How Important is Magic to Dungeons and Dragons? - Third Edition vs Fourth Edition

[outsider]

How important is magic to D&D? In my opinion, it should be no more important than skill and swordplay. Traditionally it was far more important, but fortunately that's changing. Martial and Magic are getting close to parity, but aren't quite there yet.

 

[Hereticus]

Some people don't want to play classes with spellcasting ability. When I play a rogue, it's because I'm looking to play a different sort of character than when I'm playing a wizard. I want to use skills, not spells.

OK, that's fine. You don't want to play a spell caster, but some of us do.

It seems to me that giving everyone spells worsens the sense of "all characters are alike," rather than helping it.

That is purely personal preference on your part.

To people who like spell casters, that would work well.

That said, everyone can have spellcasting ability, if they want it. Anyone can get the Ritual Caster feat, after all.

Have you read any of the comments that detail why the 4.0 ritual system is broken?

 

[Mouseferatu]

OK, that's fine. You don't want to play a spell caster, but some of us do.

Then do. There are plenty of spellcasting classes in the game. I play one of them when I'm in the mood, and I play one of the others when I'm not. Claiming that every class should be a spellcaster because some people always play spellcasters is ludicrous; it's just like saying that because some people never play spellcasters, nobody should.

That is purely personal preference on your part.

Um, no. See above. Saying "Some classes should use magic and some shouldn't" isn't personal preference. It's allowing for everyone to have their own personal preference.

Have you read any of the comments that detail why the 4.0 ritual system is broken?

And I disagree with a lot of them. But even if I agreed, the solution is to fix the ritual system, not rewrite the game.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I'm not going to spend loads of time on it, but you can make a party entirely out of clerics and they'll be better at your average D&D adventure than 90% of "balanced" parties - the problem gets worse and worse as you get higher level and clerics start to get blasting spells comparable to wizards, and the horrible buff system means that clerics can buff themselves to be better fighters than fighters.

I played a fighter in 3.0 and 3.5 who went from level 3 to level 20 over the course of about three years realtime - by the higher levels he himself was simply a template for cleric and wizard buffs, and was a mere shadow of himself without at least a dozen spells from those classes running on him.

I am glad that that's gone at least. Keeping track of all those effects just got very tiresome.

I'm sorry you had that experience.

But, well, I didn't. Ever.

And you can't take that away from me :3

That said...

Keeping track of all those effects just got very tiresome.

Are you playing the same 4e as everyone else?

 

[LostSoul]

Rituals are too expensive to cast, and they take way too long to cast. Most of the great utility spells from 3.5E will never be used in a stress situation because of the casting time.

Maybe casters need to think more strategically.

 

[fanboy2000]

Rituals are too expensive to cast, and they take way too long to cast. Most of the great utility spells from 3.5E will never be used in a stress situation because of the casting time.

In my opinion, what needs to happen is to in some way merge rituals into cantrips, with perhaps a cost involved.

Rituals aren't the only way to cast non-damage dealing spells. Utility powers like Fly, Expeditious Retreat, and Dispel Magic aren't rituals. I can easily see converting some of the rituals into utility powers. Comprehend Languages comes to mind. The ritual takes only 10 minutes, but I can picture situations where being able to cast it in six seconds would be necessary.

 

[Greg K]

Rituals aren't the only way to cast non-damage dealing spells. Utility powers like Fly, Expeditious Retreat, and Dispel Magic aren't rituals. I can easily see converting some of the rituals into utility powers. Comprehend Languages comes to mind. The ritual takes only 10 minutes, but I can picture situations where being able to cast it in six seconds would be necessary.

Yeah, my issue with rituals is that there are those like Comprehend Languages that are, imo, ridiculous taking 10 minutes to cast.

 

[fanboy2000]

Yeah, my issue with rituals is that there are those like Comprehend Languages that are, imo, ridiculous taking 10 minutes to cast.

"Umm, guys, the Illithid is saying something I don't understand. I might be deep speech."

"Could you hold him off for 10 minutes while I cast Comprehend Languages."

"Dude, I'm not sure I can hold him off for ten seconds."

"Well, let's hope he also casting a ritual."

"I got a better idea. Why don't you help us kill it, and then you can cast Comprehend Languages and tell us what he said he said after he's dead?"

"Fine. But at that point, will we care?"

 

[LostSoul]

Yeah, my issue with rituals is that there are those like Comprehend Languages that are, imo, ridiculous taking 10 minutes to cast.

It lasts for 24 hours. Cast it while the Fighters are carbo-loading their healing surges for the day.

 

[Ariosto]

This seems to me one of the particular issues stemming from a general shift in style of play already somewhat evident by 1985. Even as late as 3.5, I think the new designers were still trying to graft accommodations for new assumptions onto a framework designed with different ones in mind -- and only partially succeeding.

Multi-classing such that every character could cast spells was somewhat effective. Cutting back on the flexibility of magic (especially at high levels), thus allowing a balance by level in combat power, seems to have been seen as preferable to the alternative of going the other way and making spell-casters non-combat specialists. I can understand that, having encountered often enough the complaints of players who expected MUs and Thieves to be strong combatants even at low levels (as opposed to classes for the "thinking man".)