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

[Tony Vargas]

As I said way upthread, a cleric was never really a full caster, at least, not until high levels. Most of his spells were pretty niche and, outside of healing, you weren't dropping spells every encounter.

The healing burden made the Cleric a much less flexible caster in classic D&D, yes, but it was still very much a 'full' caster who got plenty of spells/day, starting with bonus spells from WIS at 1st level and enjoying the usual 'quadratic' progression from there.

Certainly not every round of every encounter. But now, in 5e, it's pretty much the best option for most classes. Drop multiple spells per encounter. We've gone from a system where you might see a couple of spells per encounter, to seeing multiple spells being cast every round of every encounter.

There'd've been nothing strange about spells being cast by everyone who could do so (and rolled high enough on initiative to act before one of the rockets was tagged), every round of every combat in 3.x, for instance - after pre-casting spells in preparation for the combat, for that matter. Any 5mwd-accustomed party could afford to flush spells like that.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I find this way of playing reprehensible, so I can't say you're strengthening your argument.

You don't like teamwork, and you think everyone should be self-sufficient?

Or you think that saying "Hey, I'm going to heal the paladin instead of your barbarian because if I heal you then you're just going to immediately get yourself hurt again," is somehow a dread insult, and nobody should have any consequences for their actions?

 

[Devilbass]

I got my start with AD&D 2E, and all I can say is that from my experience, 5E doesn't really have "ubiquitous magic" on a scale substantially greater than 2E did. I will concede that at-will cantrips increase the presence of magic at low levels, but I don't think that is the case at mid to high levels. Cantrips don't feel especially magical to me, however, I don't find that they detract from the magical feel of other spells and magic. Even at low levels, 5E casters don't have an appreciably larger number of spell slots. The usage of spells with levels tended to be higher in my 2E games overall.

In 2E, the primary casters have roughly equal numbers of spell slots compared to low-levels in 5E (aside from the poor mage), but WAY more at high-levels. Just look at these graphs. It's important to note that specialist wizards in 2E have equal or more spell slots than a 5E wizard at EVERY level except for 3rd level, at which they have one slot less. Arcane Recovery puts 5E Wizard over the 2E specialist until level 6, but it barely bridges the gap after level 6, and can't make up the difference past level 10. Arcane Recovery does give a special edge in that it allows slot recovery during the day. I also understand that preparing spells took alot longer in 2E, but in the games I played, there tended to be a good deal of downtime between adventures (which usually were two to three day ordeals at high levels), so it wasn't really a large constraint. Overall, I think as far as number of spells cast in a day, or on a round for round basis, 2E and 5E wizards are pretty similar.

A factor to consider when comparing Priest/Cleric slots between the editions is that while the 2E Priest certainly has fewer slots at low levels, they are able to narrow the gap via bonus spells due to a good Wisdom score. This is a relatively minor bonus, and likely only means an extra one or two 1st level spells each day, and maybe a 2nd level spell, but this is enough to bring the 2E Priest close to parity with the 5E Cleric. With a Wisdom score of 14, the 2e Priest has en equal or greater number of slots as compared to 5E casters at all levels except 3, where it is short one. Granted, the bonus slots are all 1st level spells, but again due to the auto-scaling nature of spells in 2E, that's not so bad.

Clerics have more options for dealing damage with magic in 5E than they did in 2E, but the ability to do damage via magic was certainly there in 2E. There are spells at every spell level in 2E for Priests that have obvious damage dealing capabilities, even aside from the Cause Wounds types, and they aren't bad. The following list isn't exhaustive omits a few spells that are direct damage types, and ignores the numerous summoning spells available to Priests that certainly can deal out round to round damage:

1st Level - Magical Stone
2nd Level - Heat Metal, Spiritual Hammer
3rd Level - Call Lightning
4th Level - Produce Fire
5th Level - Flame Strike
6th Level - Fire Seeds
7th Level - Fire Storm


In regards to Bards, I agree that they've generally become more magic oriented since 2E, but I find it to be an improvement. But just like with the primary casters, the major difference is at low levels when comparing the two editions. By high level, the 2E Bard has just as many spell slots as the 5E primary casters, though with lower level spells attained (maximum 6th level), but unlike 2E Paladins and Rangers, their casting level is not limited - it actually scales with their Bard level.

Paladins also have gotten more magical in regards to spells, but Paladins have always been very magical in general. In 2E, Paladins can detect evil, lay on hands, cure disease, and project a protective aura all beginning at 1st level (Turn Undead shows up at level 3). These abilities are mostly more limited than their current forms, but definitely make the Paladin feel magical without having spells. While the 5E Paladin gains spell casting seven levels earlier, the slots are fairly limited, and also used to fuel divine smite. My experience so far is that Paladins use far fewer slots for spells than they do smites. Overall, I find the 5E Paladin to feel marginally more magical than the 2E Paladin.

Rangers probably have increased in overall "magicality" the most. In 2E their spell casting was very minimal (maxed out at nine slots), and none of their other abilities seemed especially magical in nature. I find in 5E that though they have access to spells much earlier on, and significantly more slots, most of the spells are thematic, and don't feel especially supernatural. This certainly is subjective, so take it as you will.

All this being said, my overall feeling is that yes, 5E has a slightly greater magic presence at low levels, but by level 8-10, things start to even out. Go much above that, and I feel that 2E blows 5E out of the water with how ubiquitous magic is.

 

[Sunseeker]

You don't like teamwork, and you think everyone should be self-sufficient?

Or you think that saying "Hey, I'm going to heal the paladin instead of your barbarian because if I heal you then you're just going to immediately get yourself hurt again," is somehow a dread insult, and nobody should have any consequences for their actions?

Being a great enjoyer of 4E, I think everyone should be self-sufficient. To this day I still build characters who can stand on their own, at least long enough to run away if everyone else dies. I don't like games where you can't "play by yourself" it doesn't encourage teamwork, it encourages dependency, negative dependency, particularly in games that provide no way to get better at the things you're bad at. IME, people make better teams when they rely on each other because they want to, not because they have to. Relying on each other because they have to leads to players like you: who attempt to control others play through rationing their job in the party. Could you imagine if a damager did that? Just said "Naw I didn't like how you healed me last week, so I'm gonna let the goblin eat you." That's not cooperation. That's extortion.

There's a reasonable amount of "stay out of the fire" that any given character can do. As someone who has been a long-time raider in MMOs, there's also some things that you just can't avoid and the healer must heal them through it. The alternative is everyone playing mages and archers to stay out of melee where all the bad stuff drops more often. But then if they do that, the healer doesn't get the sort of protection they need and monsters are free to charge right up to them, instead of risking a half-dozen OAs from nearby melee.

I played in a game with a healer like you once (and I've been in god knows how many raids with healers like you). Eventually I just stop doing my job and sit on the sidelines. I'll guarantee that you'll complain more about my lack of contribution than my poor contribution.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I played in a game with a healer like you once (and I've been in god knows how many raids with healers like you). Eventually I just stop doing my job and sit on the sidelines. I'll guarantee that you'll complain more about my lack of contribution than my poor contribution.

And then you get dropped from the group, because you're not doing your job, which is to hurt the bad guys without causing un-due strain on the healers. I stay with the group, because I'm doing my job - which is to distribute healing where it matters, rather than wasting it on the lost causes.

There is no room in the party for characters who are too selfish or incompetent.

 

[sunshadow21]

And then you get dropped from the group, because you're not doing your job, which is to hurt the bad guys without causing un-due strain on the healers. I stay with the group, because I'm doing my job - which is to distribute healing where it matters, rather than wasting it on the lost causes.

There is no room in the party for characters who are too selfish or incompetent.

To be fair, the more likely result is that both of you get dropped from the group. Him, because he's not doing his job, and you, because your stubborness is the main cause of him not doing his job and may well cause someone else to have the same reaction. You may not be entirely wrong, but you run into the problem of others changing the word "characters" in your last sentence to "players" and deciding that your insistence on not accepting the changes that have happened to the game over the years may not be worth it. You may not like wands and similar things, but someone who played only fighters was probably ecstatic to see them because it meant that the party didn't have to stop and rest after every other fight so the cleric could get their spells back.

I get that you like playing healers and that you take that role seriously, but a lot of people want to play a cleric of a fire god as someone who actually uses fire magic, and isn't just a minor variant of the cleric worshipping a god of healing. I personally never was able to get into the cleric class because in order to be effective, every single cleric I ever saw in 3rd edition generally ended up playing exactly the same with virtually no variance based on the god nominally being worshipped. And the whole teamwork thing, while really nice in theory, rarely works nearly as well in the types of groups that have developed since D&D really took off and moved out of people's basements. Organized play, especially, requires a certain amount of self reliance that forces a bit of class evolution from the original concepts. I personally found the concept of the cleric class interesting, but the implementation was such that any concept that wasn't psuedo front line fighter or pure support/healer was basically unsupported. The fact that other options are now much better supported is a good thing to a lot of people.

As for the role of magic in 5E, I don't see cantrips as being particularly magical in the way that spells are magical. If I want to play a magic user, I am not looking at cantrips as something that's super cool and shiny; they are a step up from ye olde crossbow, but ultimately they are just as limited as the crossbow, and most DMs aren't likely to allow all that much in trying to use them overly creatively because that usually just leads to headaches eventually. Rituals and cantrips are nice filler, but they don't really fill any role that skills, normal weapons, and fairly standard traveling gear couldn't fill in earlier editions; there's probably an exception or two out there, but not enough for either of those things to really scream "magic" to me. The spells are, and always will be, the heart and soul of a D&D class that relies on magic, and those are no more or less common than they have been in any other version. If anything, with the concentration rules written the way they are, they are more restricted, not less; by removing (or at least severely limiting) the ability to stack spells, they removed a lot of the abuse that spells received in earlier editions.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

To be fair, the more likely result is that both of you get dropped from the group. Him, because he's not doing his job, and you, because your stubborness is the main cause of him not doing his job and may well cause someone else to have the same reaction.

If I'm not competent enough to be there - if I'm constantly making the wrong decisions about who to heal, and how - then I deserve to be dropped from the group. I can't expect a bunch of other people to babysit me if I don't know what I'm doing and I'm not getting any better.

That being said, there are some players who refuse to learn. There are barbarians who rush straight at a group of enemies, get hit by all of them in turn (except for the one they managed to kill), and then expect me to hand over the keys to all of the group's healing for the day. That's simply not sustainable in the long run, and they need to learn to be more responsible if the group is going to make any progress ever.

Or they could go with the 3E model, and just make healing so over-abundant that you can just charge recklessly at everything, and the out-of-combat resource management aspect of the game becomes trivial. Currently, 5E is dangerously close to that territory.

 

[sunshadow21]

If I'm not competent enough to be there - if I'm constantly making the wrong decisions about who to heal, and how - then I deserve to be dropped from the group. I can't expect a bunch of other people to babysit me if I don't know what I'm doing and I'm not getting any better.

That being said, there are some players who refuse to learn. There are barbarians who rush straight at a group of enemies, get hit by all of them in turn (except for the one they managed to kill), and then expect me to hand over the keys to all of the group's healing for the day. That's simply not sustainable in the long run, and they need to learn to be more responsible if the group is going to make any progress ever.

Or they could go with the 3E model, and just make healing so over-abundant that you can just charge recklessly at everything, and the out-of-combat resource management aspect of the game becomes trivial. Currently, 5E is dangerously close to that territory.

While I personally agree with most of that, the game and the people who play have changed, and while I may get annoyed with those who like to simply charge in, it can cause more party strife to try to make them "learn their lesson" than it does to accept that you need to bring a different type of character to the table to better match what others are wanting to play, or if that isn't an option you like, find a group that still values teamwork over abundant and easily accessible healing. I won't say you'll get kicked from every group out there because of your position, but there a lot of groups that you would be the one getting removed and not the crazy barbarian; in organized play especially, you would find yourself having a hard time getting along because what you call an over abundance healing and lack of out of combat resource management is very often what is required just to get through the adventures in a reasonably timely fashion. Even in home play, there's a lot of people that can appreciate the out of combat resource management, but simply don't the the time to employ it to the degree they had when they were younger; I know that while I enjoy reading about that kind of thing on paper these days, the reality is that when I sit down to play, I don't usually have a massive abundance of time. It isn't just lack of team work or responsibility that led to more common access to healing; it was the fact that the average age of the players went up and the average amount of available free time to play went down.

 

[Sunseeker]

And then you get dropped from the group, because you're not doing your job, which is to hurt the bad guys without causing un-due strain on the healers. I stay with the group, because I'm doing my job - which is to distribute healing where it matters, rather than wasting it on the lost causes.

There is no room in the party for characters who are too selfish or incompetent.

Pot, kettle.

I know my friends and I have booted a lot of healers from our groups with holier than thou attitudes, they spend most of their time criticising the team instead of working with the team. Healing in MMOs is a requirement, but the healers themselves are easily replaceable.


Granted, if the team is dying on the same avoidable damage spikes then they have a legitimate reason to complain, but if they start raging about it then they will still find themselves kicked.

Sure, like I said, there's a reasonable about of damage that can usually be avoided, and there's things that can't. Since D&D isn't an MMO and the healer doesn't know what abilities are coming up next or what people need to get out, the inexorable result is that people will take more damage on a more regular basis and attempting to play social engineering by what boils down to attempting to get others booted from the group, as Saelorn basically admitted to doing, is probably the worse of the two sins.

 

[Sunseeker]

oops double post