Has anyone tried Prepared/Spontaneus Casters in 5e?

[Asmotherion]

I hear many people complain about Sorcerers, and that if they were to play a caster, they would rather play a Wizard. Wile I have no such problem, since multiclass solves most of the power problems, and otherwise I enjoy a lot more the concept of a Sorcerer than that of a Wizard, I can see where people are coming from; It's a lot more tempting to have multiple spells to chose from every time you level up, than a limited selection, more tailored to "abilities" than "spells", if you want to play a caster. It all depends to what you want to play really.

I was thinking of a little project to bring in my campain on the next reroll my players will make, and want to see if it has been playtested here:

Basically, bring back the Prepared/Spontaneous Casters as the Spells known and... well Prepared Casters.

-Prepared Casters can prepare a specific number of a specific spell per day. They can however spontaneusly alter the level a number of times up to a time of their Spellcasting Mod. Otherwise they have to prepare it at a specific spell slot as well.

-Spontaneus Casters are not restricted by this rule. They can spontaneusly cast any spell they know, as long as they have spell slots for it.

-Cantrips are still at-will by both of them, because this is a core concept of 5e.

This basically balances out a bit the unfair advantage of Prepared Casters, and makes Spontaneus Casters a bit more Awesome. It also takes a bit more dedication (as it used to) to play a Prepared Caster.

Not sure if this is a good idea as of yet. I'd appreciate the feedback though.

[Gardakan]

Sorcerer is great for the metamagic. You can really build different kind of sorcerers.

I'm toying around with a Divine Soul sorcerer and let me tell you that there is nothing the wizard can do to cast Aid without multiclassing.

[PeteNutButter]

Personally, I'm glad they did away with prepared spells like 3.5 had. It's much more streamlined now. Most "fixes" to balance the spell issues of sorcerer/wizard are probably overtuned but tend to focus on getting the sorcerer a few more spells known. It seems the sorcerer should know as many spells or more than what the wizard can prepare, since the wizard can change day to day and the sorcerer can not. I'd be fine with doing away with the spells known chart and just making sorcerers know sorc level + cha mod spells. That keeps it in perfect parity with wizards as far as spell repertoire for the day.

If you're dead set on trying the old school preparation method, a few things need to be kept in mind.

1.) It is very weak. There is an optimal amount of Shield and magic missiles that you'd prepare as level 1 spells, and you'll be kicking yourself every time you take a hit with nothing but magic missiles for first level slots.

2.) It heavily discourages fun spells. With spontaneous casting, you can afford to prepare/know a few odd spells that only occasionally come up, but if every slot is prepared individually then any odd spell prepared is taking chunks out of your firepower. That'll mean your wizard will tend to end up with nothing but his main attack spells.

3.) It is less fun. I mean this technically. Mechanical fun in game play comes from choice. The old prepared method, takes all of that choice and front loads it at a time where you generally have very little information. It's like coming to a crossroads in a dungeon, when you have absolutely know information about either direction. The illusion of choice.

You could do it, but you'd have to overcome these issues, and have something to gain for it. Nerfing wizards is probably unnecessary. Wizards are weak tier 1, balanced tier 2, and start to pull ahead by tier 3. Sorcerers are in the same boat. In my experience, the disparity of power between sorcerer and wizard is more of a feeling than an actual issue. My proposed solution above fixes that.

[LeonBH]

The proposed change nerfs the Wizard, which really isn't needed, IMO. The Sorc and Wizard are just fine the way they are.