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

[Tony Vargas]

Spell slots are just a rules mechanic to express class capabilities though. Like making attack rolls.

Extra Attack, Actions Surge, Cunning Action, Rage, Ki, CS dice & maneuvers, and, most of all, Spells & slots (since they are the most common of class abilities), are not just rules mechanics, they're bundles of concept/fluff and mechanics that help define not just what a class can do, but what it is. That approach has been key in helping 5e capture the feel of the classic game, and 5e has been very successful, arguably as a result of that feel.

While fire is natural, elemental magic is also heavily associated with wizards. Would the druid feel a bit better/different if it used something like poison bolt, instead?

Not really, no - fire was very strongly associated with Druids, too, and with religion in general. The gods received burnt offerings, temple priests tend eternal flames, &c. Humans are just big on fire.

Elemental magic is a major part of the druid as well. I don't know much about 1st edition but in 2nd edition, they had major access to the elemental sphere which included produce flame as a second level spell.

Yep, the 1e Druid was on good terms with fire, too: Faerie Fire, Produce Flame, Heat Metal, Protection f/Fire, Produce Fire, Wall of Fire, Fire Seeds, Conjure Fire Elemental (specifically, as opposed to the Wizard's Conjure Elemental - at higher level, the Druid could also Conjure Earth Elemental), Fire Storm, and, of course, the flashy Chariot of Sustarre.

Personally, I would see that as even weirder. Divine magic is supposed to be subtle.

It is? In D&D?

You are the one who brought up about being a commoner once you cast all of your spells and I was showing how wrong you are because there are other things there than just spells.

I didn't notice you showing any such things, I saw you say this:

I'm sorry but you can't blame a system if you lack creativity. It appears to me that you are too reliant on "button pressing" and nothing outside of that.

Straight-up insulting someone you disagree with ...

...before getting to a couple of points that were far from conclusively showing anything:

Wizard is not just a commoner when he runs out of spells. Depending on the edition you are using, Wizards do have skills and feats outside of spellcasting, as well as magic items.

OK, in some editions the wizard did have skills and feats, but, then, so did everyone in those same editions, including commoners. In other editions, it didn't.

In 3.x, for instance, the Wizard bereft of magic had d4 HD, like a commoner, and 1/2 BAB like a commoner, and no armor proficiency, like a commoner, and a pretty poor choice of weapons, only arguably better than the commoner's choice of one (IIRC). Sure, the wizard had a high INT so more skill points, and the wizard and commoner had different skill lists (some pretty useful skills were on each, though, the Commoner even had the coveted Spot & Listen, while the Wizard had every KS). So it's really a pretty fair analogy. In that edition. Other editions didn't have a Commoner class.

and:

Also, the thing about playing a Wizard was strategy. You had to be strategic when choosing and casting your spells. Back during 2nd edition, a wizard could memorize a few spells in just a few hours so rarely were you ever stuck with none.

I don't recall the time you needed in 2e, but in 1e it was 4hrs rest to be able to memorize lower level spells, plus 15 min spell/level. That's not as long as a night's sleep, but longer than a 'short rest' in 5e, and the need to be 'strategic' was because you had limited spell resources, so if you weren't running out, you were being careful with them, and doing something other than casting on a lot of rounds. In 1e that might be throwing darts - or throwing fireballs if you lucked into the right wand.

Of course, as you leveled up you got more and more spells until you could cast virtually every round if you wanted to, which, well, did make you 'more of a Wizard.'

 

[Corpsetaker]

... ...before getting to a couple of points that were far from conclusively showing anything: OK, in some editions the wizard did have skills and feats, but, then, so did everyone in those same editions, including commoners. In other editions, it didn't. In 3.x, for instance, the Wizard bereft of magic had d4 HD, like a commoner, and 1/2 BAB like a commoner, and no armor proficiency, like a commoner, and a pretty poor choice of weapons, only arguably better than the commoner's choice of one (IIRC). Sure, the wizard had a high INT so more skill points, and the wizard and commoner had different skill lists (some pretty useful skills were on each, though, the Commoner even had the coveted Spot & Listen, while the Wizard had every KS). So it's really a pretty fair analogy. In that edition. Other editions didn't have a Commoner class.

So???? What an ability needs to exclusive to one class before it can be acknowledged?

 

[Phanixis]

I actually think at-will cantrips as a whole are a bit of a red herring when it comes to the proliferation of magic. People see this resource free source of magic and assume magic has gotten out of hand, but magic has always been insanely powerful in D&D ever since I started playing AD&D 2e back in the day. It has been more powerful and prolific in any version of D&D I have played than in any other fictional setting I have encountered.

Even back in older editions by the time my wizard hit level 5 or 6 I basically had the equivalent of at will cantrips. I had a wand of magic missiles for casual blasting and a 5-6 hour per cast unseen servant carrying my torch, opening doors, triggering traps and the like. If anything, magic has been reduced in power significantly from older editions thanks to a reduction in the number of high level spell slots, a reduction in the number of separate spells you could have prepared, and the newly added concentration mechanics. Gone are the days where the wizard can stack buff after buff and fly into battle backed by summoned minions and unleash huge swaths of devastation. Now he is limited to one of his powerful ongoing effects at a time (for the most part, the logic for what gets the concentration flag can sometimes be weird), and it is a definite decrease in the ubiquity of magic by any measure. And this isn't even getting into other the other problems of older editions, where the average PC is carrying a magical arsenal large enough to shame North Korea, or the general insanity that was the druid. Even rogues could get into the action thanks to use magic device, yet nobody seems to complain about the rogue throwing magic missiles every round in combat is contributing to the ubiquity of magic.

The only time magic feels more ubiquitous is at low levels. But this was necessary. To long has the game suffered from linear warriors, quadratic wizards and giving spellcasters a decent amount of combat effectiveness and utility early on in exchange for removing the extreme levels of power the obtained later on was a necessary change that improved the way D&D played. Having a level one wizard who was limited to throwing oversized lawn darts after casting his one spell with a hit point total so low that he would die from a scrap with your average badger sucked, and having a wizard who could challenge God to a duel at level 20 tended to suck for everyone else. Of course the problem is not just limited to wizards, any primary caster suffers from this same problem to one extent or another, if less extreme. WoTC obviously came to realize how bad this was when they were developing 4e, but the AEDU system didn't go over very well, so now they have made a second attempt using a more traditional system. Personally, I like the new neo-Vancian spellcasting system, it is an elegant, streamlined approach to spellcasting that blends the best aspect of spontaneous and prepared magic.

The only real flaw I have with it is the one the Hussar pointed out in that it has a tendency to largely replace the need for bards, clerics and druids to use weapons. This problem is based on the relative strength of the combat cantrips available when compared against the strength of conventional attacks. It can be easily rectified by increases the martial competence of the offending classes along with a mild reduction in cantrip damage and scaling. A relatively easy house rule fix for any otherwise excellent spell casting system.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It is? In D&D?

Moreso in earlier editions, I guess. At one point I went over the cleric's spell list for 2E, and something that jumped out at me was how most of their spells (especially at low level) left room for plausible deniability. While the wizard was shooting fire from its hands and turning people into giants, or creating horses out of thin air, the cleric was purifying food and commanding enemies to do stuff. Their main schtick - healing - is only impressive if you equate HP loss with traumatic injury and blood loss; if damage is just sort of getting beaten up in a non-debilitating way, then magical healing doesn't look impressive or magical at all.

 

[Hussar]

The thing, it is simply more fun for most people to be able to cast spells as a caster. I don't play a wizard because I want to do magic missile two times a day and be a commoner for the rest of it. Where's the fun in that?

As far as wizard's go, I'd actually agree. A wizard should be blasting away with magic, because, really, that's all they got. Hucking a dagger isn't really doing a whole lot, nor is plinking with a crossbow. And neither one says, "I'm a wizard" very much.

My issue is more with the others. Clerics and druids were both perfectly capable of mixing it up with weapons. Using a weapon wasn't a fall back option, it was a primary option. Now, it's not really an option at all. At best, if you're swinging your scimitar, that means something seriously weird is going on.

Yep, the 1e Druid was on good terms with fire, too: Faerie Fire, Produce Flame, Heat Metal, Protection f/Fire, Produce Fire, Wall of Fire, Fire Seeds, Conjure Fire Elemental (specifically, as opposed to the Wizard's Conjure Elemental - at higher level, the Druid could also Conjure Earth Elemental), Fire Storm, and, of course, the flashy Chariot of Sustarre.


Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...Road-of-Ubiquitous-Magic/page38#ixzz41hS3JNuV

Let's not overstate things too much though. Produce Flame - 2nd level, Heat Metal - 2nd level, Wall of Fire - 4th level (?), Fire Seeds - 6th level, Conjure Fire Elemental (6th), Fire Storm and Chariot of Sustarre (7th level). You basically got one fire associated spell (and Faerie Fire isn't really fire is it?) at any given spell level, and other than Heat Metal and Produce Flame, no direct damage fire spells until 4th or 5th spell level. Druids had about 10-15 spells per spell level (give or take), so, it's not like blasting away with fire was a major schtick for Druids.

Certainly you wouldn't replace your weapon attacks with fire attack spells. And, on the note of poison bolt, we already have the short range single target cantrip of Poison Spray. Oh, good, another ranged pew pew spell. This one's green instead of red though, so, I suppose there's that.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Clerics and druids were both perfectly capable of mixing it up with weapons. Using a weapon wasn't a fall back option, it was a primary option. Now, it's not really an option at all.

Melee wasn't much of an alternative to spells for the Druid, in 1e (when I played a Druid through 12 levels, so it's kinda etched in my memory) the Druid got spells very rapidly, 2 at 1st level, plus wisdom bonus, 2nd level spells at 2nd, 3rd at third. No, really.
So at second level, if an enemy was wearing metal armor, you do a lot of damage with Heat Metal, for instance. Produce Flame was disappointing, but got much better in 2e (but you had to wait for 3rd level to get 2nd level spells).

Attacking with a weapon, especially in melee when the Druid had two 'prime requisite' stats competing with STR & DEX and nothing but leather armor and a 'small' wooden shield (they didn't make big ones for some reason), was more of a fall-back option. You could cast Shillelagh and eke a bit more out of your melee attack, though.

You basically got one fire associated spell (and Faerie Fire isn't really fire is it?) at any given spell level, and other than Heat Metal and Produce Flame, no direct damage fire spells until 4th or 5th spell level. Druids had about 10-15 spells per spell level (give or take), so, it's not like blasting away with fire was a major schtick for Druids.

No, Faerie Fire wasn't literally fire in the sense of doing fire damage, it was a very nice little spell though, made enemies glow, for a bonus to hit, and could sometimes cancel all sorts of vision-restricting shenanigans - and it was evocative of fire as part of the theme, sure. Nor did I give a complete list, just what I remembered, but, yeah, 1 or 2 fire spells per spell level is about right. Right around 10 spells of a given level, though, fewer at higher levels (and only up to 7th), in 1e - sub-classes didn't get big spell lists. So, about 10% fire spells.

The 5e druid is actually less focused on fire, having a few lower-level spells, notably 3 2nd-level spells, but very few at higher levels, and some of them have been genericized. Protection from Energy instead of Fire, full Conjure Elemental - upgrades to be sure, of course.

Certainly you wouldn't replace your weapon attacks with fire attack spells.

Starting with 1e UA, you literally could: Flame Blade. I know that's not what you meant, I just couldn't resist. Still wasn't a great idea to go into melee, though. In 2e & 3e, Produce Flame got a duration and let you throw itty bitty fireballs repeatedly, so that was also a way to do it, and 5e Produce Flame is quite consistent with it. And the 5e Druids still has Shillelagh - and Flame Blade.

What an ability needs to exclusive to one class before it can be acknowledged?

Not at all (though it sure helps if it isn't /universal/), it's just that the magic-less Wizard and the Commoner had abilities that were quite closely comparable. You claimed to show that wasn't the case. You didn't, rather, the actual abilities Wizard and Commoner classes illustrate the similarity quite dramatically.

While they weren't as neatly comparable in early editions ('commoners' essentially have no levels or class at all), while the wizard was low level, they were still pretty close: Low hps, poor weapons, no armor.

In later editions (including PF), of course, the wizard gained at-will magic to differentiate him, even when his other spells were all expended and no magic items were available, so the commoner analogy no longer applied.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

Moreso in earlier editions, I guess. At one point I went over the cleric's spell list for 2E, and something that jumped out at me was how most of their spells (especially at low level) left room for plausible deniability. While the wizard was shooting fire from its hands and turning people into giants, or creating horses out of thin air, the cleric was purifying food and commanding enemies to do stuff. Their main schtick - healing - is only impressive if you equate HP loss with traumatic injury and blood loss; if damage is just sort of getting beaten up in a non-debilitating way, then magical healing doesn't look impressive or magical at all.

Sticks to Snakes!

[video=youtube;RDfOz_oKnF4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDfOz_oKnF4[/video]

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

Different people have different opinions, and since this is pretty subjective, its always worth hearing another opinion on the matter.

True enough. However if other people have already expressed their opinions, and i do agree with them, i would not burden my posts by repeating them.

Spell slots are just a rules mechanic to express class capabilities though. Like making attack rolls. The fact that other classes get spell slots or make weapon attack rolls shouldn't be an issue: they're both just a way of expressing the class features.
Some classes (like Fighters) have attack roll-based abilities as their primary distinction. Some classes (like wizards) have spell casting-based features as their primary distinction.

Also true. However having spell casting as a feature means you take the entire baggage with it. Again, as mentioned, dispel, anti magic, spell components.....

The Ranger has always been a "blend" though, incorporating fighter-like (often ranged) combat, druid-like nature magic, and wilderness /environment based skills and magical abilities (unique to Ranger.)
If you, personally, don't associate some of those mechanics with the class, then there may be variants from the traditional class that you would prefer like the "Spell less Ranger" if your DM is OK with it.

Alas, i would not turn this thread into what i think the ranger should be, there already have been plenty of those. If you would like to know more of my opinion on the subject i would gladly take it to the PM and discuss my current concept there. Just in few words? It's HEAVILY inspired on 1E. As for the variant rangers..... i love them! But my DM wouldn't have them. I made a custom class by merging the battle master and hunter and he still wouldn't have it. He is keeping this campaign RAW. So, i doubt he'll take my spells as skills and features rewrite as well. As mentioned, re-fluffing often requires a cooperative table and DM.

I'd also have to point out that even though the Ranger's spells advance based upon half of the Ranger's level, that is very much not the same as spellcasting defining half of the class. Unless you were just being hyperbolic?
The Ranger's spells can provide an edge in combat, exploration etc, but the Ranger will be making attack rolls, skill checks, or using their ranger-specific abilities far more than they will be spellcasting while in play.

Was i hyperbolic? Perhaps. But then again, maybe not. It will surely depend on the way the DM is running the campaign/adventure and the amount of rests per day available, but at level 10 our ranger now has 9 casting slots. That "can" translate to 3 casts per short rest. Consider what other features and/or the ranger has at this level. Yes, i agree, our ranger will still attack and roll for skills, but IMO roughly half his combat and exploration "value" will come from spell use. Will he cast all the time or depend on spells alone? Surely not, but then again, that is why full casters are for (in this edition druids, clerics, mages, sorcerers...)

Now, the spell list is the actual class feature that the spell slot system expresses surely? There are some spells that are unique to rangers, and some spells that other classes have as well. Are there more spells that you think should be unique class features to Rangers?

Perhaps. If we were to express ranger's capabilities through the current spell progression then yes, definitely. But, i am not against the current ranger exclusive spell list as it is. I would just not make the class as dependent on casting. Or, alternatively, as in my ranger concept proposal to my DM, i would both delay and decrease the casting progression in exchange for a 2-3 extra features and/or ASI's.
EDIT: this might go as an extra sub class, along with the spell less ranger. Even in the old WoTC forums we called it the martial ranger.

A thought about the druid. Would it have been better if the main combat cantrip had been something other than conjure flame?

While fire is natural, elemental magic is also heavily associated with wizards. Would the druid feel a bit better/different if it used something like poison bolt, instead?

A cantrip for druid? How about an on person entangle with a DC for save? Or a gust of wind? I would find those much more thematic and interesting lore wise then bolts of fire

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Sticks to Snakes!

That's a fairly high-level spell, but it's actually quite indicative of my point. It is magical, but it maintains plausible deniability - maybe those sticks were always snakes, and you just didn't notice. Maybe that guy who died from an arrow wound yesterday actually wasn't quite dead yet. Maybe that big lightning storm formed naturally, and it was just a coincidence that it struck down all of those orcs.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Moreso in earlier editions, I guess. At one point I went over the cleric's spell list for 2E, and something that jumped out at me was how most of their spells (especially at low level) left room for plausible deniability.

Admittedly, Healing could be Faith Healing, and sure, any mind-affecting spell could be passed off as hypnosis or something. So I see it - at lower levels. Then you get into Flame Strike.

Point taken.