D&D 5E What's the rush? Has the "here and now" been replaced by the "next level" attitude?

[Hussar]

Necromancy School
The dread and feared necromancer commands undead
and uses the foul power of unlife against his enemies.
Power over Undead (Su): You receive Command Undead
or Turn Undead as a bonus feat. You can channel energy
a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence
modifier, but only to use the selected feat. You can take
other feats to add to this ability, such as Extra Channel
and Improved Channel, but not feats that alter this ability,
such as Elemental Channel and Alignment Channel. The
DC to save against these feats is equal to 10 + 1/2 your
wizard level + your Charisma modifier. At 20th level,
undead cannot add their channel resistance to the save
against this ability.
Grave Touch (Sp): As a standard action, you can make
a melee touch attack that causes a living creature to
become shaken for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 your
wizard level (minimum 1). If you touch a shaken creature
with this ability, it becomes frightened for 1 round if it
has fewer Hit Dice than your wizard level. You can use
this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your
Intelligence modifier.
Life Sight (Su): At 8th level, you gain blindsight to a range of
10 feet for a number of rounds per day equal to your wizard
level. This ability only allows you to detect living creatures
and undead creatures. This sight also tells you whether a
creature is living or undead. Constructs and other creatures
that are neither living nor undead cannot be seen with
this ability. The range of this ability increases by 10 feet at
12th level, and by an additional 10 feet for every four levels
beyond 12th. These rounds do not need to be consecutive.

This is the Pathfinder Specialist Necromancer Wizard. You get what you want right off the bat.

But isn't this what you are arguing against? After all, getting what you want right off the bat is the definition of instant gratification. So, sure, you don't need to level faster to get what you want, you just get it right now.

What's the difference? If it takes you X time to get what you want, why does it matter how many levels are involved in X time? It's the same result. This is the point I was trying to make with Celebrim. I wasn't commenting on his specific campaign, simply the time it takes to achieve the same results.

If you speed up how fast someone gets something, you are going down the route of instant gratification.

 

[frogimus]

If someone wants to build a necromancer, give them low level skills that allow them to have the satisfaction of playing a necromancer at low levels instead of putting them in a bum rush to get to a higher level to play their character.

I think earlier the term "instant gratification" was used narrowly to mean someone in a rush to be a superpower and not enjoying the progress along the way. Not that it was wrong to use it for that, but this topic has degenerated to the point people forget the context of something 100 posts past.

 

[Celebrim]

But isn't this what you are arguing against? After all, getting what you want right off the bat is the definition of instant gratification.

The phrase instant gratification doesn't appear in the poster's OP. So far as I can tell he's arguing against the idea that leveling up is the fun part of the game.

The initial challenge to that by a large number of people who disagreed was that you could not obtain your desired character concept until obtaining a high level if you were playing a level based game.

Now you seem to have reversed that position. So now you admit that ok, you can have what you want, but now it's bad?

 

[Hussar]

The phrase instant gratification doesn't appear in the poster's OP. So far as I can tell he's arguing against the idea that leveling up is the fun part of the game.

The initial challenge to that by a large number of people who disagreed was that you could not obtain your desired character concept until obtaining a high level if you were playing a level based game.

Now you seem to have reversed that position. So now you admit that ok, you can have what you want, but now it's bad?

I have no problem with doing it that way. Like I said, I don't see a lot of difference between granting abilities at earlier levels or just simply levelling faster. It's a wash. Granted, your pacing is not something I would enjoy, but, it works for you and that's fine.

Like I said, what difference does it make if you achieve your character concept in X or Y levels, when the time to reach the concept is the same? The point is to reach concept.

 

[Incenjucar]

"I am a pyromancer, my spells are magic missile and armor, but someday I can cast fireball!"

vs.

"I am a pyromancer, my spells are flame bolt and fiery aura, but someday I can cast fireball!"

 

[Celebrim]

"I am a pyromancer, my spells are magic missile and armor, but someday I can cast fireball!"

vs.

"I am a pyromancer, my spells are flame bolt and fiery aura, but someday I can cast fireball!"

Which makes me wonder why someone who really wanted to play a pyromancer wouldn't say, "I can cast Burning Hands 3/day, but someday I will cast Fireball."

At a starting level, this is how I'm currently providing for a pyromancer.

ELEMENTALIST [GENERAL, WIZARD]
You have a special affinity for one type of energy.
Prerequisites: 4 ranks in Knowledge (Arcane), 4 ranks in Knowledge (Planes), Ability to cast 1st level spells, access to at least one spell with the appropriate descriptor.
Benefit: Choose one of the following elemental aligned groups: Air (includes electricity and sonic), Earth (includes acid), Water (includes cold), or Fire. Whenever you cast a spell with one of the descriptors you have selected, your effective caster level increases by +1. If the spell causes damage, you do +1 damage per die.
Special: You may take this feat more than once. Each time it applies to a different energy type.

Using that as a basis, you can play a Pyromancer, probably either as a evoker specialist wizard or a fire bloodlined sorcerer but potentially as a fire aligned cleric or shaman. You make things go 'boom' good.

But the problem I foresee is that people who complain that they can't be a pyromancer because at first level they have magic missile and mage armor are probably never going to be happy being a pyromancer because it would seem that what they really want isn't to be a pyromancer but to be some sort of optimal character. They are playing the class for coolness factor and ego driven desires and not because they are really curious about the internal lives of a character whose power is to make things burn. I'm not really sure they are intersted in being a pyromancer at all, because you can always take a wizard or a sorcerer and prepare nothing but fire spells. Nothing forces you to take Color Spray, Shield, Mage Armor, True Strike, and Sleep or to fire off quickened magic missiles at later levels, and if you are choosing to do that then when you don't have to the only way I can make you happy with being a Pyromancer is to make it broken so you can force spot light on yourself. That wouldn't matter if you were the only player I had, I could just scale the world to your power, but that's rarely the case.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

If you want to play D&D the default way, it's a game that has always been about climbing your way to the top. Now of course you can go ahead and start at 18th level and go from their, but that would be a houserule game. If you like to start out at the top and your DM doesn't run games like that then D&D may not be the game for you.

It's been shown that it is possible to play an infant version of particular concepts so the question from the OP continues.

 

[Hussar]

Wow, Celebrim, so anyone who disagrees with you is apparently now some power gaming munchkin incapable of playing to character? That's just such an unfortunate presumption.
[MENTION=91812]ForeverSlayer[/MENTION] - no, that has certainly not been proven. What has been proven is that you can change the base game such that you get elements of a character concept at earlier levels - i.e. house rule the problem. Which is perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with this approach. But, the other approach is to simply level up a bit faster so that concepts are achieved in the same amount of time.

Look, if I wanted to be a leader of men archetype - some sort of military/quasi military individual with a rank structure and suchlike there's a few ways you could do it. If I was in house rule territory, I could give the PC a pet NPC, maybe a 1st level warrior squire at 1st level. At 3rd level, you get a couple more mooks to go with your squire. At 5th level, you get some more. At 7th level, you effectively have the Leadership feat. There, done.

Or, I could play baseline D&D without house rules. Which means that the PC waits to 7th level to reach archetype. Again, fair enough. So, as a player, I going to want to get to 7th level as fast as possible, since levels 1-6 are basically me sitting on my thumbs until I can actually start to play the concept that I want.

Again, perfectly fine. Works either way. At the end of the day, it's mostly a wash. You still achieve concept either way.

What I don't buy is that doing it either way is badwrongfun or an example of poor play.

 

[Minigiant]

Red the Pyromancer on Burning hands. "It is very unfortunate that the first and easiest fire spell we wizards discovered puts you in close range of smelly brutes with pointed stinks."

On Scorching Ray "That's more of a heat spell. Not a fiery enough for a speaker of the flames."

On Fireball "One day...."

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Wow, Celebrim, so anyone who disagrees with you is apparently now some power gaming munchkin incapable of playing to character? That's just such an unfortunate presumption.

[MENTION=91812]ForeverSlayer[/MENTION] - no, that has certainly not been proven. What has been proven is that you can change the base game such that you get elements of a character concept at earlier levels - i.e. house rule the problem. Which is perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with this approach. But, the other approach is to simply level up a bit faster so that concepts are achieved in the same amount of time.

Look, if I wanted to be a leader of men archetype - some sort of military/quasi military individual with a rank structure and suchlike there's a few ways you could do it. If I was in house rule territory, I could give the PC a pet NPC, maybe a 1st level warrior squire at 1st level. At 3rd level, you get a couple more mooks to go with your squire. At 5th level, you get some more. At 7th level, you effectively have the Leadership feat. There, done.

Or, I could play baseline D&D without house rules. Which means that the PC waits to 7th level to reach archetype. Again, fair enough. So, as a player, I going to want to get to 7th level as fast as possible, since levels 1-6 are basically me sitting on my thumbs until I can actually start to play the concept that I want.

Again, perfectly fine. Works either way. At the end of the day, it's mostly a wash. You still achieve concept either way.

What I don't buy is that doing it either way is badwrongfun or an example of poor play.

I haven't house ruled anything. I posted the Necromancer straight from the Pathfinder corebook. Someone also mentioned Pyromancer and that has been proven to be viable at level 1 as well so I'm not sure what you're on about. You can begin most concepts at level, but if you can't wait long enough to come into it more fully then I hope to god the designers don't continue to base the design of the game around that rushed mentality. That's like wanting to skip to the end fight scene of an action film. D&D has always been about the build up.