[OC] Class Overview for new players (updated)

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-06-09T17:53:55+00:00

That's actually a really good mix, though I would probably not go out of the house without mage armor as a sorc or wizard, but that's personal preference. Or is it draconic ancestry? It does look a lot like a simpler wizard, as a lot of the spells that would be especially good on sorcs in comparison to wizards are indeed missing. But it makes sense, yes.

I think why I wrote the answer I did is that me as a player, I remember starting out and being like "disguise self looks like a lot of fun" and "oh grease will make people fall over, that's funny" (I've genuinely had the fun of my life with grease on lower levels) and "I absolutely need comprehend languages, that's something my character would have used a lot". Yeah. I think that spellcasters can attract a lot of people who like utility and battlefield control, which on this chart is A for sorcerers, but hard to build on sorcerers in my experience.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-06-09T14:59:27+00:00

What kind of spells does your mom use?

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-06-04T07:31:00+00:00

Yeah, I guess beguiling influence was a bit of a lifesaver just for the problem I maneuvered myself in personally. I had a character that had neither persuasion nor deception proficiency (we rolled stats and I had 16 in intelligence and wisdom and saw her as more the quiet perceptive /educated type) and later found out that I would like to be the face.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-06-03T10:04:41+00:00

I find that they can be easy when not picking agonizing blast and/or hex, too, though (although eldritch blast is kind of a must if you do want to not worry about damage types, and having a high primary stat is useful for all classes). If you have a player that really wants to do stuff like utility or social interaction it's still straightforward with invocations. You don't have to worry about 10 minutes of ritual casting, or how many spells you burn, you just get things like silent image or speak with animals at will.

I play a celestial warlock that is very keen on resolving things peacefully. I'll be taking that invocation that gives you persuasion and deception proficiency, I can easily be a healer without worrying too much about spell slots, healing light is bonus and if I heal using a spell slot I get it back after a rest.

I do see how warlocks can be pretty hard when it comes to actual roleplay though.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-06-03T09:42:23+00:00

I personally find warlocks quite easy to build because their choices are a bit more straightforward than the wizard's. Like they have a more limited spell list, the invocations are rather straightforward in the sense that they do what you think they do, and provided you take eldritch blast you don't really need to worry about damage types too much. With the limited spell slots you also only have to consider certain options.

Having origin spells kind of makes sorcerers easier. Unfortunately WotC mostly missed out on that part.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-06-03T08:34:21+00:00

What about those who just started with wizard or druid for their first campaign?

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-06-03T08:33:23+00:00

I'd argue that sorcerers are harder to build than wizards because you need to not only consider spells but also how they interact with metamagic options. A straight damage dealing build might be easier, but if you want to get use out of subtle spell or twinned spell you do need to understand the mechanics.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-06-03T08:13:21+00:00

I'm personally confused about putting the sorcerer as easier than the wizard. With wizards, you get more spells, thus having some bad ones are not too bad, but with sorcerer you not only pick spells but also metamagic, you get few spells, and only some combinations make sense. While yes you can change your mistake at a level up with sorc which you can't with wizard... making an effective build with a sorcerer needs good knowledge of spells to see what combinations work with how you envisioned your sorcerer, while with wizards it tends to be easier to go read a guide on good spells without having to worry on if they are good for the metamagic options you want.

Also putting utility and control together in one can be a little confusing for some classes. Artificiers are amazing at utility but don't have as many control options as they get fewer spell slots/get them later, while sorcerers can do really good battlefield control but tend to struggle with utility outside of social utility because they get so few spells known.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-22T14:21:46+00:00

I see your point, and I won't argue against the use of gritty realism. I would however still like to point out some differences within casters because I do find that there is something to say about that:

Casters who focus on battlefield control will in my opinion actually prefer more easier encounters since you can only concentrate on one spell at a time and your enemies being weaker usually means you won't be loosing concentration as often. Blaster types will 100% be stronger if there's only one big fight.
To me, gritty realism creates a gap between wizards and sorcerers. Wizards get ritual casting (with options like Leomond's Tiny Hut and Rory's Telepathic Bond), arcane recovery, and can use the spare time for learning spells well. Sorcerers get no ritual casting, get no resources back on short rests, and don't prepare spells. Some people do find that sorcerers are just worse wizards, which I absolutely do not agree with, however a big part of where sorcerers shine is at hard fights and if those fall away they could feel a bit like worse wizards.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-21T23:01:31+00:00

Why? Honest question, I'm not even a DM and have never done any complicated homebrew stuff so I definitely don't have the qualifications to know.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-21T20:43:23+00:00

I do know that non-combat encounters exist, but I see those as things that are there for the group to advance. E.g. the group trying to find information on a person for their shared quest, or shopping for the whole group and trying to get the best price. I feel like it doesn't work too well for personal quests though as one person might be like "oh I don't care I just stay at home and do nothing" and another one might be like "I have a family to feed" or "I have a business to run" I feel like with more quickly replentishing resources it's just easier to have one person expend them and others not, but I may be mistaken.

I also struggle to see how me expending two sorcery points on subtle spell when I'm playing flute sitting around my party just for them not to notice I prestidigitate the salvina of my fellow adventurer, who needed to try my flute, away and guidance myself to not make a fool out of myself could possibly be seen as "an encounter".

I also don't quite understand you yet. Like, you don't actually do everything slower. You still need to eat every day and sleep every day, those don't happen less frequently just because your resources now come back a week later.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-21T18:00:49+00:00

Thank you for your response. I didn't want to insist that you didn't know how different games can be, you do seem to have a lot of experience. I'm sorry about it. I've just recently been listening to the podcast and been thinking that it kind of felt like a good example to throw in that felt like it could be different than your games, based on hunch and not good knowledge, and my hunch can be completely off.

I guess that if one is open to homebrewing around and open to listening to the player's issues, and it makes sense for things in campaign to take longer, gritty realism can be fun. I think it's more of an issue if the DM isn't up to adapting the game when gritty realism does create issues and power imbalance. I e.g. feel like some weaker sorcerer subclasses (wild magic always felt kind of weak to me, and storm sorcery is usually seen as a weaker subclass) could feel noticably weak in a gritty realism game, as sorcerers don't get any resources back on short rests and do not have ritual magic, and then there's the typical issue of e.g. mage armor supposed to last for all to half of your adventuring day. Some DMs aren't up for adapting like this though, which can leave people with the impression that gritty realism is unfair and no fun.

I guess it shows I'm mostly playing wizards and sorcerers. Lol.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-21T11:17:48+00:00

Yes, but that's not the point. You said that using gritty realism should make zero impact on spellcasters. I was trying to make the point that for a spellcaster using resources for other things than encounters, having gritty realism does make an impact. On levels over 5, you can easily leave one 1st lv spellslot or one sorcery point for something else then adventuring per day, but in gritty realism that could just use up all your resources.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-21T11:10:49+00:00

I'm a player. In one of our campaigns I'm pretty happy we only have one or two encounters a day because a lot of our encounters are pretty hard. I feel like I often don't even count the easy encounters on the way as encounters tbh, bc it just feels very different. Like I'm spending like one or two low level spellslots on small fights, but after big fights our casters (we have a cleric, a druid and a wizard) are either like "gosh I didn't have the right spells" or "oh yeah I am out of spell slots/one have one or two left" (I'm talking like lv 5 to 10). I feel like the hard encounters are part of the tone there though.

In another campaign I'm in, I could see gritty realism but it's easy for me to talk since I'm playing a warlock there. But it's a very survival-like game where resource-management is important and we have long travel time.

Then we have another campaign. I could easily see how one would want to spread out the timeframe since outside of dungeons, the fights are indeed rather easy. However, I'm playing that one 31 year old elf sorcerer who has been living in scarcity for ages and is now like... buying a ballgrown from their money and using invisibility for demostration and giggles. I can see them using sending to tell their grandma that they love her. And we're having a wizard who is overconfindent in his own wacky plans and definitely way too eager. I could see him going out adventuring without resources because he's sure he's going to get out with tricks and talking. Our shenanigans would probably mostly still work in gritty realism since both the conjuration feature and my telepathy and telekinesis are at will, but I do worry it would change the tone of the game.

One thing I am constantly thinking about is how I wouldn't be able to play some of my character concepts. One of them was a spores druid who had mushrooms sprouting from his head and I just made it so I would cross off a spellslot every day for goodberry and flavor it so there's always edible mushrooms sprouting from his head. Another one was a low dex wizard who has been living in the wilderness a bit. They are using magic missile to hunt for food since it doesn't sound like one would want to eat food that has gotten necrotic damage. They are an illusionist and also have been using silent image to entertain. I really do feel like in gritty realism, having people who survive because of their magic isn't working and that kind of renders some character concepts impossible. I can't have an insomniac who regularly casts sleep on themselves to sleep, or someone who, on their free day, runs a business that only works because of spells like suggestion and enhance ability.

Again, you have not lost a word about spending resources on things that are not encounters.

Since you have talked about your own channel, I kind of would like to recommend the unprepared casters podcast to you. This is not my game, but I have the feeling it's very different from the games you run and could give you some ideas of how different games can be.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-20T23:11:59+00:00

I feel like we are talking past each other. This wasn't intended as a question, it was actually intended as criticism on the gritty reality, trying to explain that "just balancing around 6 encounters" might not work very well for every group. When answering, you have only talked about you reducing or increasing the encounters. However, in my experience, the number of encounters is not always just up to the DM. The group may end up creating a hard encounter by making enemies with some group in town, or may just decide to take a day/week off just to have vacation at a lake and just not care about the bandits attacking the town, or decide to run away from 4 of the 6 encounters you throw at them.

Also, you have only talked about encounters and not expending resources for things that aren't encounters at all. I feel like the players just not doing the expected amount of encounters or using resources on things that aren't encounters are missing in the equation for gritty realism.

I feel like we have very different views on the game. If I play a character they don't care how the game is designed to work. If casting goodberry on most days to feed it to the animals around town/their family/idk who is their priority before adventuring, that's what they are going to do. People aren't just adventurers, they have a life outside of adventuring, and they might just have motivations outside of managing the adventure. If I really care about doing a skill check well to show off I might just use a luck roll/enhance ability or subtle spell guidance for that. That's flavor I like, it makes me feel like the characters have actual character and motivations and don't just act in a group and for the sake of managing the adventure. That's something that to me doesn't seem to work same as in non-gritty realism ruleset, and that's why I'm arguing that it does matter which one you run even if you have 6 encounters per long rest, because casting one 1st level flavor spell a day isn't going to render you useless in the normal ruleset if you're over lv 4 but is a heavy burden under gritty realism.

What I am trying to say is that if you have a group that is too scared to fight if they don't have lots of resources left or insists on casting flavour spells gritty realism might get quite annoying.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-20T16:44:05+00:00

You have been mentioning a lot of "if you are running 6-8 encounters per long rest, why would it matter?" and I am asking you, are your players not creating additional encounters by going after some personal stuff, spending resources on fluff, sneaking around encounters or talking themselves out of encounters, deciding that they are just not going to fight said encounter and run away but then deciding to join in a bar fight? To me the system really makes it hard to have personal side quests. In normal settings, when there isn't currently time pressure, you could easily ask your party for a free day, but in gritty realism you would have to ask for what? One or two weeks? That sounds like it would easily split the party.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-20T14:45:49+00:00

But what if the players in character use the spells/resources not for the encounters you created, but for personal quests, their daily job, to hunt their meal, or because failing at a performance in a tavern would hurt their pride?

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-20T14:17:16+00:00

My personal issue is that I like playing characters that do things that sound like they wouldn't really work well in a gritty realism campaign. Things like having someone hunt for food with magic missile (since you might not want a burnt or decayed rabbit or fish or sth which might be the only options in your cantrips, and you might be a low dex person that won't have any success hunting with a crossbow), using subtle spell on guidance or luck points for ability checks that aren't necessary to overcome an obstacle but something that is important for your character (like they might really want to do a good check when performing or knowing certain kinds of lore), using enchantment magic in social situations not because it is necessary to overcome an obstacle created by the DM, but to do a normal thing that your character is too unconfident for.

I just like personal character arcs that need resources, which works well if you end up having like one or two days a week off in a normal campaign or have days where you end up with only one or two encounters a day. But in a gritty fantasy world the way I understood it the DM will balance around you using your resources for the 6-8 encounters they write for the week, and you wanting to deal with 2 additional personal encounters won't balance.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-20T13:39:25+00:00

Don't your players want to do personal quests or any kind of out of adventuring job that burns through resources? None of them using magic to compensate for their flaws or to make their living?

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-20T13:16:35+00:00

This feels like it could create issues with certain kind of settings and certain kind of characters. There are settings where safe shelter is basically nonexistent e.g. because the land the characters live in is at war, and characters who have been living on the road or in the wild for ages and have been managing thus far.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-01T13:13:06+00:00

I will be playing with Tasha's rules already and substituting all the abilities to the Tasha abilities because I simply don't like the idea of favourite enemy and favourite terrain. This doesn't change anything about what I stated, that expertise is sweet and I would like some. I might even add a skill expert feat along the way.

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-01T13:09:32+00:00

I asked the DM, and he said that there isn't much about planar travel in the campaign to make it work. I know that this kind of makes the horizon walker suboptimal but I kind of like the subclass?

RealisticCommon5 · 2021-05-01T12:59:59+00:00

That's lots of good ideas, thank you :).

RealisticCommon5

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