Mages and to a lesser extent clerics come with built-in blasters in D&D 5. Cantrips are cast-all-day at-will powers for both clerics and mages in this edition, and they have some pretty hefty 1d8 ranged damaging spells in there to choose from.
Pathfinder limits it's mage-blaster type spells to X per day, so there's a point where the powerclip runs dry. With D&D 5, it is an infinite reserve of magic with cantrips, and I'm feeling the number and variety of cantrips is only going to increase.
It feels like an odd choice, almost like 4E's at-wills, but only for mages and clerics. The martial classes just seem 'better' at melee, and get a collection of daily-type abilities, but I'm not seeing anything on the power level of this. Some of the mage cantrips scale up to 4d10 damage at 17th level, so that's a free 4d10 fireblast every turn for our mage-type classes that never runs out.
They also have multiclassing, so you can take one level of mage and have an infinite-cast cantrip blaster ready at all times. I'll be honest and I'll think twice about allowing that at my table just as a min-max build.
It feels like a balance issue for DPS at higher levels, and I admit, the math in this game is really tight. What mages lack in constant DPS that fighters have (with multi-attacks), they make up for with steady always-on magic-based DPS. This seems like a numbers-based design decision, and I hope fighters and rogues at high level are just as interesting.
In 4E, every class was a caster, and I do think the moving classes back to mechanically different play styles in a wise choice. But I can't help feel mages and clerics have it really good here in terms of resource management. It almost feels video-game inspired, where mages in games like DoTA and LoL have these magic-shot powers that can always fling something downrange.
This is a different style of world, almost video-game like and comic-book that the traditional D&D resource management scheme of things. These casters are almost like superheroes with their energy bolts blasting away at enemies than the casters I normally recognize as the traditional resource managers of 3.x or Pathfinder.
Granted, this is also probably motivated by a desire to get away from "magic item" blasters like wands of magic missiles and the like that characters depend on for DPS. Magic items are de-linked from character leveling and power level, and that is also a good thing. We shall also see if they are de-linked from the character DPS curve, and I can't help to feel this is also a good thing. Whipping out a wand of fireballs for item-based DPS seems less heroic than having that power inside of yourself.
It is different, and it is a new feel.
Which is why I don't feel this meshes with any of the established D&D worlds well at all, this feels like a new take on the fantasy experience. If I were to play this, it would be a new world entirely that supports this design and philosophy. In a way, each version of D&D has its showcase world which highlights its strengths and ideals. AD&D had Greyhawk, 2E had the Forgotten Realms, 3E had a mix of settings rebooted, 4E had Points of Light, and 5E I feel deserves something new and fresh. I likely won't be playing in the Realms with this, it doesn't feel like my version of the Realms, so I'm not going to force it upon this world in another "re-think" of the world mechanics.
I think this is one of the most contentious things about new D&D editions, they force a rethink of the world and another huge set of changes. I rather prefer to do a new world with each version and let players explore how things work with the new rules, rather than have those memories of how things used to be under the old rules. It's partially why Points of Light worked so well, new system, new world, and a fresh set of places to explore for 4E.
If I buy in, it will be with a new world that works the way things work now. I still want my Realms reboot, and possibly re-imagined with rules like these, but that can wait. I am in the mood for something fresh and new with a new system.
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