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

[Lanefan]

So an antimagic field simply dissolves all matter in D&D world.

No, but it kills an awful lot of creatures if they stay in it long enough.

I ended my first big campaign* this way. A background plot element through its whole ten+ year run was that magic was unstable/chaotic and slowly - later quickly - becoming more so. The solution in the end was to - through the PCs - make the world entirely non-magical, turning it into an Earth-like exoplanet and in the process killing off a stupendous number of fantastic and magic-based creatures who couldn't find a way off in time.

* - it had run its course in any case; none of us were too sorry to see it go.

I mean, this is a world where fantastic metals like mithral and adamantine would exist as trace minerals, whatever is in various plants and animals that cause them to be alchemical ingredients would be part of it too. And let's not forget otherwise normal animals like griffins.

A griffin is not a normal animal. It's a fantastic beast.

Assuming magic is necessary for the fantastic is severely limiting to the fantastic.

Au contraire - I think it's what opens the door for the fantastic to not only exist, but thrive.

 

[Vaalingrade]

A griffin is not a normal animal. It's a fantastic beast.

A fantastic beast with zero magic involved.

Or a protoceratops.

Au contraire - I think it's what opens the door for the fantastic to not only exist, but thrive.

You limit it to being the product of a very specific origin, never able to be more than just the runoff of magic.

 

[FrozenNorth]

But there's nothing wrong with the Fighter having +8 to Athletics before Strength or the Rogue having +8 to Stealth before Dexterity.

It depends on what you are going for. In my games, bounded accuracy is extremely important, as any character can be asked to make a skill roll, even if they are untrained.

Being really good at something mess as ns that you are unlikely to fail, but the spreads in my games reflect that someone who is untrained is likely (but not guaranteed) to fail, while someone that is a master is likely (but not guaranteed) to succeed.

I am also sensitive to the fact that there are various ways to improve your rolls beyond master, with advantage, bardic inspiration, bless and the talisman warlock special ability.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Note that ‘Push your Luck’ games are popular so I can see people enjoying that sort of gameplay, especially if there was way to mitigate the risk through various tactics (like hiding behind cover to begin casting so enemies can try to disrupt you).

The main issue is that things like Wild Magic is a choice (often to troll the rest of the party), where this proposal seals off all spellcasting behind having to deal with press-your-luck mechanics.

 

[Lanefan]

A 20th level Assassin cannot instantly kill an opponent (assuming it has enough HP to survive the hit of course).

That's a real hole in the Assassin class design! I'd houserule the 1e assassination tables back in without a second thought.

Meanwhile, the casters have 15 different ways to instantly kill that same opponent. Good grief, a non-magical character can't even choke something.

Let that sink in for a moment. It is literally impossible for my non-magical character to choke something.

I'm not familiar with 5e grappling rules but wouldn't choking be covered there? If it isn't, it should be.

Your 20th level fighter cannot do this. Full stop. As in literally cannot hit something on the head and stun it for a minute. It is impossible to KO an opponent without getting through all its HP.

Which is fine most of the time in a straight-up fight, but a trained rogue or fighter should be able to cosh an unaware foe* and have a chance of KOing it. A body-fatigue hit point system would really help here: a cosh attack could go straight to bodies (as temporary damage), and if it does enough to get you to 0 b.p. you're KOed regardless how many f.p. you have left.

* - assuming said foe is something with a reasonably familiar anatomy.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's as much a strawman argument as yours was, which was kinda the point...

Just because some implementations of 3e multiclassing might not have worked perfectly, doesn't mean that it can't be done well.

Multiclassing and spellcasting are not the same level of mechanic. Your man has more straw in him.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, I remember PS and PO.

PS was an absurdly good utility spell. You could literally change forms every round, and you weren't limited to animals. You only got locomotive abilities, but this was broadly defined (EGG uses the example of turning into a black pudding to squeeze under a door). In this respect, the 5e version is significantly nerfed.

So is my own version - I long ago ruled you could only change into a normal Earth-like animal or playable-PC species. I also made it that you were restricted to one form chosen during casting - you could change into a bloodhound and back as many times as you like during the duration of one casting, but to be able to change into an eagle would require you to cast the spell again (which would over-write the bloodhound casting).

And even with that, it still gets cast on a regular basis as a utility spell as I've also ruled you get the sensory abilities of the new form, thus if you turn yourself into a bloodhound you gain its sense of smell, etc.

IMO, the way EGG tried to balance PO, in particular, was pretty bad. Sure, it was something that you didn't generally want to cast on an ally due to the System Shock check to avoid instant death. It could permanently turn them into basically anything, however, so note how EGG had to include a sentence into the spell description saying that creatures prefer their own forms and don't want to be polymorphed. My guess is because some evil wizard player tried to polymorph their henchmen into an army of dragons. I guess that "restriction" doesn't apply to a wizard who casts PS on himself? A spell description that tries to tell me what a character wants or doesn't want is... questionable at best.

I don't mind this in the least, in that he wanted (and I want) PO to specifically be an offensive spell used on enemies, rather than something used to buff up allies. I suspect that's why he made them two different spells in the first place.

There's some other spells that could use the "no creature will willingly submit to this spell" clause, I think; RAW 1e Haste being an obvious example.

Moreover, while the system shock vs death and the check to maintain your mind made it definitely risky to use against allies, it made it significantly stronger than it otherwise would have been against enemies. Not only did the BBEG have to make a save or suck, it came with the risk of death and losing their ability to think like an intelligent creature!

Yes, and IMO that was the original point of the spell: sheer offense against foes.

I think that 5e Polymorph is one of the less-well balanced spells in the edition, but IMO it's still leagues ahead of 1e PS and PO in terms of quality of design.

If it doesn't have the risk of death when cast on someone else, and-or if it lets the caster turn herself into anything she wants, it's broken, end of story.

 

[CreamCloud0]

hmmm give Fighters expertise in Athletics/Acrobatics and Wizards Arcana and so on and everyone gets "Mastery" in a skill they have expertise in at level 11.

I like the idea of expertise/mastery getting spread around a fair bit more, especially amongst the martial classes, however it’s not something I would want assigned to specific skills, just because you’re a wizard doesn’t mean you’re trained in arcana, or a fighter in athletics,

If i was assigning expertise/mastery id give full casters 1 expertise at 1st level and martials and half casters 2, then at 11th martials upgrade both of those to mastery and half casters upgrade 1 of them

 

[Lanefan]

I actually like frontloading class abilities, and the lack of frontloading is, in a way, my main gripe with modern iterations of D&D.

How, then, do you prevent dipping? If class abilities are mostly or entirely front-loaded then in 5e a 2-2-2-2-2 five-class character will be gobs more powerful than a single-class 10th, which is IMO the exact opposite of what should happen.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Multiclassing and spellcasting are not the same level of mechanic. Your man has more straw in him.

Ummm... you realize that you literally just admitted yours was a strawman? It's not the amount of straw that matters. If it's made of straw, it's a strawman.

Also, in case it wasn't obvious, I wasn't seriously suggesting that spellcasting be fixed by removing casters. I was simply demonstrating the flaw in your line of reasoning by offering a similarly absurd "suggestion".