The double standard for magical and mundane abilities

[billd91]

/spittake

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... ahah... oh man... haha... woooo...heh.

Now I get it.

I doubt it.

It's identity. Identity. Identity.
The edition wars, at their core, are about fighting over the definition of D&D and the identity of being a D&D player.

 

[Mort]

I think I would. If we had a rule like that, we get into lack of parity in the other direction. Does a fighter need to make a check to even swing his sword? No, he doesn't. He has to make a check to fully affect his target, not start the action.

A fighter has to make a to-hit roll to affect the target in any way. Miss the roll and the rest is a non-starter, damage on a miss is pretty controversial!

Contrast with a wizard - most spells that affect people have some kind of check involved too - a to hit roll for pinpoint targeted spells, a save for ones that affect an area.

Mages have many, many spells that are auto effect (certainly in 3.5 still have to peruse the 5e spell list to see how that hold true in 5), one does not have to work too hard to rarely if ever trigger a to hit roll or a save.

There's just no chance to screw the magic up. Once you know it is simply "always works." That's always sat badly with me considering it's supposed to be both difficult and mysterious.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There's just no chance to screw the magic up. Once you know it is simply "always works." That's always sat badly with me considering it's supposed to be both difficult and mysterious.

Did you like Wild Magic? That put some randomness into it.

You could replace attacks and saves with a magic check (d20 + prof + caster stat mod). You'd have to match a DC based on spell level or the spell fizzles (on a 1 maybe it backfires or the slot is expended or both), the roll is also compared against the target's AC or - wow - 14+save bonus to make it mathematically equal to the 8+Prof+Stat DC! (or, if you want to preserve the saving throw mechanic, the DC could be 8 + the result of the check in excess of the DC to cast the spell - which wouldn't be mathematically identical, no opposed check can be). The spell has basically the same chance of succeeding, but also a chance of not expending the slot and doing nothing if you fail badly - and a tiny chance of blowing up in your face.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

There's just no chance to screw the magic up. Once you know it is simply "always works." That's always sat badly with me considering it's supposed to be both difficult and mysterious.

I've thought about this a lot, for my own games, and the conclusion I reach is that it's simply not worth the effort. With the way that D&D limits spell slots by level, it just doesn't make sense to also impose a base chance of outright failure for each spell, from a game playability standpoint. Adding an extra success roll to every spell would just make the game slightly slower and more complicated, with the only benefit being that sometimes the wizard "does nothing" for the round. It would have to be a pretty small chance to fizzle, too, due to math and the fact that there's still the attack roll (or saving throw) to deal with, and at that point it's just redundant.

The difficulty of magic is represented by the effort required to gain levels of Wizard, and in the older editions, by the minimum Int score required to cast a spell.

 

[Mort]

I've thought about this a lot, for my own games, and the conclusion I reach is that it's simply not worth the effort. With the way that D&D limits spell slots by level, it just doesn't make sense to also impose a base chance of outright failure for each spell, from a game playability standpoint. Adding an extra success roll to every spell would just make the game slightly slower and more complicated, with the only benefit being that sometimes the wizard "does nothing" for the round. It would have to be a pretty small chance to fizzle, too, due to math and the fact that there's still the attack roll (or saving throw) to deal with, and at that point it's just redundant.

The difficulty of magic is represented by the effort required to gain levels of Wizard, and in the older editions, by the minimum Int score required to cast a spell.

The concentration mechanic and the significantly less spells per day of 5e may work for me on this. Will have to see how it plays out with the group. As you said, I have little desire to inject more complication and delay into the game.

One thing I've noticed (unless I just missed it so far) no item creation feats in the PHB! This also will go a long way for me, as I hated the scroll for every occasion wizard (essentially nullifying the at-will advantage of the rogue or the fighter). The few times I got to play (instead of DM) the DM gave enough down time that scrolls were just too good an option.

 

[evileeyore]

I doubt it.

It's identity. Identity. Identity.
The edition wars, at their core, are about fighting over the definition of D&D and the identity of being a D&D player.

Oh no, I got it. I missed the Crisis on Infinite RPGS so I never understood why anyone would want to be an Edition Warrior.

Now I get it. And it's dumb.

 

[pemerton]

Except for those playing a game instead of telling a story. In that case the mechanics are subordinate to the setting and the situation. The narrative/fiction is a byproduct of actual play not the purpose of it.

I'm confused.

I referred to "a game based on fiction and genre first, with the mechanics subordinate to that ". And now you're telling me that "a game [in which the] mechanics are subordinate to the setting and the situation" is something radically different? It looks to me like its synomymous.

We both refer to the mechanics being subordinate to something - so no difference there.

I have described the thing to which the mechanics are subordinate as "fiction and genre". You have described it as "setting and situation". I don't see how these are different - what is the fiction, after all, other than "setting and situation"? What do you think is at stake in contrasting "setting and situation" - both imagined things, containing fictional elements - with "fiction and genre" - which denotes an assemblage of imagined things conceived of through a certain genre lense?

Also, I refer you to this PbP thread, of the DungeonWorld game I am currently playing. Can you please explain how this is not playing a game? If you can't, then can you please stop misdescribing the activity of other roleplayers - it's needlessly rude.

Many of the ideas and methodologies put forth by 4e were upstart ideas in the world of D&D.

It just baffles me that you can't see that this is hugely contentious.

When I look at Gygax's AD&D, I see a game full of fortune-in-the-middle mechanics: initiative and action economy in combat; hit points; saving throws. Plus metagame devices to regulate PC building and advancement: classes, levels, XP-for-gold. Except for class and level, I think, Gygax expressly calls these out as mechanics that are not meant to model ingame causal processes, but are imposed on the game from the "outside" so as to make for a fun game.

In a Dragon magazine article (I don't have the cite, but it's been frequenlty posted on this forum) he explained that the rationale for the spell system was game balance: ie it was also about game play, rather than faithfully modelling an ingame "reality".

4e doesn't change any of these features of the game. In the case of hit points, it builds on the FitM character of hp as described by Gygax. In the case of action economy, it introduces more interrupts and reactions to produce a resut that is closer to continuous motion, while preserving a FitM action economy. In the case of PC build, it preserves the use of class and level as devics for facilitating game play, while also further developing unifying tendencies in 3E (eg uniform XP chart).

The biggest changes in class build are: (i) no rolling for hit points (I think 3E already made provision for this, didn't it?); (ii) higher hit points at 1st level (not unlike Hackmaster); (iii) wizards and clerics have much-circumscribed spell lists; (iv) martial characters all have rationed abilities.

AD&D had rationed martial abilities too - eg no more than 1 try ever to BB/LG, no more than 1 try per level to open a lock, etc. But they weren't rationed on a per-time basis. But 3E did have examples of per-time rationing, eg in Sword & Fist there was some feat or prestige class ability that allowed a more powerful charge N times per day; and the Stunning Fist allowed the ability to be used N times per day; and these were both martial, not magical abilities).

None of these was an "upstart idea" except perhaps for the restrictions on caster spell lists.

4e specifically closed off avenues of play available in every single other edition of D&D.

And it opened up avenues of play that other editions had encouraged in their guidelines but had tended to block with their mechanics.

The irritation for me is that there seems to be a deliberate attempt to hijack a popular brand primarily to assure a less popular way of playing is available to a subset of people even if that means knocking D&D off it's #1 sales position.

Are you serious? WotC is a commercial publisher. It set out to publish books that it hoped to sell. Do you really think that they would have stopped publishing 3E if they hadn't concluded it wasn't making enough money for them?

 

[pemerton]

that authorship power is limited by in-game circumstances that the character controls. So, in a very literal sense, the determination of whether or not these chumps will fall for your feint is in a causal relationship with whether or not the player character has completed the requisite rest. If the PC didn't have that rest, then the enemy background motivation will not be such that it will fall for the feint; if the PC did, then the enemy will be the type of person who will fall for it.

The authorship power is limited by a real-world constraint: the GM declaring that a short rest has been completed. In game, the question of whether or not the PC has rested for 5 minutes is determined by a whole host of things, of which the PC's choice to rest is only one.

The idea that an ingame event causes a metagame event (refreshing an authorship power) makes no sense: the metagame event really happens, but the ingame events are purely imaginary and therefore cannot cause real things to happen.

I'm familiar with Dread, and it falls squarely into the category of "story games that I can't take seriously". I would hesitate to even call it a role-playing game, since so much of it is governed by you-the-player rather than the character itself.

This is like me hesitating to call Gygax's Greyhawk game an RPG because it is basically all governed by "you the player" rather than the character.

I don't understand this obsession of some RPGers to label RPGs they personally don't like "not really an RPG"

It's like if my skill at dice rolling was a factor in how well I did at D&D.

Well, in many versions of D&D your skill as a tactician, as a mathematician, etc factor into how well you do.

Different contexts. A character, whether rogue or not, hiding is hiding in relation to an outside observer. If not, what's he hiding from?
A spellcaster memorizing his spells is not doing something to be affected by an outside observer - unless one is inserted into the situation, something that's an option occurrence. Same, ultimately, with spellcasting. The spell will be successfully cast - unless he gets interrupted by someone.

So why, then, is a check required to climb or balance (no opponent), to remember stuff (no opponent), to pick a lock or disable a trap (no opponent), etc?

I've thought about this a lot, for my own games, and the conclusion I reach is that it's simply not worth the effort. With the way that D&D limits spell slots by level, it just doesn't make sense to also impose a base chance of outright failure for each spell, from a game playability standpoint.

Why is "game playability" a reason not to require a check for wizards, but not a reason to allow various non-magical PCs to do stuff without checking. After all, the number of locks, narrow ledges etc is also going to be finite.

Adding an extra success roll to every spell would just make the game slightly slower and more complicated, with the only benefit being that sometimes the wizard "does nothing" for the round.

Of course, this is exactly the argument for DoaM.

I don't understand why, when it comes to wizards, considerations of balance and playability trump considerations of verisimilitude and modelling ingame processes, but when it comes to fighters the latter sorts of considerations trump the former. I believe this is what the OP meant by a "double standard".

 

[Campbell]

Here's my thing : I get why some people don't like 4e. I really do, but much of the criticism of the game is not directed at the game itself. Instead its aimed at people who like the features 4e provides. We are constantly being told how 4e split the fan base, and how not encouraging a world building oriented approach has created was done to please radicals (as if liking one pretend elf game over another makes one a dangerous thinker). Honestly I'm not seeing much effort to bridge the community together. I feel like I'm being told to stop promoting the GMing principles and play techniques that work for me and embrace another set that work less well for me.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Why is "game playability" a reason not to require a check for wizards, but not a reason to allow various non-magical PCs to do stuff without checking. After all, the number of locks, narrow ledges etc is also going to be finite.

I'm not against letting fighters and rogues do some stuff automatically. If it's a simple lock, then your rogue doesn't have to roll. If the ledge isn't that narrow, then maybe your fighter doesn't need to roll to balance.

Of course, 3E handled that all by just taking 10. If you're good at something, and a 10 would let you succeed, then no roll is necessary. Note also that there has never been a version of D&D where a 1 was an automatic failure on a skill check (in any edition where skills have been a thing).

Non-magical PCs do stuff all the time, without requiring a check.

I'm also not opposed, from a playability standpoint, to having spellcaster make a check for things that don't also include opposed rolls - thinks like Knock or Raise Dead. Nor am I opposed to letting a spellcaster clearly miss with a spell, to zero effect, when it can be justified within the narrative.

A major strength of the d20 is that you can resolve almost anything with a single die roll, or two at most (with one roll determining success/failure, and the second determining magnitude/damage). It's not something to be sacrificed lightly.