Legends and Lore for 2/13

[Yora]

Funny how there are twice as many votes for non-vancian than there are for it. What if it turns out that 2/3 or 3/4 of all people who take the poll are against vancian magic. I can't really see them saying "oh well, let's kick it out then".

 

[Daven]

The poll is not clear because I do not know if it is intended "Features that you absolutely want" or "Features that you do not mind if there are" or "Features that you want, even in optional modules, not necessarily in the basic game".
"Features for D&D Next" is quite generic.
I voted "Features that I absolutely want", but I left a lot of choices that I do not think are necessary, but can be there. There are choices that I do absolutely not want, but in this poll they do not emerge.

 

[Kynn]

Funny how there are twice as many votes for non-vancian than there are for it. What if it turns out that 2/3 or 3/4 of all people who take the poll are against vancian magic. I can't really see them saying "oh well, let's kick it out then".

Actually, the way the poll is structured, there's no way to vote "I am against Vancian magic."

Part of why it's a terribly built poll, following an article that specifically asks "what should we get rid of?"

 

[GM Dave]

I think that male vs female records in almost every sport in which strenght is involved can work as scientific evidence.
So said, I think that in a game where a fighter can fall for 20 feets and then clean his/her shirt, we can also have women with the same great strength of men.
To not speak about the many political problems it could have doing otherwise.

In nature, many of the females are bigger and stronger than the males.

If they brought in gender bias then they should have Dwarven Females have an upper limit higher than Dwarven Males.

Maybe Ogres or Giants in the new edition could really be Dwarven Females. This could explain the Dwarven Males practiced skill with dealing with them. Much like Black Widow Spider where the male is 1/30 the size and mass of the female.

If you're going to bring in gender differences then make the races actually different then humans.

Have elves actually be proto-trees of the deep woods and be sexless in the 'elven' state. Treents are just elves that are getting ready to 'put down roots' and mate.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The racial level limits existed for one reason only, so that any prospective player wouldn't look at the various races and ask, why not play an elf?

The gender ability score adjustments were too fiddly and simulationist for an abstract fantasy game IMHO.

System shock, or something similar, really needs to return to the game. There is a good reason why AD&D magic users were not polymorphing themselves into powerful monsters constantly and this was it.

 

[Mokona]

I think the polls have been relatively fine up until now. This poll, though, doesn't make any sense. What is the question to which we're responding? I suspect that a technical error caused the poll to show up without the corresponding "question" and it isn't meant to be intentionally opaque.

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

Funny how there are twice as many votes for non-vancian than there are for it. What if it turns out that 2/3 or 3/4 of all people who take the poll are against vancian magic. I can't really see them saying "oh well, let's kick it out then".

Agreed, Vancian is not going to go away, it's too much a part of D&D's history to do that. I do think we will see options/alternatives to it included in D&Dn though, perhaps some sort of 4E type 'at will' style spells.

 

[Grazzt]

System shock, or something similar, really needs to return to the game. There is a good reason why AD&D magic users were not polymorphing themselves into powerful monsters constantly and this was it.

Agreed. We made it a Fort save in my game. It did help a bit in the polymorphing (and other magic) department.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

System shock, or something similar, really needs to return to the game. There is a good reason why AD&D magic users were not polymorphing themselves into powerful monsters constantly and this was it.

Couldn't XP you yet. The 2E version probably is not the mechanic to go for, but the game needs the most powerful part of its magic to have some consequences, if we're supposed to keep the spellcasters in check.

Cheers,

 

[Grazzt]

Agreed, Vancian is not going to go away, it's too much a part of D&D's history to do that. I do think we will see options/alternatives to it included in D&Dn though, perhaps some sort of 4E type 'at will' style spells.

Yep. And they already confirmed Vancian is in (at least in the current playtest ruleset)