D&D (2024) Playtest 8 Spell Discussion

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm saying trained, not special. You don't need to be trained to ATTEMPT a ritual, but without training you are far more likely to fail or end up dead than succeed. The mystical words don't come with a mystical word to reader's language translator, so the person reading it won't know how to pronounce words that need very precise pronunciation and enunciation. Bulenoanthrayek. How exactly are all of those syllables pronounced? It's not bound to follow the rules of any language known to man.

A lot of times these untrained people end up summoning the wrong thing or calling it uncontrolled and ending up dead, or if not dead trying to get rid of it before it kills too many people.

That's why a feat exists. It's so you can perform the ritual, not attempt it with a high likelihood of failure or death.

Sure, but you were claiming it was ignorance of fantasy that was leading him to that opinion and I don't think that's true. I also don't think the "trained" point is very strong, but we'd have to go through dozens of examples to show that - certainly relatively untrained rules-followers can enact rituals with strong magical effects in a lot of fantasy. The major issues with rituals in fantasy tend to be:

1) The ritual does not do what it says/people don't understand what it does - i.e. people think the ritual summons and binds a demon, but it actually just summons one, or people think the ritual brings the dead back to life, but it actually just makes zombies.

2) Someone breaks the ritual causing disaster - i.e. smudging a line, extinguishing candles, stopping people finishing chants, etc.

3) The ritual doesn't require special training or mystic power, but does require ridiculous components which are incredibly hard to obtain or even unique.

I can't offhand think of any "performed the ritual poorly, got killed" stuff - I mean I imagine there is some but it's not common. It's "didn't know what the ritual did, performed it right, got killed" more often.

One of the coolest moments in SF/fantasy that I can think of is when someone accidentally performs a blood ritual in a way that actually works and breaks reality (the titular mistake of The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F Hamilton).

I think with the way things are costed in 5E, Ritual Caster is overpriced as a Feat. It was a reasonable charge in 4E when Feats were cheaper and the rituals were more diverse (and more ritual-like, rather than just slow-cast spells).

 

[Yaarel]

I'm saying trained, not special. You don't need to be trained to ATTEMPT a ritual, but without training you are far more likely to fail or end up dead than succeed. The mystical words don't come with a mystical word to reader's language translator, so the person reading it won't know how to pronounce words that need very precise pronunciation and enunciation. Bulenoanthrayek. How exactly are all of those syllables pronounced? It's not bound to follow the rules of any language known to man.

A lot of times these untrained people end up summoning the wrong thing or calling it uncontrolled and ending up dead, or if not dead trying to get rid of it before it kills too many people.

That's why a feat exists. It's so you can perform the ritual, not attempt it with a high likelihood of failure or death.

To "train" equates to training in a skill, namely the Arcane skill proficiency (or perhaps Religion for Divine, Nature for Primal, or Insight for Psionic).

Untrained people can "fumble" a d20 ability check to try perform a ritual, but sometimes get the ritual right.

A trained person is likelier to perform the same ritual successfully, but can go wrong.


In most reallife theories of magic, which fantasy borrows from generally, both effort and intention are equally important. The effort is the physical expression, where a particular communal culture often transmits music, words, body gestures, objects, etcetera. The intention is the mindful focus and purpose of the effort. A community might have a ritual intended for the community to perform. An individual might have idiosyncratic methods. But in all cases, both effort and intention are important.

A strong intention with less expressive effort can be successful, and a weak intention with heightened expressive effort can be successful. But both intention and effort must be present to some degree. Strong intention with minimal expressive effort is like D&D psionics. Weak intention with elaborate expressive effort is like an untrained person who for the sake of entertainment is performing a ritual.

Notably, in Norse magical traditions, there are no "magic words". To insist on magic words is ethnocentric. In Norse masculine and Sámi traditions, verbalization is spontaneous singing, wordless musical chanting to focus intention. Any actual words that come up during the chanting are impromptu and for the purpose of focusing the intention. Compare "joik". Note, in Norse feminine magical traditions, words are verbal commands (without music), and are likewise situational and impromptu.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

A strong intention with less expressive effort can be successful, and a weak intention with heightened expressive effort can be successful. But both intention and effort must be present to some degree. Strong intention with minimal expressive effort is like D&D psionics. Weak intention with elaborate expressive effort is like an untrained person who for the sake of entertainment is performing a ritual.

Worth noting that despite RL traditions, fantasy and horror have an extremely long and well-established history that rituals can be completed without either intention or expressive effort, i.e. instead rather by doing a specific thing at a specific time, whether knowing this is magical or not. Indeed this extends fairly deep into the 20th century, conceptually, I know there are some children's books/films where similar ideas are expressed, albeit I can't think of the specificities.

 

[Chaosmancer]

@Chaosmancer

The key to making the 2024 Players Handbook the ONLY core book to play a complete game of D&D, is to facilitate the DM to pit the adventuring party against Humanoid opponents.

The Players Handbook has enormous amounts information for Humanoid player characters. The DM can create full player characters to be adversaries against the party.

It only takes a few pages to show the DM how to make a monster statblock for a Humanoid NPC (instead of a full player character). There can be examples of typical Humanoid NPC statblocks, including sidekicks, hired spellcasters, hired bodyguards, shopkeepers, etcetera, and possibly Bastion hirelings.

It is the Humanoid antagonists that can make a complete game of D&D.

Yes, they CAN. But hand-crafting every NPC and having them have the abilities of PCs, and keeping that balanced for 20 levels of play is HARD.

I know it is hard, because I've thrown PC-statted NPCs at players before. They are some of the hardest fights for me to run, and some of the hardest challenges for the players. It COULD make a complete 1-20 game, but the amount of extra effort and work from the DM to make it fun would be enormous.

 

[Yaarel]

Yes, they CAN. But hand-crafting every NPC and having them have the abilities of PCs, and keeping that balanced for 20 levels of play is HARD.

I know it is hard, because I've thrown PC-statted NPCs at players before. They are some of the hardest fights for me to run, and some of the hardest challenges for the players. It COULD make a complete 1-20 game, but the amount of extra effort and work from the DM to make it fun would be enormous.

Well obviously, there are benefits to purchasing a pre-made official adventure, including convenience and reliability.

Even so, creating adventures and settings, and universes, from scratch, is how 1e did it, and many players still do it that way today. When I learned to play D&D, I learned from a group who emphasized the importance of personal imagination and creativity. Some of them had never purchased an official setting. They typically create their own adventures from scratch. It is an ethic I value during 4e and 5e.

If the 2024 Players Handbook explains how to writeup a statblock for an NPC (as an abbreviated version of a full player character), that is enough for me to create universes. I can create all kinds of drama via struggles among Humanoids. I can happily create a Humanoid statblock, then reskin it as if something more monstrous. There are spells for almost any effect, and these can be as if "traits" for a statblock.

If there is a Do-It-Yourself Humanoid NPC statblock, that is enough to claim, the 2024 Players Handbook has ALL the rules necessary to play a game of D&D.

 

[Yaarel]

Hmmm. I am realizing. The need to hop back-and-forth between player characters and comparable NPCs, is part of the reason I wish 5e would discontinue references to "CR", and only refer to "level".

It can be, a combat challenge has one monster of the same level, for each player character. If the monster is a solo, there can be advice for how much of a higher a level the monster statblock needs to be to be challenging.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hmmm. I am realizing. The need to hop back-and-forth between player characters and comparable NPCs, is part of the reason I wish 5e would discontinue references to "CR", and only refer to "level".

It can be, a combat challenge has one monster of the same level, for each player character. If the monster is a solo, there can be advice for how much of a higher a level the monster statblock needs to be to be challenging.

Not quite sure if this is the right place for the spell discussion thread, but I would like to note that this concept doesn't work as well as one like in most games. The problem is mostly the action economy, which usually doesn't scale with level (and if you do, it can cause its own problems), and related to that that certain conditions and penalties don't scale well, either. If you can bestow, say, disadvantage on an enemy for a turn (to use 5E mechanics), on a solo, you do it effectively for 4 creatures with the same effort as for one.