's say you do so the level 16 fighter needs to roll the following on a D20 either four 5 6 6 4 or 7 Meanwhile your level 15 magic user needs an 11 9 7 11 or 8 and that 11 is against poison or death magic and another change you're talking about is making poison instantly kill you when you fail your saving throw also as you level up to counteract the exponential growth in your power they want to increase the amount of time you need in the morning to prepare your spells currently it's 1 hour to get all of your spell SP slots back you can have spent all of your spell slots today and tomorrow morning only spend 1 hour to get all your magic back but they want to make it variable first if you're higher level you need more rest before you start memorizing spells and it takes 15 minutes per level of spell that you want to prepare so even at level five which is not that high if you want to prepare all of your spells your four first level spells two second level spells and one third level spell that will take 2 hours and 45 minutes at level 9 you need to rest first 8 hours and then if you want to prepare all 13 of your spell slots that day that takes eight more hours they also want to make it so that the monsters you're going to be encountering at higher levels will be more likely to resist your spells here's a draft rule from the Unearthed Arcana monsters levels they call them hit dice will scale upwards like a Fighters saving throws and we remember the fighters saving throws improved every two levels if they also resemble another character class they get to use the best score they're talking about Golems being completely immune to Magic except for a couple of spells maybe with each they went to introduce a new statistic called Magic resistance that certain exceptional creatures like demons can have Bor demons will have a 75% chance to ignore magic even before having to roll a saving throw purple worms have 15 hip dice that means they get to save in this second from the bottom column for the fighter you may be casting baleful polymorph on them but they only need to get a five on a D20 roll to ignore it and most other spells they only need to roll a seven they also are talking about higher level spells taking longer to cast remember the rule from earlier where you have to declare you're casting a spell at the beginning of the round well a certain amount of time passes they're introducing a new rule called segments every segment is 1/10th of a round you declare your spell a number of segments pass during which opponents can attack you and damage you and remember any attack that succeeds is going to spoil your spell and the number of segments your spell is going to take to finish is likely going to be the spell level of your spell so high level spells are likely going to take almost a full melee round to cast time stop is a very power ful spell that currently lets you say hold on while I get ready however the new rules mean that you need nine segments to tell them to stop and get ready and remember you may not have a lot of hit points you may be a level 18 Arch Mage you're going to call it when you can access ninth level spells but if you don't have a constitution bonus you only have 32 hit points most likely a fall of 100 ft is likely going to kill you now Grant You' probably have some magic items to improve this or some contingencies like a simul lake or a Wizard's Tower to be in but by this time and you will have earned 3 million experience points a level 20 fighter can get in your face and you probably are prevented from casting spells with that fighter in your face there is no Misty step or Shield spell to save you a level 18 Arch Mage still needs to roll a 10 against poison a one hit die large F can kill you with poison granted you get a plus two bonus on your saving throw but that means you still need to roll an eight to not die so it's going to be very interesting to see the community reaction uh let's call it that it definitely feels like a play test these are quite radical I'm sure one of the things people will be saying is that well if you had these radical changes why didn't you bring them up earlier and to which Jeremy Crawford plans to say we realize that Marshall Caster balance is very important to you and might be wondering why we're addressing it so late in the play test that's because we saved the best for last we look forward to your feedback on these exciting new changes and now for some closing thoughts well first my honest reaction is surprise I thought that they were going to be very conservative with this addition change and not be so bold in addressing some core assumptions in DND D I dare say it shows a bold Vision on their part of course they should have come out with this earlier in the play test process the prevailing wisdom in D and D circles has been to not Nerf anything don't Nerf spellcasting just buff Marshalls I think there are limits to that approach first of all spells as written currently do Bend reality and you kind of have to give Fighters things that are commensurate similar and a inspiring but over time that has meant often giving Marshall's ability that kind of are spells by a different name that sometimes outright call a spell as a function or have a limited number of times that you can use them and you have to recharge them like spell slots it's kind of like a nuclear arms race between the different kinds of classes and it blurs the lines it kind of makes casters and Marshalls feel kind of the same and this play test kind of shows a writing us to say okay we want magic to feel special and Powerful but let's preserve the distinct feeling of being a spellcaster from that being a marshall let's make the casters really good at what they do and make the marshals really good at what they do now the idea of having weak vulnerable early levels be rewarded with greater power at higher levels well first I think that's kind of cool and it's kind of thematic to an idea of magic but I can see why people would not like that because well okay it makes sense in a consistent campaign where you have different players coming in and out some of those players having more than one character but that's not how most people play D and D nowadays it's usually a consistent set of characters that start weak and get powerful together and many players today don't want one character being the main character once you get past a certain level however one thing does stay true though in these new changes if you are an 18th level magic user you still need people to protect you in theory at least it seems there'll need to be some more play testing a highlevel brute creature can get in your face and negate your main abilities perhaps there's still some element of teamwork that is still necessary and I just want to end with the last word of some draft language that they want to include in the next Unearthed Arcana this passage concludes a section on the new obstacles to firing off a spell it says there should now be no doubt in Dungeon Master's Minds with regard to the effect of a silent spell on a magic user or what will happen to the poor wizard caught in a mess of webs magic is great magic is powerful but it should be kept Great and Powerful in relation to its game environment that means all the magic users who have been coasting along with special dispensations from the dungeon master May soon have to get out there and root with the rest of the players or lie down and die I've been Ronald rules laer I have been primarily covering Pathfinder second edition but lately I've been branching out and covering other things I'm interested in including the rich history of this hobby so like And subscribe join my Discord where there are thousands of us talking about primarily Pathfinder second edition but also other gaming we also have a drop in Pathfinder 2E organized play System also support my patreon it allows me to continue making videos you also get early access to many of my videos and exclusive access to certain videos that I've been doing including if you're a two-tier reporter and above the videos of me running Pathfinder 2E for D and YouTubers so that's it I been Ronald the rules lawyer see you next time

Channel: The Rules Lawyer

Views: 17,934

Keywords: rules lawyer, rpg, dnd, d&d, pathfinder, pathfinder 2e, pf2, pf2e

Id: SOmUrXhTBjM

Length: 23min 56sec (1436 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 02 2024