Expand the scope of mundane lore

[Crazy Jerome]

The latest rounds of ranger discussion sparked this thought, but it is more broadly applicable and has been perculating under several different discussion for some time now. The game would benefit from having a wider range of "mundane" lore that affected characters. This more accurately models many characters, and provides space in the design that has historically been neglected.

Assumption A: Fantasy characters are often broadly competent in ways that are mundane in their settings--albeit some of the thiings they accomplish are fantastical from a real-world perspective.

Assumption B: For simplicity of design and many other reasons, D&D has tended more often than not to lump such abilities as "magic".

Unintended Side Effect: Character concepts that are meant to follow along with these fantastical real-world, but mundane fantasy world, abilities--end up with "magic" to do their thing. This creates a tension in class design, as well as supplemental abilities.

Conclusion: A way out of this problem is to selectly add fantastical abilities as mundane in the game. Presumably, "magic" versions would kick in beyond that.

You can see this readily in things like +1 weapons not leaving much room for improved weapon quality (with 3E masterwork being pretty much the limit) or mundane goods rapidly losing meaning.

Less obviously, it affects things like healing from heal skill, nature knowledge (i.e. healing herbs), "mundane" alchemy potions, etc. Why can these not be all that great? Because Cure Light Wounds heals 1d8 and change.

At the same time, this is not about adding Wuxia stuff willy-nilly, and calling it "mundane". Some discretion would be in order. So I guess the question behind all of this is what fantastical abilities could you see being included in the game as entirely non-magical?

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think there's a lot more rooom to expand on "mundane" abilities, especially at high levels.

In medicine, I see a lot of things that seem quite magical.

I think that in many fields, experts can accomplish amazing things.

The weapons are a good example; if there was more mechanical representation of nonmagical qualities, everyone wouldn't feel the need to have magic swords.

I think it's possible to represent some of them without having wuxia moves or people shouting other people's wounds closed. I hope we see some progress in what you can do with skills, feats, and high-level class abilities.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Dude, we think alike.

I was always very disappointed that 4e (which I like overall) did such a good job of the Warlord doing non-magical things that usually were left to magic, but started Magic equipment right away.

Why couldn't we have had the "bearded axe" with an encounter-trip power or a million other things that were just well-made or well-used equipment? I mean, many of the magic item's powers were not really all that magical, were they?

I have a tendency in my games to re-fluff magical things as non-magical as often as I can, because I find the amazing stuff that real people and real equipment can do to be utterly fascinating.

 

[TwinBahamut]

You know, it has always bugged me that the powerful weapons and items of D&D are created by wizards rather than craftsmen. If you want to make a ridiculously powerful magic weapon, you take a relatively ordinary steel sword and have a wizard who has never even touched a forge cast spells over it. I'd much rather see such things be created by master dwarven smiths who spend a hundred years refining their art to the point where they can carve weapons of impeccable quality from the horns of ancient dragons.

It would also be nice to see a non-magical alchemist, apothecary, or doctor who was as skilled at treating injuries, poisons, and diseases as any Cleric. On the flipside, such a character would be skilled at using poisons that could be as deadly as a powerful magic attack...

I suppose the problem facing these kinds of things is that many previous editions of D&D have been rather bad at providing powerful non-magical options to characters. In 3E, for example, such things were relegated to the realm of Skills, but skills came too cheaply and were generally too weak to ever directly compare to the central class features of a class like a Wizard or Cleric. D&D really needs either classes dedicated to non-weapon mundane skills (the Rogue is a good choice), or a more significant sub-system to support them (improve the potency of Feat chains?).

 

[Crazy Jerome]

You know, it has always bugged me that the powerful weapons and items of D&D are created by wizards rather than craftsmen. If you want to make a ridiculously powerful magic weapon, you take a relatively ordinary steel sword and have a wizard who has never even touched a forge cast spells over it. I'd much rather see such things be created by master dwarven smiths who spend a hundred years refining their art to the point where they can carve weapons of impeccable quality from the horns of ancient dragons.

Me too. That's part of why previously I have pushed for the fantastical bits of such to be in the construction--it is easier to swap those out. The dwarf smith makes a "+3 longsword". The sword isn't magical, but in some worlds it took magical ability to make something that well. It's a lot easier to change things like saying that in world A, the dwarf is a 300 year-old grandmaster craftsman making a high quality sword, while in world B, the dwarf is a typical master using a magic forge--or maybe both will work. If you then needed a wizard to chant over during construction to make it flaming, that's cool as well.

It's not as if +3 swords being magical automatically cuts all of that out (though +1 swords does cut a great deal). But the sword being magical does rather take away from how it got that way.

 

[hikaizer]

This also bothered me, because I can't really think of many stories where a Wizard actually imbued a weapon like that. Often it's a smith who is also able to use magic, or a god or priest. But maybe that reflects on what I've read I guess.

I suppose it would easy enough to house-rule, but I do agree in that it would be good to see mundane but highly skilled bonuses being more visible or even relevant.

 

[BobTheNob]

I think this bothers everyone.

How about equipment where certain bonus's come from quality (e.g. +2 to AC) where other bonus's come from enchantment (DR 10 vs Fire).

So gear isnt defined solely by enchantment (which can come later in the game IMO) but by quality+enchantment.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

So where is the dividing line on some of this stuff?

Me, I'm happy with "mundane" rope that is impossibly thin and long, light to carry, and relatively cheap. Maybe it is made out of giant spider silk by halfling in a secret process. If it costs so much that characters can only afford it halfway between 1st level and "magic takes over climbing", then that's fine.

I would not, however, want "mundane" rope that duplicates some of the command word operations of a rope of entanglement or the like. I wouldnt want this even if you could get a cheap, magic climbing rope made out of relatively heavy hemp, 50 feet long, that will knot and unknot itself--before you get the longer, lighter, spider silk version.

 

[Ahnehnois]

So where is the dividing line on some of this stuff?

"Plausible" is my key word. Not "possible" because anything is possible. Not "realistic" because that's way too high of a standard for a game based around creating fantastical fiction. Not "balanced" because that's completely irrelevant to the issue. But "plausible". Of course, as with any standard, there's plenty of debate as to what's plausible.

I don't think, for example, that having several different gradiations of power for nonmagical swords is at all implausible. Quality matters for those sorts of things!

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't think, for example, that having several different gradiations of power for nonmagical swords is at all implausible. Quality matters for those sorts of things!

That's good stuff, and knowing the why behind your explanation is good too. But I was driving more at specific examples, if you'd care to provide any? Say, in a 3E-like system, is there a point at which you would find non-magical accuracy or damage (+N swords) to be implausible, or would that depend on the rest of the system?