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

[Fanaelialae]

So as far as letting skills do exceptional things, I remember when 3e's Epic Level Handbook came out, offering new ways to use skills if you could hit insanely high DC's.

Now, my memory might be fuzzy, but I recall a lot of negative comments about the idea that a super high level Rogue could make a Balance check to stand on clouds and other such amazing feats.

There is a frequent insistence by a vocal percentage of the fanbase that wants magic to be !!magic!! and non-magic to be bound to what people on Earth can do in their fantasy roleplaying game.

Where I would prefer an approach like Earthdawn, where everyone is a little magical, or even 3e's "Extraordinary" abilities existing, things which bend, or sometimes break physical laws like you're in the Matrix, this viewpoint is persistent, even entrenched in the game.

If you can't use magic, the kinds of things you do have to be "realistic". If you can, you can do anything and everything under the sun. And people are perfectly ok with this.

Pulp heroes like Conan, John Carter, Lord Greystoke, and mythogical entities like Cú Chulainn have little place in this mindset. I don't know why it persists, but just look at any "Martial vs. Caster" debate to see frequent examples of "don't buff Fighters, Fighters are fine" and "I see no problem with Wizards at all".

And one quick look at 5e's design philosophy pretty much shows how ingrained this is. New content that isn't magical is often very conservative, but magical content (and spells, by Gygax) get's stronger and more prevalent over time.

Even in the PHB, every class has a magical option. And by this point, several magical classes get access to melee attacks and extra attacks, on top of magical abilities.

I don't get it, but if this is what pays the bills over at WotC, I don't think we'll ever see a low magic version of D&D. We'll just see powerful magic users and their sidekicks.

Yeah, the irony is that the same folks who don't want martials to be able to do epic feats are the ones who've effectively pushed the design into magical proliferation.

If the designers create a barbarian who roars with such ferocity that his opponents become frightened, the non-magical martial contingent will complain that it isn't realistic. So the designers make it an explicitly magical ability where the barbarian channels the spirit of the dragon when he roars instead. Though then the complaint is that everyone has magic.

 

[Undrave]

on distinction to make on this thread: are we talking about low magic setting or again on nerf casters matter?

I think it's more about discussing shifting tastes.

 

[Alzrius]

So as far as letting skills do exceptional things, I remember when 3e's Epic Level Handbook came out, offering new ways to use skills if you could hit insanely high DC's.

Now, my memory might be fuzzy, but I recall a lot of negative comments about the idea that a super high level Rogue could make a Balance check to stand on clouds and other such amazing feats.

There is a frequent insistence by a vocal percentage of the fanbase that wants magic to be !!magic!! and non-magic to be bound to what people on Earth can do in their fantasy roleplaying game.

The funny thing is that, on the other side of this, there were people frowning at the idea that a rogue had to be in the epic levels (and succeed on a check) to do what a level 5 wizard could do with a fly spell.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think a lot of that is “what does a low magic game mean?”.

For instance, for my next campaign, I’m modifying the core classes:

• Paladins become non-casters, with smite being a non-magical ability;
• Rangers become non-casters, with their spells replaced by non-magical abilities that can be performed a number of times equal to their proficiencies;
• Bards become half-casters;
• Channel Divinity and Wildshape use spell slots
• Wizards have fewer spell slots, but recover low level slots each short rest

The effect of these changes is to make the game more low magic. In standard D&D, a non-magic party is extremely unlikely, whereas in my homebrew, you could easily have a party with no full casters and a single half-caster.

As long as the players have interesting things to do, I don’t think they’ll miss the magic.

I'm interested in hearing how that goes. What you're describing is a massive nerf to many classes. In what way are they being compensated, or do you think that those classes are just that OP?

 

[Bill Zebub]

Literal actual psychology research disagrees with you. Like, for example, this research here about less-conscious responses having a superior rate of detecting deception.

Actually... (because all salvos in pedantry pissing matches must begin with 'actually')

1. "Literal actual psychology research" is not very compelling. It's not like it's actual, peer-reviewed physics research. Psychology (and social sciences in general) have a p-value of threshold of 5%. And, on top of that, a staggering amount of published psychology experiments cannot be replicated. And for each paper you find claiming that humans are good at detecting lies, another can be found claiming the opposite.

2. That link was to an abstract, not to the paper, so I don't know how large of effect they are claiming to have found. Is relying on instinct rather than looking for tells a detectable difference, or a significant/useful difference? Sure, I agree that humans evolved to have a subconscious ability to detect lies, and an innate ability to tell lies. The two largely cancel out.

3. Moreover, I would expect they designed their experiment to minimize the emotional investment of the participants, e.g. asking them to detect lies about something they don't care about. But it's precisely when we do care about the outcome that detecting lies matters, and that investment will sway how we interpret the evidence. C.f. 'confirmation bias'.

4. Finally, the conclusion of that study...that instinct is more effective than training...is the exact opposite of what people in this thread (and others) claim: that you can learn how to detect lies. That it's a skill that improves over time.

I've been following (non-professionally) this question for years, mostly in the context of law enforcement, and how the confidence police have in their own ability to detect lies leads to forced confessions. Which is why the profession is (too slowly) moving away from bogus training to detect lies through "tells" and toward the more reliable techniques I described above.

But...to try to be self-aware...it could be that my emotional investment in the issue may distort my own perceptions on this question.

 

[payn]

The funny thing is that, on the other side of this, there were people frowning at the idea that a rogue had to be in the epic levels (and succeed on a check) to do what a level 5 wizard could do with a fly spell.

Well skills and magic systems don't match all that well. Skills are mundane by their definitions, and can be attempted nearly as often as you would like. Spells are fantastic, but limited by slot and time per day. Allowing skills to do fantastical things is a departure from tradition, and would need to be explained to folks why the rogue can now fly by using their skill. Additionally, all characters get skills so making them fantastic is another buff for casters. So, I would say that cloud walking rogues at any level shouldn't be leveraged via the skill system, but by some other resource built into class like the caster.

 

[tetrasodium]

The funny thing is that, on the other side of this, there were people frowning at the idea that a rogue had to be in the epic levels (and succeed on a check) to do what a level 5 wizard could do with a fly spell.

Without checking the wbl table & prices.... level 5 rogue could have a bag full of potions of fly andand stand toe to toe with the cr 1/4 guard not happy with them landing on the balcony . It's not like fly was a high benchmark in 3.x

 

[FrozenNorth]

I'm interested in hearing how that goes. What you're describing is a massive nerf to many classes. In what way are they being compensated, or do you think that those classes are just that OP?

I disagree that it is a massive nerf in many cases. My experience is that the “nerfed” classes have so many abilities that half are just ignored anyway.

 

[Voadam]

Paladins become non-casters, with smite being a non-magical ability;

I am curious how you propose to flavor smites as non-magical. Getting pumped up with fervor and just hitting hard?

 

[Voadam]

I disagree that it is a massive nerf in many cases. My experience is that the “nerfed” classes have so many abilities that half are just ignored anyway.

Bards going from full casters to half casters seems a pretty big nerf.