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

[Lanefan]

I really wish that’s how D&D magic worked.

To some extent it did, in 1e; but even in 1e there's still ways to make it riskier.

 

[Ancalagon]

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.

This depends in part on the "are the PCs special/unique". If they are, they may be the only magic users for miles, maybe even in the kingdom... but if they aren't, yeah.

As far as the medicine skill goes, one can make a healing potion with no magical talents whatsoever (herbalism), so there is that...

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Same here...except for the times when I did look at it, whenever it became relevant how much food I or we had brought along e.g. if a journey took longer than expected or (more commonly) we rescued a bunch of half-starved prisoners and had to keep them fed* while en route back to safety.

Same as I write "flint and tinder" on my character sheet during char-gen and never look at it again - it's on my sheet, so I know I have it, and that's all I need 99.9+% of the time.

* - this became a big deal once in an adventure I DMed - the PCs rescued something like 80 prisoners, about a two week journey from safety. All they had for food was a) what they had brought with them, less what they'd already consumed (I vaguely recall most of the PCs having about six man-days worth of food left at this point); and b) one Cleric who could cast Create Food and Water a couple of times a day giving a good meal for (I think) 9 people per casting; and c) whatever they could hunt or scavenge along the way including some almost-inedible food form the prison itself. That one became a real exercise in resource management, believe me; but they pulled it off somehow.

 

[Lanefan]

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."

I read that as "[wanting] magic to feel magical again" for everyone, not just for the person who wrote that sentence.

The question is not what would make magic feel much more special for you, or for me; it's what would make magic feel at least somewhat more special for everyone. And when trying to move the needle for everyone, subjectivity has to come right out of the equation.

 

[Lanefan]

Just to add. Do people seriously track things like torches and water and food in their DnD games?

At low levels, yes.

At higher levels when magic can take care of some of it (particularly lighting - Continual Light for the win), not so much until-unless it becomes relevant e.g. if everyone's continual-light rocks get dispelled or there's suddenly far more mouths to feed than the party's resources can handle.

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.

How is that possible? Or were you letting them pick and choose their starting items? (something that would never happen in any game I run, RAW be damned)

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.

I don't find it so, but I guess it also somewhat depends on what I'm swinging my sword at or how creative those traps are.

 

[Minigiant]

This depends in part on the "are the PCs special/unique". If they are, they may be the only magic users for miles, maybe even in the kingdom... but if they aren't, yeah.

All the old "Magic is rare. The PCs are special" settings had potions and wands of CLW all over the place and magic equipment at every turn.

And all the evil humaniods had shamans, witchdoctors and cleric.

As far as the medicine skill goes, one can make a healing potion with no magical talents whatsoever (herbalism), so there is that...

That's still sorta magical is it not?

Does D&D not have doctors and physicians? Or only alchemists and herbalists?

Dr Buzz Lightyear: Years of academy training wasted!

 

[Hussar]

* - this became a big deal once in an adventure I DMed - the PCs rescued something like 80 prisoners, about a two week journey from safety. All they had for food was a) what they had brought with them, less what they'd already consumed (I vaguely recall most of the PCs having about six man-days worth of food left at this point); and b) one Cleric who could cast Create Food and Water a couple of times a day giving a good meal for (I think) 9 people per casting; and c) whatever they could hunt or scavenge along the way including some almost-inedible food form the prison itself. That one became a real exercise in resource management, believe me; but they pulled it off somehow.

But, here's the point, and I think it's a strong one. It was important that one time. But, realistically, even with magic and whatnot, it would still be important because you had more NPC's than could be fed by the cleric. This would work perfectly well in 5e really. Drop 80 prisoners on the party, and no amount of Leomund's Huts or Create Food and Drink spells are going to resolve that problem. It's actually a perfectly good example of how to make resource management actually matter to the story. You want the party to keep the NPC's alive and they can't just scratch off a couple of spells and be done with it.

OTOH, the other 99.99% of the time, the whole resource management game goes straight out the window and hand waived because it's boring and doesn't actually do anything.

At low levels, yes.

At higher levels when magic can take care of some of it (particularly lighting - Continual Light for the win), not so much until-unless it becomes relevant e.g. if everyone's continual-light rocks get dispelled or there's suddenly far more mouths to feed than the party's resources can handle.

How is that possible? Or were you letting them pick and choose their starting items? (something that would never happen in any game I run, RAW be damned)

I don't find it so, but I guess it also somewhat depends on what I'm swinging my sword at or how creative those traps are.

Higher level PC's get to choose their equipment coming in - that's been pretty much standard since 1e. So, yeah, it was a 3e game where that was very much expected to choose your starting equipment. And since Rings of Sustenance are such a minor expense, it made perfect sense.

Then again, @Lanefan, how often do you play instead of DM? I thought you were like me, pretty much permanent DM. It does create a very different perspective from players who rarely DM

 

[MichaelSomething]

I read that as "[wanting] magic to feel magical again" for everyone, not just for the person who wrote that sentence.

The question is not what would make magic feel much more special for you, or for me; it's what would make magic feel at least somewhat more special for everyone. And when trying to move the needle for everyone, subjectivity has to come right out of the equation.

Clearly the solution is to lock the magic classes behind some type of meta progression.

In order to play a wizard you need to pay X amount of class tokens and to earn class tokens you have to level up mundane classes like Fighters!

 

[Hussar]

All in all though, the most frustrating thing is, D&D CAN do low magic games. 4e showed that it could do it quite easily and a ton of fun too. No magic, no special effects, heck, nothing you wouldn't see in a Jason Statham action flick. Just straight up. Didn't need any special rules or anything. It just worked. So, yeah, it's kinda disappointing that we took a direction with 5e that said that the group will need one serious SFX budget if you were to bring this to screen.

 

[Mort]

a1:
What? why not? Why can't it be entered?
A2: "can't be visually detected"

Spoiler: does it stop this version of spider sense?

Spider-Sense​

Spider-Man is able to sense danger lurking near, the warning signal coming as a pain in his head that varies with the intensity of the threat. Spiders can detect danger coming their way with an early-warning system called eyes. You probably expected that. But that’s not all: their most important source of information about the world and its hazards comes from highly sensitive hairs that cover the bodies of most spiders. These hairs perceive even low-level vibrations coming through whatever surface a spider is standing on. Many species also bear hairs that sense vibrations in the air, including sound.

National wildlife federation "Spider Sense"

I'm going to go with "probably never" or assume you were attempting to describe something different than described. That's macguffin & eldritch machine level blanket powers

He was asking:

When should the ranger, the class known for it's amazing exploration and survival skills, be able to replicate the effects of a 3rd level (near free resource usage) spell?

Tiny Hut.

If the answer really is never, that's just overpowered! Maybe the spell is a problem?

It certainly takes a big portion of the ranger's schtick and laughs at it