D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[Micah Sweet]

Because it's fun and people like it. Do you really think any of the narrative justifications included in the book were written to serve as guidance for adjudication?

Yeah, pretty much. Worldbuilding.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's still pretty weak as explanations go. WotC 5e is just a pretty incoherent game, and a lot of its players just don't seem to care.

Okay. It is still an explanation, and you are still playing Level Up, so you don't really have a reason to care anyways. So why keep demanding "stronger" explanations?

 

[Remathilis]

We’re not asking them to fly, flight isn’t part of the base fighter concept, we’re asking them to Jump Good.

Define "Good". Because there is a lot between "Olympic level jumper" and "leaps tall buildings in a single bound"

 

[Chaosmancer]

This just means there is no Bladesinger version of Fighter. A fighter who can get into Wizardy or Clericy with Fighter resources.

Things possible in many forms of media. Nonmagical sappers, detectives, sages, and doctors exist. D&D designers are just against it.

Yeah, I wasn't talking about it from a fiction point of view. I was talking about it from a mechanics point of view.

The prevailing argument that seems to pop up is "Wizards wouldn't bother making an inferior copy of martial abilities if those martials are in the party." I was simply taking a look at the inverse and pointing out "Martials CANNOT copy wizard abilities, unless they are explicitly given spells and spellcasting"

Any wizard can take spells to copy the rogue's stealth abilities, and can take the skills and tools and even get expertise to copy their skill use. While also still doing wizard things. They are just a less efficient rogue. A Rogue, barring the Arcane Trickster which gets access to wizard spells CANNOT bring the same tools to the table that a wizard can. There is a disparity there. So, we need to consider how to address that disparity.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Yeah, pretty much. Worldbuilding.

Fair enough.

I, personally, cannot imagine a good reason for there to be rigorously proscriptive worldbuilding elements in the player-facing rules document.

If DMs build worlds where spells come from friendly spirits rather than the weave, are they cheating? If Humans are not a Common race, does the game fall apart? If Battlemaster maneuvers are achieved through psychic manipulations, or Rage through the channeling of primal forces, does anything change about how the game runs?

 

[Remathilis]

Fair enough.

I, personally, cannot imagine a good reason for there to be rigorously proscriptive worldbuilding elements in the player-facing rules document.

If DMs build worlds where spells come from friendly spirits rather than the weave, are they cheating? If Humans are not a Common race, does the game fall apart? If Battlemaster maneuvers are achieved through psychic manipulations, or Rage through the channeling of primal forces, does anything change about how the game runs?

Funny how we prescribe that to D&D but nobody bats an eye when an RPG like Shadowrun, World of Darkness or Warhammer clearly marry their lore to their rules. D&D though has to be all things to all people.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Its far more nuanced than that.

Right. I wouldn’t expect the rule book to say what everything in the game is not. I would expect it to tell me what they are. If it doesn’t say they are something then I’d expect they are not that something.

As an example. The game doesn’t say a level 1 Fighter can cast Wish once per day. Does anyone believe that means the game is ‘silent’ about whether a level 1 Fighter can cast wish once per day (because he is a Fighter)?

What is the quote you have in mind?

The fighter write up doesn't mention magic at all.

The Arcane Archer, Eldritch Knight, Rune Knight, Psi Warrior, and Echo Knight are unarguably magical. You cannot argue they are not magical.

How is this possible? How can this subclasses exist, in the non-magical, always mundane fighter? Well, you are going to tell me it is because those subclasses tell us that those subclass abilities exist. Therefore they exist.

Okay. Nothing in the Fighter description says anything about Second Wind, Action Surge, or Indomitable. How is it possible these things exist? The game states they have these abilities and therefore they have them right?


Okay, so we want to add new abilities to the fighter, that would allow them to reach beyond their current limits. But, the argument is there is no justification for those abilities. Nothing in the fighter says they have these abilities.... just like nothing outside of action surge says action surge is possible and nothing outside of the Echo Knight says that making a shadow clone of yourself is possible. People are using the class description as it exists to pre-justify not adding new abilities, which will be justified by their own existence JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If you are playing dragons seriously, not for laughs, how often do you think they have sex and procreate with himanoids?

The bard rolls to seduce the dragon is a tired, silly cliche, and dragons are immensely powerful egotistical beings. Why would there be a large amount of half-dragons around?

Eh, doesn't need to be often.

One Dragon has one half dragon kid.
That guy has two quarter dragon kids.
Those two kids have a total of 5 eighth dragon kids
Those kids have a total of 12 kids
Those kids have a total of...

Even if it is only a few dragons every hundred years, you are going to see a pretty sizable population of dragon-blooded individuals. Heck, you just need one dragon who likes the idea of a harem as a testament to his wealth and glory. Remember, the mere human with the mere human lifespan of Ghengis Khan is the current descendant of 16 MILLION people after only a thousand or so years. A dragon would have hundreds of years to have kids, where he had less than 50 as a mature adult.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Funny how we prescribe that to D&D but nobody bats an eye when an RPG like Shadowrun, World of Darkness or Warhammer clearly marry their lore to their rules. D&D though has to be all things to all people.

I expect there is value at both ends of the spectrum.

Additional lore makes settings richer but less flexible. Coding that lore into the classes makes the classes more connected to that less flexible setting.

It's pros and cons all over.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Define "Good". Because there is a lot between "Olympic level jumper" and "leaps tall buildings in a single bound"

We can start at the former and build up to the latter.