D&D 5E Teleport /fly /misty step the bane of cool dungeon design is RAW in 5E

[Tony Vargas]

If *all* spells were ‘tagged’ with ‘descriptors’ that identified their ‘theme’, their ‘domain’ (fire, wind, ether, force, charm, teleport, animal, plant, fate/luck/prescience, etcetera), it would be much easier for DMs to allow a character concept to access them. It would also be easier for the DM to ban a list of spells across levels, because the theme was inappropriate for the setting, maybe nonpsychic or nonelemental or nonnature or too flashy, or whatever.

Yes, that'd be good.

It still might not help much with the particular brand of 'low-fantasy' with this ideal of less-overt/plausibly-deniable magic. D&D magic tends to be pretty darn overt. You wave your hands around, speak arcane syllables, material components disappear and magical effects happen. Subtlety is not a D&D caster's watch-word. 3e added Silent & Still Spell meta-magic feats, 4e did away with components & let you re-skin, and the 5e Sorcerer gets 'subtle' metamagic, but that's about as far as it's ever gone that I'm aware of.

 

[Ancalagon]

[MENTION=6907519]DeJoker[/MENTION] , [MENTION=284]Caliban[/MENTION], guys, guys. Chill.

Yes, [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] went waaaaay overboard and dug themselves into a hole with a pretty bad argument but... the central premise, that "misty step" doesn't feel like paladin/clerical magic? That part is true.

 

[Caliban]

@DeJoker , @Caliban, guys, guys. Chill.

You're right, I'm a terrible person. Just terrible.

Yes, @Saelorn went waaaaay overboard and dug themselves into a hole with a pretty bad argument but... the central premise, that "misty step" doesn't feel like paladin/clerical magic? That part is true.

Well, some people feel a certain way about the spell is true. Opinions are like that. I don't think it's fair to say that the spell itself "feels like" a specific class or not. Classes in this edition are very malleable and can be adjusted to fit many character concepts.

It's not a low fantasy type of spell, and if you want to relegate the clerics and paladins to the low fantasy ghetto while allowing other classes to play with the high fantasy spells...that just seems mean.

I just think that sort of theme should be set for the entire campaign, not for specific classes.

 

[Ancalagon]

I didn't mean to imply that you were a terrible person - rather that a lot of effort was spent defeating the "backing up argument" vs the central premise... I guess these things do happen on the internet.

It's not a low fantasy type of spell, and if you want to relegate the clerics and paladins to the low fantasy ghetto while allowing other classes to play with the high fantasy spells...that just seems mean.

I don't see it that way - I think it's a good thing that different classes' spell lists have different feel. It's been lost a bit in 5e and I think that's a shame.

 

[Lanefan]

... if you want to relegate the clerics and paladins to the low fantasy ghetto ...

If nothing else, Paladins In the Ghetto sounds like an excellent name for a band, an album, or both.

 

[Hussar]

You're right, I'm a terrible person. Just terrible.



Well, some people feel a certain way about the spell is true. Opinions are like that. I don't think it's fair to say that the spell itself "feels like" a specific class or not. Classes in this edition are very malleable and can be adjusted to fit many character concepts.

It's not a low fantasy type of spell, and if you want to relegate the clerics and paladins to the low fantasy ghetto while allowing other classes to play with the high fantasy spells...that just seems mean.

I just think that sort of theme should be set for the entire campaign, not for specific classes.

I'm not sure that removing Misty Step from Paladins relegates them to the low fantasy ghetto.

I mean, come on, it's a freaking paladin. That's about as far from Low Fantasy as you can get. He's smiting, blowing things up, setting things on fire, and various other goodies. Hardly a "low fantasy" character. Meanwhile the cleric is possibly summoning his god 10% of the time (or if not his god, at least someone pretty high up in the food chain). Never minding things like earthquake and whatnot. Heck, he's chucking balls of radiant energy whenever he wants to.

Again, not really low magic.

 

[Tony Vargas]

if you want to relegate the clerics and paladins to the low fantasy ghetto while allowing other classes to play with the high fantasy spells...that just seems mean. .

Clearly, if you wanted to hang in the low-fantasy ghetto, you'd play a Fighter, not a Paladin.

 

[Mephista]

Not quite. Wizards aren't real, and have no real world analogue.

Sure they do. Alchemists and other learned scholars of ages past were often considered to be magical. Sure, it was just sufficently advanced technology, but its based on actual people.

And how do wizards cast magic? They study elemental forces and weave them into magic, almost like it was a kind of scholastic science. The only reason its not science is that wizardry doesn't specifically follow the scientific process.

the central premise, that "misty step" doesn't feel like paladin/clerical magic? That part is true.

And now we need to talk about misconceptions about 5e classes function. AGAIN.


Misty step is not a core paladin ability. It is specifically part of two SUBCLASSES. Each subclass has its own themes and feel to it. The divine soul sorcerer is thematically linked to the life cleric. The Oath of devotion is thematically linked to LG gods and their clerics. The proposed celestial pact warlock is related as well. If you want to argue it doesn't make sense for this specific type of paladin? Absolutely, I agree with that. You want to argue against the oathbreaker or crown or the UA paladins having it? Oh, hey, they don't.


The avenger, both in 3e and 4, had teleport magic. You cannot say that Misty Step does not make sense for an Oath of Vengence, when history is clearly on the side of giving it.


Want to argue against the warden-tribute Ancient getting it? Actually, I agree it doesn't fit here, but that's becaue the Ancient paladin uses magic in a similar manner to the druid, not the different cleric subclasses. Its nature oriented, not divine, and misty step doesn't feel nature-themed to me. Still, the reason for rejection has nothing to do with the spell being related to "cleric" magic.


Each subclass needs to be judged on its own themes. Lumping them together is a misunderstanding. Saying that paladin magic is related to cleric magic is a gross misunderstanding. That's not how things work in 5e.

 

[DeJoker]

I think it's a good thing that different classes' spell lists have different feel. It's been lost a bit in 5e and I think that's a shame.

Personally I do not like it from a GMs point of view as it requires me to keep track of more variables than I see necessary. Way back in 2nd Ed I created a more generic magic system and many of its elements are in the 3.5 Ed/Pathfinder as well as different elements now in the 5 Ed but the two major things it had, which adhere to the K.I.S.S. it principle, is that it only had two magic paradigms Divine and Arcane and it only had 1 Spell List. Granted Mages still generally stayed away from the Necromantic magic (the magic used to Heal - Positive/Negative Energy manipulation) due to its tendency to have nasty side affects but it made for a much easier magic system to run and the two paradigms were different enough to make a Cleric fairly different from a Mage even if they happened to have the same list of spells (which was rare since a deity limited what they supplied to their priests) and wizards were only limited by their abilities and whether they wanted to risk being a wizard or not.

However, 5th Ed at a glance would make this very problematic to implement so not sure if I am even going to try or just leave that one on the shelf for 3.5 Ed or earlier

 

[Alexemplar]

Sure they do. Alchemists and other learned scholars of ages past were often considered to be magical. Sure, it was just sufficently advanced technology, but its based on actual people.

And how do wizards cast magic? They study elemental forces and weave them into magic, almost like it was a kind of scholastic science. The only reason its not science is that wizardry doesn't specifically follow the scientific process.

Hell, Wizard comes from wise/wizened and Mage/Magician comes from magus, which means wise man and was the title for Zoroasrtrian priests.

And back in the day, your priests (and other learned men) were the members of the community who were the most literate. The ones most knowledgeable about nature, herbs, and the movement of the stars. The ones who knew the myths and epic poems. The ones who knew most of the rituals and the most powerful magic.

Even European alchemists were super religious by modern scientific standards.The goal of alchemy was not a secular search for knowledge on how the universe worked for more effecienct technology, but a spiritual practice where one could grow closer to God by better understanding the underlying principles on which God built reality. Turning lead into gold wasn't about wealth. It showed you had learmed how to turn corrupted things (like a sinners soul, death, illness, ignorance, flaws) into something pure (like a righteous/divine soul, immortal, healthy, all-knowing, perfect).