D&D 5E Should we let the 'Wierd Wizard Show' begin in 5e?

[Argyle King]

Please, elaborate upon your opinions in your response.

I do not believe magic should automatically be better than other options. I feel it should be a tool in the same way that a sword or a set of lockpicks are tools. Magic might very well be a powerful tool, but classes which use it shouldn't automatically be better by virtue of "it's magic!" as a justification.

I do not believe being able to be killed in melee by a housecat is a valid method of balance. I also do not feel that removing dailies from the game and/or giving dailies to everyone is a good method of balance.

Why do I feel I must have weird interests? I often find that poll options and/or the language used to discus rpgs & people playing them fit me very well. See other threads I've commented in recently for examples.

 

[GM Dave]

Given the Skills and Abilities discussion and Class discussion from DDXP it would seem that the designers are shooting for;

Wizard can be spectacular once and a while.

This balanced against, say, the fighter doing a consistent good job.

Prior editions have all had abuses of different sorts and while people point to 3e for the Wizard/Druid being powerful, it was often in the high end game (post level 15) that the fighter with feats and multiple attack could really shine and pump out the damage.

A fighter starting with 18 str and getting possibly a +2 race bonus on it at level 1 and then increasing each level to say 16 is at Str 24 or +7 to hit and damage.

Add the appropriate magic to the str for roughly another +6 or now +10 to hit and damage.

Two handed weapon gives a 1.5 x damage for now +15 damage.

At level 16 consider the weapon is likely +4 in enchantment in 3e and the fighter is doing Power Attack for say 3 points.

That increases the damage by another +4 and +6 (two handed PA in 3.5e rules). You are now looking at +25 damage per attack.

Multiply by the four main attacks of the fighter at level 16 and you have 100 points of damage without rolling a die for the type of weapon held.

A spell rolling 16d6 will average out to 56 damage or roughly a third but usually spread over a group of targets that can attempt saves to reduce the 56 to half or 28 damage (a kick in the shins at this level and a good reason for the wizard to get killed).

Sure, you could have the Ape casting Druid or use the Players Handbook 2 for the Druid alternative to give you a great combat monster but melee was where you wanted to be for damage and the fighter still dealt it in droves.

In the end of our last campaign which was at the level 20-21 level of PF. It became more of a case of heal and buff the main fighters (particularly the very buffed Ranger with some Beast/Giant polymorph) then bother with arrows or flinging magic evocation spells. The fighters were just turning out two to three times as much damage as anyone else and their high Cons were giving them HP that was very lopsided compared to the non-fighter classes (the melee classes could soak up multiple hits of damage that the other classes would be knocked down in one hit)

Balance in the new set of rules looks like it is being compared on a mixture of Combat, Exploration, and Role-play expressions. This is good as this allows for different characters to have a chance to practice and use a variety of things and shine in different ways.

Actually, the biggest breakers of balance are not the game designers but it is the fan/freelance writers that produce the support books.

When I GM, I'm usually 95% fine with anything brought out by players in core books. It is the pile of Spell Compendiums and class books that I usually have to sit down and rule Yes or No upon feats, powers, and spells.

 

[Dannager]

Actually, the biggest breakers of balance are not the game designers but it is the fan/freelance writers that produce the support books.

I'm not sure that's true. Many/most of the strongest rules elements in 3.5, for example, were in the PHB - auto-lose and save-or-lose spells, Natural Spell, full casters, etc.

 

[SKyOdin]

I went with the "everyone is balanced option", but I don't think giving everyone dailies is what they should do. Its fine if Wizards can do cool stuff, as long as my Fighters and Paladins can do cool stuff of their own.

And yeah, it was definitely the original 3E PHB that was far and away the most broken book in Third Edition. Everything truly broken from Prismatic Spray and Hold Person, to Gate, Shapechange, and Wish was in that book. WotC spent the rest of the edition trying to recover some semblance of balance after that. It didn't help that the poor fighter was particularly underpowered compared to other classes like the Barbarian (which was pretty good by all accounts). I think the "core is balanced, splats are broken" idea was always a holdover from previous editions, but I am no expert on that.

 

[GM Dave]

I'm not sure that's true. Many/most of the strongest rules elements in 3.5, for example, were in the PHB - auto-lose and save-or-lose spells, Natural Spell, full casters, etc.

Natural Spell was not part of the original 3e rules. It was a feat that was added in by later people that felt it was 'wrong' for a caster to be denied their spells when in the form of a large ape, brown bear, or tiny fly.

Most GMs looked at the feat and went 'what were you thinking allowing someone to add big polymorph to spell casting'.

Most of the Auto-lose spells or save-or-lose spells were brought forward from OD&D, 1e, and 2e DnD. 95% of the 3e spells were almost word for word copy and paste of 2e spells with little or no thought given to how the system of Saving Throws, attributes with no caps, and many other details had changed and the significance of those changes to game play.

[2e had a fixed scale for Saving Throws with regular decreases. Magic Items further improved those saves making a +2 Ring of Protection important as it was a 10% improvement on a fixed scale where 3e uses an open scale. By the time of the save-or-die spells became more common the fighter was up to over 50% chance to make the save vs spell. The fighter and rest of the party aimed for the familiar if they could spot it ~ that sucker was a wizard's Achilles's heel.]

One thing 4e did right was start the powers from scratch for building; so, the powers were built to go with the system.

3e was a copy and paste for spells with a few new spells that were 'tweaks' added to the game (which later caused many headaches ~ great offenders were level 1 True Strike and level 2 Bear's Strength).

In many ways, the new spells that were added in, caused more problems then the older spells.

 

[Oni]

I do not want the weird wizard show. However, I do not feel the poll options represent answers I would choose.

I hate that; I feel as though that's an answer I'm typing a lot lately. I must have some pretty weird interests compared to the general community.

No reason to feel that way, this poll has an agenda and a definite bias towards balance by making everyone the same (i.e. everyone gets dailies or no one gets dailies). Reason i didn't vote, the poll isn't interested in peoples' actual opinions.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I do not believe magic should automatically be better than other options. I feel it should be a tool in the same way that a sword or a set of lockpicks are tools. Magic might very well be a powerful tool, but classes which use it shouldn't automatically be better by virtue of "it's magic!" as a justification.

I do not believe being able to be killed in melee by a housecat is a valid method of balance. I also do not feel that removing dailies from the game and/or giving dailies to everyone is a good method of balance.

And a good method of balance would be?

There are two broad ways to provide balance that have been tried with D&D.

1) Situational balance: class A will be pathetically weak some of the time (low level, when tied to an anthill and gagged, in an anti-magic field etc) and overwhelmingly powerful other times (high level, when rested with all his gear, when able to wiggle his fingers or speak, when he has a clue what the day might bring, etc). Balanced, so long as both extremes are experienced with equal regularity.

2) Structural balance: Class A will have the same number of abilities, each of about the same power as corresponding abilities of other classes. Regardless of the situtation, it should be roughly balanced, as long as it's abilities aren't overly specialized.

1) is represented by the last choice in the poll - it's flippant, but that's what it's getting at.

2) is represented by the 3rd and 4th choices, each with contrasting hot-button example of a possible structure.

Why do I feel I must have weird interests? I often find that poll options and/or the language used to discus rpgs & people playing them fit me very well. See other threads I've commented in recently for examples.

Don't feel too bad, this poll /is/ intentionally slanted... in homage to L&L polls...

 

[Tony Vargas]

No reason to feel that way, this poll has an agenda and a definite bias towards balance by making everyone the same (i.e. everyone gets dailies or no one gets dailies).

Or by making everyone a caster. (No one seems to want that. It would be badly at odds with the genre, afterall.)

Reason i didn't vote, the poll isn't interested in peoples' actual opinions.

I'm interested in peoples willingness to /express/ their opinions openly. Yes, there's a slant to those questions. It might make it uncomfortable to click the choice that best represents your opinion...

 

[Argyle King]

And a good method of balance would be?

My opinion?

By making the mechanics support the fluff. Supposedly, magic is difficult to control, takes time to master, and using the body for a conduit of supernatural energy is stressful. In one of the other games I play
this is represented by having spellcasting actually take a toll on your body. You spend fatigue points to cast a spell; being low on fatigue points (as the name might suggest) tires you. If you're out of FP, you may still attempt to cast, but doing so saps your HP instead. Thus it is possible to push beyond your normal limits, but doing so might seriously harm or kill you.

This is not without precedent in D&D. 3rd Edition used the concept of backlash for epic spellcasting; it seems reasonable that such a system could be used with lower level casting as well. The lower level spells would simply be safer and come with less risk; the more difficult (high level/high cost) the spell, the more risk.

This idea need not be uniformly applied. Different styles of casting might have different ups and downs. For example, a wizard (if I remember my 3rd Edition correctly) will know more spells than a sorcerer; however, the wizard is casting through learned ability instead of natural ability, so wizards would use the system as is. On the other hand, sorcerers might have certain spells with which they have less risk -this might be determined by bloodline. A warlock would have less risk with the domain (yep, I'd treat warlocks as an arcane cleric of sorts) granted by their patron, but they'd be required to abide by the tenets of their contract.

The same idea can be used (to some extent) with non-magic classes as well. Spending a fatigue point could allow you to put extra oomph into a sword swing; sustain running over a long distance during a chase scene; draw upon your intestinal fortitude to power open a door as its being held shut by wizard's spell, and a variety of other things. I've spoke about this idea before in a different thread.

That idea of points also has been used in D&D. 4th Edition Psionics uses power points. Perhaps 5E non-caster classes could operate in a way which is similar to Essentials, but with the ability to spend FP to get great effect from their natural abilities.

The answer is right there in the fluff of the game. Why not give a more coherent relationship to fluff and crunch? I'm hardly an expert, but it seems more balanced than the current approach, and it would also create a more consistent in-game narrative.


edit: Also, powerful spells should take a little more time to pull off. A simple magic missile might be easy and take only a minor incantation and a flick of the wrist. Calling down a lightning storm upon a battlefield might take multiple turns. Extremely powerful spells such as raise dead and/or wish might require rituals and multiple casters acting together.

 

[Tony Vargas]

thanks, that's a the germ of a good idea, there.

Points - be they action points, mana points, power points, plot coupons, or healing (or 'heroic') surges - give the players some flexibility, peak power and even narrative control, all of which spice up the gaming experience, and which could concievably be done in a balanced way while still making each feel distinct. (not that all-dailies or no-dailies couldn't still have distinct classes).

If I could, I'd add a "No, power points for everybody!" answer.

It'd mean getting rid of dailies, though, so you could click that answer - you'd be in good company.

Why not give a more coherent relationship to fluff and crunch? I'm hardly an expert, but it seems more balanced than the current approach, and it would also create a more consistent in-game narrative.

Fluff mixed into rules leads to all sorts of situational fluctuations, it limits the range of things you can do with the rules. Keeping fluff separate, changeable - even undefined - supports more play styles and campaign and character possibilities (or, at least, doesn't narrow the game and force you to mod it to get to there).

The extreme example of the fluff/crunch divide is Hero System. It has one set of rules for 'powers' in the main book. No fluff is associated with those powers. Any character, of any kind, in any genre, can be built using that core rule book - the player just assigns the fluff to the customized power that he feels best fits it and takes that power.