D&D 5E Why Has D&D, and 5e in Particular, Gone Down the Road of Ubiquitous Magic?

[CapnZapp]

There is no trap. Those that feel "forced" into that choice would probably start feeling "forced" into another choice (i.e. whatever is currently considered the 2nd best choice would then be the new 1st best choice and thus "required" to the same degree as the current option feels - but in the meantime removing the choice that people have to not have those spells and take something else instead).

Now you're trying to relativize.

What warlock spell are you thinking of? What ranger spell?

You know what, I'm getting the impression you're mostly contrary for contrary's sake here.

Why not simply admit that Eldritch Blast is much more central to the Warlock than any other spell? It's got three Invocations that assume you take it!?

And what ranger would say no to Hunter's Mark as a class feature that doesn't interfere with spellcasting mechanics (such as concentration)?!

The fact is that your argument says nothing. It's super generic. You could as well say "no ruleset ever has any problems whatsoever".

So assuming you argue in good faith, you need to specify what spells you feel are so much "next in line" that trying to fix the issue for one only transfers the problem to the next.

What individual warlock spell are you thinking of? What specific ranger spell?

Because if you start your answer with even two Warlock or Ranger spells, then your argument is void and null. Then there is no single "obvious choice" to be forced into taking. Then you have real choice, and a valid reason for the two (three, four...) spells to remain selectable (and therefore unselectable) options.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Now you're trying to relativize.

Not really.

What warlock spell are you thinking of? What ranger spell?

I'm not thinking of anything - I don't put so much weight on the mechanical aspects of the game to bother caring about the things one must care about in order to reach conclusions like "My character will feel useless to me if I don't take eldritch blast."

You know what, I'm getting the impression you're mostly contrary for contrary's sake here.

You've confused me with someone else. I am only contrary when I genuinely feel that the contrary point has more merit.

Why not simply admit that Eldritch Blast is much more central to the Warlock than any other spell?

Because it isn't.

It's got three Invocations that assume you take it!?

The number of things the designers thought up related to a single aspect =/= how central that single aspect is to the class or character as a whole.

And what ranger would say no to Hunter's Mark as a class feature that doesn't interfere with spellcasting mechanics (such as concentration)?!

Who would say no to a free cheeseburger on top of the entire meal they already have? Someone who isn't hungry enough to eat it and doesn't want it to go to waste in disuse, obviously. And in the case of making Hunter's Mark a class feature, am I supposed to assume we are doing that as just a bump to the class with no removed or reduced features otherwise? If no, there is another reason not to want it. If yes... there is another reason still: the ranger class as-is can do a variety of things and isn't really necessarily heavily leaning towards one class role, but if "you do more damage" gets added as guaranteed while many of the other options (features from the Hunter sub-class, for example) remain "you do more damage" then the class starts looking more one-dimensional.

The fact is that your argument says nothing. It's super generic. You could as well say "no ruleset ever has any problems whatsoever".

Your estimation of my argument is false, and I expect deliberately so.

So assuming you argue in good faith, you need to specify what spells you feel are so much "next in line" that trying to fix the issue for one only transfers the problem to the next.

No, I don't, because I didn't make any claim to my own feeling that there is a clear "line" in the first place - just an observation that people who feel things like "I'm useless if I don't take the best option" are always going to feel that way unless there are literally no options besides play the 1 possible character build or not play at all.

Then there is no single "obvious choice" to be forced into taking. Then you have real choice, and a valid reason for the two (three, four...) spells to remain selectable (and therefore unselectable) options.

So then, all I have to say is that I think ensnaring strike is just as valid a choice as hunter's mark is, and that greenflame blade might suit some warlocks better than eldritch blast, and then everyone claiming they are "forced" into taking hunter's mark and eldritch blast have void and null arguments on the topic? Cool. Consider it done, because I really do think there are reasons to skip those "best" spells for something else.

 

[dimonic]

Ubiquitous magic

Its adding things like at wills to the game. Its not like they are actually much of an improvement over AD&D with the hit point bloat that has occured with 5E. IN fact with AD&D throwing darts (3d3 damage/rnd) is more effective than casting cantrips against stuff with double to triple AD&Ds hit points. The designers also chucked magic spells on most of the subclasses.

Hit point bloat did not come into the game with 5e. It came in with 3.0, got a little worse with 4, and is still with us now.

 

[dimonic]

It may sound strange, but when I am out of spells, I enjoy the challenge of finding other ways to keep my character relevant. Solving puzzles, making choices, speaking on behalf of the party - the sort of thing a super-intelligent member would do far more often than casting earth-shattering kabooms.

 

[dimonic]

Except that, even when you are down to just cantrips, you can still do that. You can actually still do all of that when you haven't cast a single spell since there isn't a single one of the three things you've mentioned that require magic. Really, I think that most of us on the other side that want magic to be always available just want to be able to contribute in combat without having to resort to a crossbow, we want to be able to throw a firebolt or a ray of frost instead.

In the last game session I used my skills to investigate a crime scene, put together clues, and let someone else do the talking who was better suited to the situation since, as a super-intelligent party member, I knew I wasn't the best candidate to speak with the NPC. None of this required magic. I mean, it's not like we are all running around using magic for everything.

I am not saying you need to be out of spells to do this. I am saying that not having cantrips doesn't ruin the game for me. What does ruin the game is having players who blow everything up, rather than figuring anything out, and players who whine about class xyz in edition blah doesn't have feature abc from edition bloop.

I have played (and continue to play) every edition released. I don't spend a lot of time missing earlier editions. I don't have a problem with having cantrips.

I would, however far prefer seeing a system that taxed the magic user AND the fighter for prolonged and repeated use of their craft. The biggest reason I play D&D at all is because it is the lowest common denominator, not because I think any version of it is particularly good at representing whatever fantasy I want to play, in any genre I enjoy playing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Hit point bloat did not come into the game with 5e. It came in with 3.0, got a little worse with 4, and is still with us now.

In classic D&D, HD topped out (at name level, or when your level chart topped out), so your CON mod was not, in essence, multiplied by your level for your entire career. You were also less likely to have a CON mod to hps, because they didn't kick in until 15 CON. In 1e, at least, you were also limited to +2/die, unless you were a fighter. 3e gave everyone 20 HD over 20 levels, and removed the cap on non-fighters, /and/ your CON could go over 20, instead of capping at 18. So, you could have some huge hps totals. But, at 1st level your hps were still pretty low. In 4e, CON only added to your 1st level hps, so you had a lot more hps at 1st level, but only gained steadily after that, not ballooned. If you only looked a 1st level, you could be forgiven for thinking that hps had further inflated, actually they'd been deflated, but front-loaded, so 1st level was a lot more 'heroic' (or, at least survivable).

In 5e, you're back to low hps at 1st level, but you add your CON mod which, unlike 3e, tops out at +5, to every single level. At 20th, you can fairly easily have around 200 hps, half of them from CON. But 5e depends on damage & hps to provide scaling under the rubric of Bounded Accuracy.

 

[dimonic]

In 4e, CON only added to your 1st level hps, so you had a lot more hps at 1st level, but only gained steadily after that, not ballooned. If you only looked a 1st level, you could be forgiven for thinking that hps had further inflated, actually they'd been deflated, but front-loaded, so 1st level was a lot more 'heroic' (or, at least survivable).

That is true - but it is a common grievance against 4e (HP inflation). Personally I enjoyed the gmae - but then again I was never wedded to D&D as some awesome system. It was always a hodge-podge of concepts thrown together - 4e actually bought a unifying design mechanism to the game for the first time - albeit not to many people's tastes.

In 5e, you're back to low hps at 1st level, but you add your CON mod which, unlike 3e, tops out at +5, to every single level. At 20th, you can fairly easily have around 200 hps, half of them from CON. But 5e depends on damage & hps to provide scaling under the rubric of Bounded Accuracy.

5e is interesting in that the proficiency bonus is strictly bounded between 2 and 6, so inflation is curtailed. I have some hope that (outside of magic) the game may be playable for much higher levels than previous versions.

My point was that HP inflation did not begin with 5e - far from it. The version where characters could expect the highest inflation was 3.x.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That is true - but it is a common grievance against 4e (HP inflation).

That's not unusual, there were a lot of common grievances against 4e that were not based on the facts of the game, itself, but on, at best, faulty perceptions. 4e changed the way CON affected hps, which resulted in characters having more hps at 1st level, and gaining hps more slowly after that. A 3e character at higher levels could easily have double the hps of a 4e character, a 5e one could get pretty close to that, too.

Personally I enjoyed the gmae - but then again I was never wedded to D&D as some awesome system. It was always a hodge-podge of concepts thrown together - 4e actually bought a unifying design mechanism to the game for the first time - albeit not to many people's tastes.

D&D stayed the #1 RPG until Essentials, and later surveys showed that the majority of D&D fans are fans of the game in general, not hung up on editions (or so I've been told, I haven't seen those surveys). There was a small minority of the fanbase who vocally hated 4e, and a small minority that vocally defended it - a lot of sound & fury known as the edition war. Unfortunately misconceptions spawned by it continue to contaminate discussions to this day.

5e is interesting in that the proficiency bonus is strictly bounded between 2 and 6, so inflation is curtailed. I have some hope that (outside of magic) the game may be playable for much higher levels than previous versions.

It's always been a chicken-and-egg question whether D&D campaigns tended not to go much past 10th level in the past because that was all people were interested in playing, and therefor testing and development of the game at higher level was sparse, or whether inadequate development effort devoted to the higher levels resulted in the game being less playable, and that's why campaigns didn't go into the higher levels often. Either way, there were two large factors in making high-level D&D less inviting.
The first is simple math. It seems pretty obvious that, with 3e and earlier editions, there were numeric disparities among characters that went from barely-differentiating at low level to problematic at high level. BAB, saves, and in 3e, skill ranks. In 3e attack bonuses within a high level party could vary by 5 or 10 or more quite easily, and the gap between the highest and lowest check in a given skill might easily be 30+ - challenges that barely tested one member of the party might be completely impossible for others. 4e and 5e both solved that problem by putting everyone on the same progression. The 4e progression was +15 over 30 levels, while the 5e is +4 over 20 levels. What bounded accuracy accomplishes is to make very high level characters only a little better at most tasks than low level characters. In theory, that makes large level disparities viable within a party (though, AFAIK, that's not the point).
The other is the power of higher-level class abilities. At some point, the number, variety, and power of spells would just become too much. Again, it was most obvious in 3.x at high level, with 'Tier 1' prepped casters, 'god-Wizards' and 'CoDzillas,' but the cracks could show as early as wizards acquiring Haste at 5th level (and practical use of Quicken Spell at 9th), or Polymorph at 7th. E6 play was one solution. 4e removed the problematic spells completely, or 'nerfed' them into very limited rituals (Teleport, for instance), and put all classes on the same AEDU schedule, so it was playable and reasonably balanced through all 30 levels. 5e returns to 3.x and earlier style spell progressions, but reigns in some of the most notorious spells, and limits a few of them with concentration, even as it makes casters more flexible than ever, and casting in combat safer than ever.

My point was that HP inflation did not begin with 5e - far from it. The version where characters could expect the highest inflation was 3.x.

Which is true, certainly. 2e & earlier and 4e had curbs on hp inflation at high levels, while 5e returned to the 3.5 system, but with a stat cap of 20.

 

[dimonic]

That's not unusual, there were a lot of common grievances against 4e that were not based on the facts of the game, itself, but on, at best, faulty perceptions. 4e changed the way CON affected hps, which resulted in characters having more hps at 1st level, and gaining hps more slowly after that. A 3e character at higher levels could easily have double the hps of a 4e character, a 5e one could get pretty close to that, too. What's "many people" in that context? D&D stayed the #1 RPG until Essentials, and later surveys showed that the majority of D&D fans aren't fans of a specific edition. There was a small minority of the fanbase who vocally hated 4e, and a small minority that vocally defended it - a lot of sound & fury known as the edition war. Unfortunately misconceptions spawned by it continue to contaminate discussions to this day.

To my thinking, the biggest system problem with 4e was the fact that _everything_ scaled with level - certainly the usuals, like HP, attack bonuses, saves, skills. But then (as a consequence of saves = defenses) even AC scaled with level. Once again, the DM had to place geometrically stronger challenges against the party.

Skills scaled so rapidly that one had to increase skill DCs with party level - so walking a tightrope becomes routine for a high enough level character - which to my thinking is ridiculous. It should become routine for a 2nd-storey burglar, and stay impossible for a fighting cleric. On the other hand, the things that the masses revolted against were just fine in my view. Healing surge was an excellent mechanic. The notion of Clerics not having to choose between helping the party and getting in on the action was a great advancement. I really liked the Warlord class.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It's always been a chicken-and-egg question whether D&D campaigns tended not to go much past 10th level in the past because that was all people were interested in playing, and therefor testing and development of the game at higher level was sparse, or whether inadequate development effort devoted to the higher levels resulted in the game being less playable, and that's why campaigns didn't go into the higher levels often.

Mu. oD&D and AD&D have a soft-level-cap at about level 10. The change in the HP progression and XP progression are deliberate design decisions that pair with the wizard getting a tower and the fighter getting an army to enter the endgame rather than continue adventuring forever. Why the endgame got lost along the way is something else to discuss in another thread.