D&D 5E How Can D&D Next Win You Over?

[Neonchameleon]

Right.

The reason that fighter powers are spells is not because fighters have a use-limiting mechanic, but because they have the same one as spells. There's nothing wrong with fatigue/vitality/etc., even though D&D has never really had a mechanic for it, but it can't be anything like the magic mechanic.

And this is where we are at the point of blank incomprehension. It is not use limiting mechanics that to me define spells as spells. It is that they easily and overtly break the laws of physics (I sometimes think some of the Olympians are breaking them not terribly subtly right now). The pacing mechanic is only directly a part of the magical flavour if it is, in itself something magical.

To me:

Summoning a flaming sphere: Magic
Sticking a sword through someone: Not magic (unless you were using magic to wield the sword)
Scene pacing mechanic: Irrelevant.

Whereas to both of you, the defining characteristic of magic appears to be the pacing mechanic?

 

[JRRNeiklot]

There's something else on which we agree on! D&D Next stands or falls on whether it is a good game.



XP for 2nd level MU: 2500
XP for 3rd level fighter: 5000
XP for 3rd level fighter: 4000

Possible XP range for 2nd/3rd MU/Fighter: 8-10,000

XP for 5th level fighter: 16,000
XP for 5th level mage: 20,000

16,000 XP = 3rd/4th MU/Fighter
20,000 XP = 4th/4th MU/Fighter

Tell me, were you using house rules to make multiclassing a weaker option? Because I have problems seeing a dart-specialist or even a second rank polearm specialist 4/4 MU/Fighter as weaker in combat than a 5th level MU. And I'm trying to see even the combat advantage a level 5 fighter holds over a 4/4 fighter/cleric. (OK, +1 to hit. W00t!) The F/MU has armour issues of course.

Then there was human dual classing. Where for the low, low sum of 2001 XP you could get your first two hit dice as d10s, and be a weapon specialist when you had nothing better to do.

A pc with 40,000 exp can be a 6th level fighter or a 4/4 fighter/mu. You can pick certain exp amounts and skew the results more or less favorable towards the multiclass character depending on which number you arbitrarily pick. Sometimes it's one level behind, sometimes it's two. And there's the whole level limits thing to deal with. An elf maxes out as a level 7 fighter. And I really hope you don't plan on being a fighter/cleric, you'll max out at cleric level 5.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

A pc with 40,000 exp can be a 6th level fighter or a 4/4 fighter/mu. You can pick certain exp amounts and skew the results more or less favorable towards the multiclass character depending on which number you arbitrarily pick. Sometimes it's one level behind, sometimes it's two. And there's the whole level limits thing to deal with. An elf maxes out as a level 7 fighter. And I really hope you don't plan on being a fighter/cleric, you'll max out at cleric level 5.

Compared to a single class Fighter with 40,000xp, the multiclass character will have 20,000 and be level 5/5. Being two levels behind is rare and short lived when it happens.

As for level limits, that was a purely 1E thing, and only for those who respected them and didn't houserule things.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Compared to a single class Fighter with 40,000xp, the multiclass character will have 20,000 and be level 5/5. Being two levels behind is rare and short lived when it happens.

Actually, we're both wrong, it's 5/4. so, the multiclass lags behind roughly 1.5 levels, though it's sometimes one and sometimes two.

As for level limits, that was a purely 1E thing, and only for those who respected them and didn't houserule things.

In other words, if you don't play by the rules, the rules don't work.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Actually, we're both wrong, it's 5/4. so, the multiclass lags behind roughly 1.5 levels, though it's sometimes one and sometimes two.



In other words, if you don't play by the rules, the rules don't work.

At 40k it would be 6 vs 5/5. Now, 32k would be 5/4. Wizard also had a strange progression, where they started gaining levels faster than normal after level 6, to say nothing of Druids.

As for 1E level limits, they were one of the most controversial and hated rules of 1E, which is why they were raised to the point where they were largely irrelevant, made optional, and hidden in the DMG for 2E. We never got a game of 1E off the ground In high school, but level limits was the first things we axed when we were trying to start a game. I would never use 1E level limits as an example of something representing AD&D as a whole.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Whereas to both of you, the defining characteristic of magic appears to be the pacing mechanic?

"Pacing mechanic" undersells what it is. It's not a stylistic choice, it's not about timing how long your session is going to run or how much a player can do within one, it's a description of how much [mana/stamina/mojo/etc.] your character has, and a description of how long he has until he becomes unable to do his thing. It's not trivial.

Moreover, in the specific context of D&D, the Vancian mechanic is defining. In another rpg, it might not be, but D&D magic generally has a per-day component. Nonmagical things generally do not have daily limitations in D&D (no, hit points and healing are not a daily mechanic), which is why the exceptions (i.e. Bo9S, the PHBII knight, or all of 4e) are referred to as spells, again specifically in a D&D context.

It's also worth noting that in the specific case in point, the mechanic doesn't represent any kind of fatigue; you might "run out" of one power but have several others, and even if you run out of all of them, your character is not tired at all, simply out of powers. This makes no sense. For magic, we tend to make allowances for things that make no sense, which is why Vancian magic is accepted. Thus, the other thing that makes powers spells is that there's no explanation for why they work at the intervals they do; at least, not a satisfactory one.

Lastly, consider why the power system was conceived in the first place: to try to balance characters with spells against characters without spells. The underlying intent was to make martial exploits and spells balanced, and the same supernatural-sounding terminology (powers) is used to describe both. So this equivalency is not something that some ENWorlders made up out of nowhere; it really derives naturally from what the 4e designers wrote.

None of this is to say that your other definition...

It is that they easily and overtly break the laws of physics (I sometimes think some of the Olympians are breaking them not terribly subtly right now).

...is invalid. This is absolutely valid. Magic can have multiple characteristics.

 

[Jester David]

Unlike the words "dragonmen" and "draconian", which both evolved naturally from random, ambient sounds.

Draconian meant something else and was just applied to a humanoid dragon races because it fit.
Dragonman is just a simple portmanteau describing what they are: men who are also dragons.

Dragonborn is a little less clear. Less straightforward than "shifters" "changelings" or even "warforged". They're not born of dragons or even really related to dragons. It feels more like an attempt to be unique (again, likely to secure a trademark). It's a little like someone write "Dragon _____" on a piece of paper then made a list of possible suffix words then the committee settled on "born".

 

[Neonchameleon]

A pc with 40,000 exp can be a 6th level fighter or a 4/4 fighter/mu. You can pick certain exp amounts and skew the results more or less favorable towards the multiclass character depending on which number you arbitrarily pick. Sometimes it's one level behind, sometimes it's two. And there's the whole level limits thing to deal with. An elf maxes out as a level 7 fighter. And I really hope you don't plan on being a fighter/cleric, you'll max out at cleric level 5.

The fighter is the single most exponential class in the game in AD&D. Before level 11, the only level at the experience points needed for one level isn't twice the previous one is level 8. And that's because 64 doubled gets rounded down to 125.

So between 2000 XP and 500,000 there is precisely a 3000 XP range in which the two class fighter is more than one level below the single classed fighter. Is a rounding simplification the mast you really want to nail your flag to?

And fwiw, the 2e level limit for both fighter and cleric for elves is 12.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

At 40k it would be 6 vs 5/5. Now, 32k would be 5/4. Wizard also had a strange progression, where they started gaining levels faster than normal after level 6, to say nothing of Druids.

As for 1E level limits, they were one of the most controversial and hated rules of 1E, which is why they were raised to the point where they were largely irrelevant, made optional, and hidden in the DMG for 2E. We never got a game of 1E off the ground In high school, but level limits was the first things we axed when we were trying to start a game. I would never use 1E level limits as an example of something representing AD&D as a whole.

I don't know where you are getting your numbers, but 40k exp is a 5th level fighter. Splitting that at 2k each, gets you a 5th level fighter and a 4th level magic user.

As for level limits, citation needed. But yeah, throw out level limits and multiclasses are broken. Duh. Throw out called strikes in baseball and hitters are broken.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The fighter is the single most exponential class in the game in AD&D. Before level 11, the only level at the experience points needed for one level isn't twice the previous one is level 8. And that's because 64 doubled gets rounded down to 125.

So between 2000 XP and 500,000 there is precisely a 3000 XP range in which the two class fighter is more than one level below the single classed fighter. Is a rounding simplification the mast you really want to nail your flag to?

You're also below the single class mage. I don't see a problem. You get to be either a weak mage or a weak fighter compared to single classes. You get to choose every round, but you can't be both. You either cast flaming sphere instead of fireball, or wade into combat and hit less often and die quicker. Multiclasses are for versatility, not power. Not to mention you'd have to be extremely lucky or be weaker all the way around due to MAD. Want that 15 in dex? Guess you'll have to run with an 11 int. Good luck even learning spells.

And fwiw, the 2e level limit for both fighter and cleric for elves is 12.

2e was the beginning of the end.