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

[Micah Sweet]

Though there are other approaches.

For example, Shadowrun (while imperfect in its implementation) makes magic work very poorly with tech, in a world where tech is very important. That is, to be a decker you (pretty much always) have to have cybernetic implants allowing you to "jack into" the Matrix. Cybernetic augmentation causes a loss of "essence," which is (very crudely) the "connection" your soul has to your body. All beings start with 6 essence and cannot have less than 1 essence without dying. Folks who have very low essence are generally speaking really noticeable. They have muted or disturbed emotional responses to things, behave in inhuman or disturbing ways, etc.

Thing is...essence also affects magic. If you lose any essence, it reduces your Magic stat by an equal amount, and for the purpose of how much Magic you have, you always round essence down. So if you get an induction datajack (a relatively non-invasive option that goes beneath the skin of one of your hands), it costs 0.25 essence. For the purposes of getting more augmentations, that means you have 5.75 essence remaining, but for the purpose of magic, you've just lost one whole point of essence and your Magic (both maximum and current) are reduced by that amount. People with only 1 essence are effectively incapable of using magic.

There are also a few people, "technomancers," who can do Matrix hacking stuff without the aid of technology at all, and their powers are defined by "Resonance." Resonance and Magic cannot mix--if you are a technomancer you cannot learn to use magic, and if you somehow do acquire magic, all of your technomancer abilities are instantly and permanently lost.

As a result, magic is contrasted against both combat-focused cyberware, which is usually of interest to "street samurai" (the equivalent of D&D Fighters in Shadowrun), and more hacking/robot-control cyberware, which is of interest to deckers (hackers) and riggers (drone-using and vehicle-operating folks.) Mages (wizards, but they can learn healing spells), shamans (spirit-conjurers), and physical adepts (essentially D&D Monks) almost exclusively stay the hell away from any of that cyberware stuff, because it destroys their ability to use their magical skills; at most, you'll see mages dip their toes into it by taking only 1 essence worth of augmentations and making sure those augs are as top-line and impactful as possible. (Higher-grade cyberware has a lower essence cost than entry-model cyberware, but requires more complex and expensive facilities to install. The highest grade, as of SR5e, was "deltaware," and only a handful of clinics in the world have the kind of tech needed to install that stuff. But it gives a hefty discount on essence costs.)

Magic is somewhat rare in Shadowrun, in that Awakened individuals (those who can use magic) are a comparative minority, but in-universe they're actually pretty common as shadowrunners. That's because being Awakened and not a corporate wage-slave usually means you're on the run or being hunted or trying to keep a low profile. You have valuable skills and few places to employ them other than by shadowrunning.

I appreciate the extended discussion of Shadowing, but I don't see how that pertains to a 4e game that doesn't have technology even approaching this level. Your example is interesting, but irrelevant.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I appreciate the extended discussion of Shadowing, but I don't see how that pertains to a 4e game that doesn't have technology even approaching this level. Your example is interesting, but irrelevant.

The point was to show that it is possible. Earlier, you had asked me about other approaches. This is one of them.

Finding ways to apply this specific concept to D&D is a challenge. It should be. You're talking about redesigning a fundamental system.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The point was to show that it is possible. Earlier, you had asked me about other approaches. This is one of them.

Finding ways to apply this specific concept to D&D is a challenge. It should be. You're talking about redesigning a fundamental system.

Fair enough.

 

[Minigiant]

It's weird how you have spells like Pass Without Trace or Shield that are mostly a +X to a skill or combat state and then spells like Wall of X and Conjure X that create effects that cannot be done without magic.

I mean are there doctors in D&D worlds if Cure Wounds is a level 1 spell in a world with divine as a core assumption?

"But it's rare. Everyone doesn't have access."

Nah. If my PC has access at level 1, anyone who isn't poor could afford heals and communities could put money together to have an on-sight cleric. And every dungeon and "abandoned campsite" is full of potions.

Maybe... just Maybe We should have put some teeth into the Medicine skill.

You can't with one hand say "there is too much magic in D&D" and one the other hand "we cannot give skills and ability score known effects. The default has to be empty for each table to adjudicate to their liking."

This is why Feats and Multiclassing in 5e are going from optional to core.

 

[Garthanos]

This is definitely tricky. Magic, by its very nature, allows effects that can't be otherwise duplicated. If it couldn't, no one would bother learning it. This is why in many stories, either everyone has it or those who do are clearly advantaged.

This is why I advocate for risky and/or difficult magic. That way you can still do the cool stuff, but it's dangerous.

Interesting thought and I have definitely had it before (I considered representing that danger with hit point loss expenditure) ... but I think I may have shifted on it.

Here is another take. Classically ancient peoples did not differentiate between highly skilled performance and working a form of magic ... so you would have Smith Magic and Warrior Magic and so on... and a Cu Chulainne would perform feats/stunts and some of them are very much acrobatic stunts although extreme and others would be transforming in a very magical warp spasm. (into a terrifying primal form).

It's a bit like naming what monks do "magic" which is official but a lot of folk see it as martial. The distinction is not even cut and dry now imho. Doing the same with skills especially when the skills reach high end values makes a lot of sense to me. Level Up merged Qi points and Superiority die and the like into Exertions. And made them a part of the martial classes. If you have maneuvers and extraordinary exertions boosting skill performances I see no reason not to allow reaching for extremes of effectiveness.

If we are adding danger... one way is to have a maneuver that grants enemies an opportunity attack for example. Or perhaps we keep that hit point loss to since it would apply to extremes of skill or magic used outside of combat,

Perhaps critical fails could be enabled to achieve a more extreme positive result.

 

[Hussar]

Edit: and I agree with @DEFCON 1 , there are likely a lot of players who came into the game in 5e who would not like this style of game. Of course, its also a style they didn't learn the game in either. My son plays 5e, and he sometimes complains about the ease of the system, and its complexity, but some of that could also be my talking about the older editions, and how they did things as a contrast.

Note this isn’t an age thing. My players for the past decade all started in the 80’s and 90’s and none of us has the slightest interest in this kind of play.

I can’t be the only person who, back I the day, wrote two weeks iron rations on the character sheet at 1st level and never looked at it again.

This, to me, was the standard way of playing whether I dm’d or played, regardless of players or heck even country of origin.

 

[Lanefan]

So don't lie.

Impart information as appropriate. Say, "sorry you fail to glean anything else of significance" as necessary.

Which means the player, metagaming, knows there's only two possible outcomes: the NPC is lying, or there is no info to be gleaned.

There is no third possibility, that being the PC outright gets it wrong: tbelieving the PC to be lying when it is actually telling the truth or not lying when it in fact is. This lack of a third outcome is IMO a bug, not a feature.

 

[Lanefan]

This is assuming the very thing I am saying is incorrect.

I'm beyond assuming such, I'm trying to say it outright.

Special is not defined by rarity. Rarity can be one source of specialness, but it is absolutely not the only source.

What other non-subjective sources are there?

Subjective sources are non-starters here; to be truly special, something has to be special in the eyes of everyone, not just one person or a few.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm beyond assuming such, I'm trying to say it outright.

What other non-subjective sources are there?

Subjective sources are non-starters here; to be truly special, something has to be special in the eyes of everyone, not just one person or a few.

Subjective is the only kind that matters.

It's literally what people are asking for. They very specifically use the term "feel." "I want magic to feel magical again."

 

[Hussar]

Just to add. Do people seriously track things like torches and water and food in their DnD games? Other than some rare occurances, it just hasn’t happened for me.

One time it did was when I ran The Worlds Largest Dungeon back in 3e. Food and water were a big issue.

But as the pc’s leveled up and then died to be replaced by new pcs complete with equipment, a curious thing happened.

Every single new pc came with a ring of sustenance. After a few pc deaths and levels, all the food and water stuff just stopped being an issue.

Why? Because the players aren’t sitting at the table to futz about worrying about meals. They do not care. Not even a little. And the mundaneness of it becomes zero fun very quickly.

Same thing happened in my low magic 5e game. The players constantly chafed at the restrictions and frankly hated the campaign.

While I would love to do a low magic game, I wonder how much of that is being a dm. Players want to do funky stuff. I swing my sword or I check for traps gets pretty old after twenty or thirty years.