D&D 5E The Decrease in Desire for Magic in D&D

[Fanaelialae]

As I see it, these claims are mutually exclusive.

Either these spells are a form of player agency that players can be expected to readily access. And can therefore be expected to create obstacles for survival oriented play.

Or they are not readily available, and therefore not meant as a significant form of player agency. In which case they wouldn't typically cause issues for survival oriented play, outside of exceptional cases.

Either one is reasonable, but trying to argue both seems clearly illogical.

 

[billd91]

If I make a character that chooses the Linguist feat, I’m making a statement about my character. That statement is invalidated if scrolls of comprehend languages are commonplace, or everyone in the Plane of Fire speaks common for some reason.

If I make a dwarf, being good at dwarfy things is important, so having easily-accessible magic can undermine that.

I would say that this is fundamentally the issue: widespread magic can invalidate non-magical choices and features of other characters unless the DM ensures that the drawbacks of using magic bite. And very often, doing so either means a number of encounters that is difficult to justify in a Story-emphasis campaign, or restrictions on casters that can themselves feel like the DM is invalidating the caster’s choices.

Or, you know, people can communicate and coordinate these things among themselves to resolve them. I had to lay down a bit of the law with players of mine because they were all building a bunch of charisma-based PCs. I told them to coordinate so they aren't stepping on each others' toes.
But that's something everyone should consider whatever the characters are. If a PC wants to be a linguist, the DM shouldn't make comprehend languages/tongues magic commonplace. The other PCs should probably also avoid them or choose to deemphasize them. Same thing with dwarfy things or any other area where magic can encroach on non-magical things.
I mean, yeah, the game includes these options - but the players and DM are empowered to view them as means to get by without a linguist, a dwarf, a rogue, whatever... IF they don't happen to have one in the group. If more people did that then maybe we can have a lot less arguing about whether or not the game should include these as options and accept that they're there because nobody knows the makeup of any given PC group and it's good to have options.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As I see it, these claims are mutually exclusive.

Either these spells are a form of player agency that players can be expected to readily access. And can therefore be expected to create obstacles for survival oriented play.

Or they are not readily available, and therefore not meant as a significant form of player agency. In which case they wouldn't typically cause issues for survival oriented play, outside of exceptional cases.

Either one is reasonable, but trying to argue both seems clearly illogical.

I mean, the issue is quite specific.

If you have a Wizard or Bard in the party in 5E, there is literally nothing to prevent them from selecting Tiny Hut as one of the spells they have access to at Level 5 (no other classes have default access AFAIK), because in 5E you get to pick your spells.

Therefore, if you are playing a game which includes any survival elements AND one of those two classes, they can potentially massively dent the survival elements.

But if neither class is present, or they simply don't select that spell, then the impact is zero. Certainly it's impossible to support the argument that Tiny Hut means WotC intentionally don't want people doing survival stuff, because it's only two classes who can get it, and given it's optional, it's fair to say most parties don't have access to it, I believe.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I mean, the issue is quite specific.

If you have a Wizard or Bard in the party in 5E, there is literally nothing to prevent them from selecting Tiny Hut as one of the spells they have access to at Level 5 (no other classes have default access AFAIK), because in 5E you get to pick your spells.

Therefore, if you are playing a game which includes any survival elements AND one of those two classes, they can potentially massively dent the survival elements.

But if neither class is present, or they simply don't select that spell, then the impact is zero. Certainly it's impossible to support the argument that Tiny Hut means WotC intentionally don't want people doing survival stuff, because it's only two classes who can get it, and given it's optional, it's fair to say most parties don't have access to it, I believe.

My own opinion is that it's two highly popular classes, coupled with a few additional outlier options like Ritual Caster. Meaning that the players will probably have the option available to them at 5th level in most campaigns.

If they were uncommon choices, I don't think we'd be seeing the complaints that we're seeing in this thread.

Could it have been implemented in a clearer way, such as everyone agreeing at the beginning of the campaign whether survival will play a significant role in the game? Absolutely. But then this tangent would be all about how virtually no players want to agree to games with a significant survival aspect.

 

[James Gasik]

I mean, the issue is quite specific.

If you have a Wizard or Bard in the party in 5E, there is literally nothing to prevent them from selecting Tiny Hut as one of the spells they have access to at Level 5 (no other classes have default access AFAIK), because in 5E you get to pick your spells.

Therefore, if you are playing a game which includes any survival elements AND one of those two classes, they can potentially massively dent the survival elements.

But if neither class is present, or they simply don't select that spell, then the impact is zero. Certainly it's impossible to support the argument that Tiny Hut means WotC intentionally don't want people doing survival stuff, because it's only two classes who can get it, and given it's optional, it's fair to say most parties don't have access to it, I believe.

Maybe, but I always thought that they balanced the game around the "classic" party of Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, and Wizard?

 

[Laurefindel]

I feel like back in 2E, a lot of this stuff made more sense, because it was so much less accessible/reliable.

Comprehend Languages particularly - there wasn't this weirdly-limited list of languages which we have in 5E - rather, that spell probably got cast to speak a language the PCs had barely even heard of, and that certainly wasn't on a list they could have picked from. Whereas in 5E, it's much more likely you're just casting it when you could have equally selected that language at chargen.

Goodberry you had to memorize. You couldn't just drop a spell slot on it. So you were committed to casting it, it was blocking a slot. It's a breaker in part in 5E because it doesn't block a usage slot, just a selection slot.

Likewise with Tiny Hut - you were committing a slot to casting it, which made it a bigger decision. It also had a bit more nuance to it, in that extreme temperatures and very strong winds impacted it. Plus Tiny Hut the DM had to give you it, and like a lot of spells, that was extremely far from a given.

Not to mention it can be cast as a ritual for "free" in 5e. It takes more time to cast it as a ritual but given how the normal casting time is 10 minutes*, there are few situations where you could spare 10 minutes but not 1 hour (and 10 minutes). So in effect, casters rarely have to spend a spell slot on Tiny Hut, let alone commit one.

* a good thing too, because Tiny Hut is most annoying in combat!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My own opinion is that it's two highly popular classes, coupled with a few additional outlier options like Ritual Caster. Meaning that the players will probably have the option available to them at 5th level in most campaigns.

With Wizards, sure, but not with Bards, because they have such a limited spell selection. So we're talking about a fairly small (double-digit but I'd guess below 30%) of groups.

Could it have been implemented in a clearer way, such as everyone agreeing at the beginning of the campaign whether survival will play a significant role in the game? Absolutely. But then this tangent would be all about how virtually no players want to agree to games with a significant survival aspect.

I don't believe that would be true. I think it's much more likely most people just wouldn't care, let alone protest.

If they were uncommon choices, I don't think we'd be seeing the complaints that we're seeing in this thread.

I do. "Uncommon" isn't "rare" and something that even say 10% of groups find an issue gets plenty of discussion.

Maybe, but I always thought that they balanced the game around the "classic" party of Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, and Wizard?

I'm not aware of that being true, or claimed to be true by any of the main D&D designers in 4E or 5E. It seems like something that the 3E design crew might have said though.

EDIT - Also Bards and Wizards are not actually two of the most popular classes - Bards are fairly unpopular and Wizards slightly more so - Dungeons and Dragons - What Are The Most Popular Classes and Subclasses? - they just get a lot of discussion because they have a lot of impact on the game.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

EDIT - Also Bards and Wizards are not actually two of the most popular classes - Bards are fairly unpopular and Wizards slightly more so - Dungeons and Dragons - What Are The Most Popular Classes and Subclasses? - they just get a lot of discussion because they have a lot of impact on the game.

Well, they're right around average. In fact, that's a shockingly even clumping of classes, which is nice to see.

 

[tetrasodium]

I mean, this seems like a very peculiar and weird problem that you care about a lot, but that's not a major issue, to me? The potion "problem" you're describing. And also, it's saying the basic healing potion is vital - which is true - not "pushing expensive healing potions on the PCs is a must!" or something. Right?

I still don't agree with your "chained up" metaphor and it make no sense to your own "hit by a train" argument. It's more like, in 5E, death is this thing that seems very avoidable until suddenly it isn't. That's not "locked up in another room", because then you'd have zero worries. I'm not sure what the metaphor should be, but the chained up one is literally nonsensical when combined with your own argument! Pick a lane, dude. You can't have death be both locked up safely and suddenly appearing out of nowhere!

I do agree that the lack of effective buff/debuff/control abilities thanks, in large part the weird attitude of "ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING MUST USE CONCENTRATION!!!!!!" is not great design. I think we could stand to see quite a few spells stop being concentration in 1D&D.

Wackamole healing would be unthinkable in earlier* editions but in 5e the rules & high-magic baseline put death so far away that they will resist even preparing for situations where it won't work. Since the players won't prepare the GM looks bad when it happens from the speeding train it takes

* I'm excluding 4e because it had a lot of differences & I don't know them well enough to talk about,

 

[MichaelSomething]

I don't fault anyone for wanting that old school playstyle and feel... I just wish they were able to find just three other people out there that they could actually play one of these old school editions or games with, rather than continually be stuck playing a 5E game that they know does not do what they wish it did.

There's always Dungeon Crawl Classics!
edit: spelling!!!