Spellcasting is the most common feature across classes in D&D. In 5th Edition, Artificers, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Paladins, Rangers, Sorcerers, and Wizards, along with two subclasses for the Fighter and Rogue, respectively, have this feature (even if it works a bit differently between classes). Warlocks have a similar but distinct system with Pact Magic. Yes, the Monk and the Barbarian are the only classes that will never, without multiclassing or some weird feat, have to worry about a spell slot.
Two classes, one a martial half-caster, and the other a bizarre full caster with an asterisk, have iconic spells that take a bonus action to cast and then allow you to deal an extra d6 of damage when you hit the target, and even allow you to move the spell onto a new target when the old one dies.
In early levels, this is actually quite decent - generally speaking, it's good as a spellcaster to have some spell to concentrate on that you cast on your first turn, and try to keep up over the course of a fight. A Ranger who dual-wields finesse weapons and gets the benefit of the Nick property will effectively turn their shortsword and scimitar into greatswords with this extra damage. And a Warlock get to hit harder with their attacks, such as the Eldritch Blast cantrip.
The spells are decent.
WotC's approach to these spells has been to try to make them central to the class and its subclasses. Rangers have a number of class features that encourage the use of Hunter's Mark, like free castings and other such things. Warlocks have some small mention of Hex (a secondary aspect of the Create Thrall feature for Great Old One Warlocks).
In the recent Horror Subclass Unearthed Arcana testing document, the Ranger and Warlock subclasses (one a brand-new one and the other a revamp of the Hexblade) focus extensively on these respective spells, with all or nearly all of their subclass features tied to the use of the respective spells.
And I think it's a terrible idea.
Again, it's not that these spells are terrible, and indeed, they serve a purpose.
The thing is, no other spellcasters are so tied to any particular spell. Now that Divine Smite is a spell rather than a class feature that is fueled by spell slots, Paladins are encourage to use it, but not in a way that excludes other spells. Indeed, the changes to the alternate smite spells has made it far easier for a Paladin to use the others.
The thing is, both Warlocks and Rangers have a lot of concentration spells. If I'm playing in tier 3 or higher, a likely standard procedure on a warlock would be to use Summon Fiend as a Mystic Arcanum to conjure forth a devil to attack my enemies. That concentration spell is going to, for an hour, bombard my foes with 2d6+9 (if memory serves) three times a round, or an average of 48 extra damage (on hits).
To get that much damage on a turn from Hex, I'd need to be able to make about 14 attacks per round.
Now, I think that WotC's aim has been to make improvements to these spells through class features in order to make them worth casting at higher level.
But why, though?
Gameplay for a class as you level up should feel familiar, but it should also evolve over time. As an example, my Wizard is always going to be looking through his spell list to see what best option for a situation is. But I realized, now at level 8, that even though I had blown through two 3rd level slots to dispel Dominate Monster (I think - it was an 8th level spell) on the Marquis of Port Damali (we have a succubus problem, evidently) I wasn't totally screwed if we got into combat later that day, because 3rd level spells, which were so precious and dear at level 5 and 6, are now a little more expendable.
The negative consequence of class design like this is that you wind up in a situation where gameplay stagnates and doesn't feel that different from low level to high level, but furthermore, you seem to be punished either for following the way the class is designed, or punished with the shutdown of cool features if you dare color outside the lines.
As an example, from this UA, the Hexblade now gets Animate Objects as a patron spell. Flavorful, and a cool spell to boot. But in order to cast this spell, which requires concentration, you can't be concentrating on Hex. And as a result, you more or less don't have a subclass, because the redesign (which, again, is in testing and not final) places nearly (if not truly) everything other than those patron spells onto the Hex spell.
I'm not entirely opposed to having subclass features tied to specific spells. But in most cases in the PHB, we've seen these features make those spells play better with others, not worse. Create Thrall, for the Great Old One subclass, for example, lets us cast Summon Aberration without concentration if we're ok with it only lasting a minute. But this is great, because it gets us to cast this very thematic spell specifically in a way that frees us up to cast other spells.
As I've said many times, I'm mostly quite positive on the changes made in the 2024 PHB. But I think whoever keeps building things around specific spells in this way needs to take a step back and ask themselves what they're trying to achieve.
I could imagine a world in which Hex or Hunter's Mark aren't even spells, but class features, and could thus easily play well with all of the player choices regarding the spells they want to cast.
But I think it'd also be really wise of WotC to create versions of the Ranger and Warlock classes where you truly can pick any spells you like. I think the PHB base classes here aren't so inextricably tied to these spells that you can't make something cool out of them, but the Hollow Warden and Hexblade revamp feel like they're going in the wrong direction.
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