D&D 5E Why Has D&D, and 5e in Particular, Gone Down the Road of Ubiquitous Magic?

[Azurewraith]

. I think spells have become a crutch for filling in class features.

Quoted for truth!

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I think you've zoomed in on the split of opinion in the discussion.

Ooops. Apologies. I may have skipped a lot of the thread.

If you have most classes using magic, it makes your world feel highly magical. Games that go for a low magic world have magic using classes or options rare or non-existent. D&D being a generic system should be able to at least handle low magic without too much trouble, and it currently doesn't. It has been able to do it in the past. I think spells have become a crutch for filling in class features.

Only if you play up that idea. If you were to emphasise the lack of magic surrounding the PCs; that even casting low-level spells is a matter of wonder to people around them, that as an adventuring party they are called to deal with unusual or magical threats specifically because they are the only people with magical capability in the area/town/nation, you can give the other idea.
Even if the entire party consists of magic-users, you can use that; birds of a feather etc. The fact that the PCs are the only practical magic users in the land helps to make them special.

D&D can handle low magic without too much trouble. You yourself just said how to: Make magic using classes rare or nonexistent. As pointed out before, the proportion of magic-using classes in the PHB has nothing to do with the proportion of magic-using people in the setting, nor even in the party itself.
Its like the reason that combat and its corollaries has more PHB-space than either f the other two pillars. The other pillars aren't less important, just less rules-intensive.

If you want a no-magic party, just say so in your session zero: that only Fighters, Rogues and Barbarians of the non-magic archetypes are available as classes and only races without magical capabilities are available (so no High Elves, Drow, Forest Gnomes, Dragonborn, Tieflings.)
Bingo! Done.

As to the relationship between spells and class features; its more fun and versatile to have a spell list and resource pool rather than a list of magical effects each of which can be used a few times per day. The Battlemaster Fighter is a non-magical example: a spell list (learned maneuvers) and resource pool (superiority dice). The monk is a very similar concept in a magic-using class. Both have a lot of other class features as well.

 

[TwoSix]

Ooops. Apologies. I may have skipped a lot of the thread.

No, no, it was a compliment. I like when the discussion finally boils down to a single short statement that people either agree or disagree with. It means we've gotten past the point of arguing over semantics and reached a point where people's real differences in preference lie. (After all, most of these arguments can be reduced to differing aesthetic preferences in gameplay.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm not a fan of ubiquitous magic either. For my next campaign, I'd like magic to be scarce without limiting class selection. I especially want to limit attack cantrips because I think a spellcaster doing nothing but "Eldritch Blast" or "Fire Bolt" every round breaks the feeling that magic is rare and wonderful.

How do you think it can be achieved ?

First of all, I think you're focusing on the wrong thing. Being able to do magic every 6 seconds is not the threshold that makes magic feel like an everyday thing. It's being able to do magic every day. Slot-based magic still crosses that threshold.

Making magic so dangerous, situational, or (least effectively) expensive, that you only use it in extremis, keeps it from feeling like an everyday thing. Making magic so rare in the setting that most people live out their lives without ever seeing it done might help, too, though that's hard to keep plausible without restricting class choices.

Put yourself in the shoes of the player of a Wizard or Sorceror or similar. What would you want to be doing on your turn when you're not burning spell slots:

Nothing; you have to miss this round because you're "building power" for a later spell?

'Feels magical' and is the kind of thing you might see in genre, some of the time.

Using a low-power spell or 'cantrip' to contribute a little to the party?

'Feels magical' and is not too uncommon in genre.

Getting out a mundane weapon like a crossbow or staff and attacking with it?

Doesn't feel magical, but is actually pretty common in genre (if you accept a wider range of weapons).

The makeup of a PC party is not reflective of the makeup of the campaign setting. Adventuring classes, as pointed out earlier, are extremely rare, and magic-using ones even more so.

Or they're not. It really depends on the outlook of the group. If a group tends to see the rules they're playing by as the 'laws of physics' for the world, they expect and act as if PC classes were all over, whether the setting states they're rare or not, and whether the DM places a lot of 'em or not. In some play situations, like weekly public games, turnover makes it hard to imagine anything but a large number of adventurers out there. It's been that way since the beginning, too. Early D&D's 'goldrush economy' price lists, for instance, assumed lots of adventurers, at least in areas that acted as a draw for them.

While your point is certainly correct, from a design standpoint it begs the question, if you're having to toss out a zillion things from D&D 5e to get the kind of campaign you want, why are you playing D&D at all?

Because you could do it before. You decide there are no gods, or that arcane magic is forgotten but psionics widely practiced, or choose only martial classes, and you could still have a playble campaign without the things you excluded. In squeezing so many classes into it's PH (more than ever in a PH1 before), 5e dipped into the spellcasting well repeatedly to re-use features - with the result that if you decide to go 'no casters,' you don't have a viable selection left. Which is too bad, because that supports fewer play styles, when the edition was meant to support more.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

If you have most classes using magic, it makes your world feel highly magical. Games that go for a low magic world have magic using classes or options rare or non-existent. D&D being a generic system should be able to at least handle low magic without too much trouble, and it currently doesn't. It has been able to do it in the past.

Is D&D actually a generic fantasy system, though? Leaving aside what it's been in the past, and what the designers may claim it is, can it replicate a wide variety of fantasy settings? Or is it completely inundated with D&D-isms to the point where it only resembles itself and nothing else?

 

[Arilyn]

Is D&D actually a generic fantasy system, though? Leaving aside what it's been in the past, and what the designers may claim it is, can it replicate a wide variety of fantasy settings? Or is it completely inundated with D&D-isms to the point where it only resembles itself and nothing else?

Yes, that is an excellent point. D&D is a thing unto itself. Can it be tweaked? A little I think. Anyway, still think there could be a fewer non-spell casting classes in 5e.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

'Feels magical' and is the kind of thing you might see in genre, some of the time.

But from the point of view of the player; you're in combat, you've watched everyone else in the group declare actions, roll dice etc. It comes around to your turn in the initiative, and you have to pass, knowing that it'll be another 5-10 minutes before you get to actually do anything.

Not to mention there's a fair chance that by the time that you've built up the power to cast your spell, the situation will have changed to the point where it will no longer be effective.

Even getting to make a skill check in order to successfully build up power would probably be better than completely skipping the round. The only reason I didn't suggest this is that that slikk would basically become mandatory, and the ability tied to it excessively important.

If he was going to go down this route, I would suggest introducing some cantrips that can be cast while building power that would affect the spell when it was finally cast. Increasing the duration of the effect, or picking out a target to receive disadvantage on its save etc.

Because you could do it before. You decide there are no gods, or that arcane magic is forgotten but psionics widely practiced, or choose only martial classes, and you could still have a playble campaign without the things you excluded. In squeezing so many classes into it's PH (more than ever in a PH1 before), 5e dipped into the spellcasting well repeatedly to re-use features - with the result that if you decide to go 'no casters,' you don't have a viable selection left. Which is too bad, because that supports fewer play styles, when the edition was meant to support more.

How would the selection left not be "viable"?

 

[Tony Vargas]

But from the point of view of the player; you're in combat, you've watched everyone else in the group declare actions, roll dice etc. It comes around to your turn in the initiative, and you have to pass, knowing that it'll be another 5-10 minutes before you get to actually do anything.

Sure. And, mechanically, it's a tricky thing to get right, too, as the final result has to be pretty spectacular, given the action economy sacrifice, and the chance the whole fight will be over or you'll be dropped or disabled before you can actually cast.

But, IMHO, it does 'feel magical,' and you do see casting taking some extra time in genre.

Even getting to make a skill check in order to successfully build up power would probably be better than completely skipping the round. The only reason I didn't suggest this is that that slikk would basically become mandatory, and the ability tied to it excessively important.

Like Concentration in 3e, sure.

How would the selection left not be "viable"?

Too small (5 possible sub-classes), and too limited in the range of contributions to the party's success (just DPR, toughness, Expertise, and a few ribbons here or there).

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I may be missing the point (and it has been said that my only exercise is jumping to conclusions), but with regard to 5e being a "low magic setting", I thought they meant "a low magic economy setting". Therefore to avoid the cheesy and humdrum spectacle of there being magic item shops on every town square, they infused the classes with magic instead.

A proliferation of spellcasters or spell-like abilities achieves the same effect as having magic item shops everywhere without the need to have such establishments clutter up the place.

I mean, as players, we like magic item shops because shopping. And magic.

But thematically...from a world design point of view...they're a bit naff, let's face it.

So, no, you can't swan in to your local branch of Spellco. You don't need to. You've got cool abilities and stuff. Now stop farting around in the aisles and go adventuring.

That's the message they're trying to send, I think.

 

[Hussar]

The makeup of a PC party is not reflective of the makeup of the campaign setting. Adventuring classes, as pointed out earlier, are extremely rare, and magic-using ones even more so.

For most people in most settings, magic is not the equivalent of normal tech. Even in Eberron, which probably has more low-end utilised magic than any other setting, most priests can't cast spells, and there are probably several hundred people with NPC classes for every person with a PC class.

Despite there being more magic-using options than non-magic-using options in the PHB, the majority of NPCs with class levels are probably not magic-users. Non-EK Fighters are likely far more common than Warlocks, Wizards, Sorcerors and EK fighters put together.

Magic is rare and special. So are PCs.

My issue is that magic becomes mundane and humdrum for the players. When you're seeing three or four spells being caster every single round of every single encounter, it's pretty hard not to see magic as mundane and humdrum. And PC's as a special snowflakes is a play style, but, not the only one.

Is D&D actually a generic fantasy system, though? Leaving aside what it's been in the past, and what the designers may claim it is, can it replicate a wide variety of fantasy settings? Or is it completely inundated with D&D-isms to the point where it only resembles itself and nothing else?

Well, see, there's the trick isn't it? Which D&D are you talking about? 1e where magic really was pretty rare to see at the table, unless the DM started handing out a lot of magic items? Or 3e where magic was more common, but, still not occurring every single round, or 4e and 5e where you see spells being cast every single round?

D&D has encompassed a range of magic level through it's history. Let's not forget that 5e has also made it very easy to cast in combat now. There are no AOO's for casting in combat anymore. There's no penalty for casting in combat at all. Add to that the fact that using an at-will spell is very often more effective than any mundane attack that character could make, means that the mechanics are strongly influencing how often magic gets dropped onto the table.

D&D isn't a generic fantasy system. I totally agree. But, it was a somewhat more flexible system previously. 5e suffers some of the same problems that 4e did - it's very, very hard to adjust the baseline.