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

[Lanefan]

There are not a lot of other ways (that I'm familiar with) that produce satisfying results.

There's 2e style multiclassing which is only available at character creation.

Unless there's mechanics in place that allow a character to pick up (an) additional class(es) during its played career.

f you remove that restriction it either becomes absurdly good or unusable, depending on the experience system it's coupled to. (To say nothing of the fact that this type of progression basically requires XP, and won't really work with something like milestones.)

Good. Anything that works against milestones or fiat-levelling is just fine by me.

Otherwise, IME it's neither absurdly good nor unusable provided a few classes - Monk, Paladin, Bard - are not allowed to multi. And I say this as someone who generally dislikes multi-classing.

2e style dual classing is a wonky and ludicrous approach even before examining it from a balance perspective.

That was 1e, but yes, it's a terrible system

There's feat style multiclassing like we saw in 4e, which worked okay in 4e (but not phenomenally) but wouldn't work in a system where you aren't regularly getting feats because having to wait four levels to multiclass is fundamentally unsatisfying. Many campaigns will end in that time.

And if the game doesn't use or have feats this one's a non-starter.

Is there some perfect multiclassing solution you're aware of that I'm overlooking here?

While I agree that 3e style multiclassing isn't perfect, I don't agree that it can't be improved to work well. We've even had some suggestions to that end in this very thread.

The problems with 3e multiclassing, repeated in 5e, are:
--- the additive aspect; where a 4th-4th character is treated as an 8th rather than a 4th in each of two independent classes
--- the all-or-nothing approcah to levelling where this level you advance one class and next level you advance the other, in that it doesn't reflect how the character is being played in the fiction. If I'm a fighter-thief, in theory I'm using the skills of both classes while in the field and my xp should reflect that; the classes should advance independently (i.e. each have their own xp track) and level up whenever they happen to level up. Further, they shouldn't have to level up together - if I play my F-T mostly as a thief then I should be able to, with DM approval, assign more xp to thief - say, on a 75-25 ratio - and have it advance faster than fighter. (I also like and use variable-by-class progression tables, but that's another story)

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm not going to engage the 'adventuring need to be dangerous' argument. It is never worth it.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Too bad you’re messing around with the basic fabric of reality, that rubber’s band gonna spring back and slap you in the face sometimes If you don’t want to, just stick to the more safe options and don’t over exert yourself.

I'm replacing the limits with danger. The more you try to reshape reality, the more dangerous it is to you. I could even see one of the consequences to be to disable your spell casting until the next long rest.

I don't mind Cantrips, because they are, in effect, refluffed weapon attacks. They help sell that 'this guy is a spell caster' and they're some of the least impactful spells people learn.


That could work.

Damage dealing spell: You take the damage.
Illusion and Divination: You get blinded/confused.
Transmutation: You fall down paralyzed for a time.
Echantment: Any enchantment already in place fizzles out, your proficiency bonus becomes 0 for a turn.
Summons: They turn against you and your ally and you can't dismiss them anymore.
Mind reading and other Psionic stuff: You take psychic damage

Stuff like that.

I like this idea, but I think the real challenge is utility magic.

Getting blinded or confused with a divination cast in your inn room is pretty meaningless. You can just try again until you succeed. Alternately, if you make the duration of the status meaningful in downtime (say a day or a week) it becomes basically impossible to use in a dungeon environment.

I'm not suggesting it's impossible to balance, just tricky.

I recently read a game that takes an interesting approach to this called Beacon. Basically MUs have combat spells that have fixed effect, and out of combat they have a move (similar to what you might find in a game like Dungeon World) called Cast Spell (or something to that effect) which is broadly applicable. However, the caster needs to outline both the intended effect as well as some things that could go wrong with the spell. Depending on how well you roll, you might get the effect without the detriment, you might get both, or you might just get the detriment. It's arguably too narrative for a game like D&D, but I do think it's a clever approach.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Damage dealing spell: You take the damage.
Illusion and Divination: You get blinded/confused.
Transmutation: You fall down paralyzed for a time.
Echantment: Any enchantment already in place fizzles out, your proficiency bonus becomes 0 for a turn.
Summons: They turn against you and your ally and you can't dismiss them anymore.
Mind reading and other Psionic stuff: You take psychic damage

More or less. Personally I'm rather fond of the Wild Magic table's quantity and mix of good, bad, ridiculous, and "really depends on the situation" kinds of impacts.

It's kinda hard to say though since spells are kinda all over the place. Bleeding from the eyes and nose and taking mental damage on a scrying spell makes as much sense as being blinded does, or the spell works but you can't look away, or the creature you scry on sees you back or you can glimpse into the past or near future, etc.

I'd be a bit more inclined to make a table per spell level or range of levels, and put increasingly outlandish potential consequences the higher the spell level. This could be a mix of taking damage, triggering bonus/penalty effects, and a bunch other neutral/weird effects that could be helpful or not.

 

[Voadam]

A griffin has never existed on Earth, therefore it is a fantastic beast; and therefore it cannotn exist in a non-magical setting.

A griffin has never existed on Earth, therefore it is a fantastic beast; and therefore it cannotn exist in a non-magical setting.
Protoceratops, however, did exist on Earth; as did Dodo Birds, Quaggas, and a bunch of other things. They are normal creatures, if extinct.

I'm with Crimson Longinus here.

At the time of Protoceratops humans had never existed on Earth. That does not mean humans cannot exist on a non-magical setting. Different evolutionary turnouts or future evolutionary possibilities could exist.

The question would be whether a griffin could exist without sustaining magic.

In your setup if magic created the first griffins but was not necessary for sustaining them (magical CRISPR) then they could exist in the anti-magic zone. If you as DM feel that hybrid giant eagle lions break too many square cube law type things and they need magic to sustain them as giant ants and giants in your view then bad news for griffins in your AMZs. If you as DM rule that all only existing present or past real things count as natural for ease of categorization that is fine but it is not a necessary conclusion of your setup.

 

[Undrave]

I like this idea, but I think the real challenge is utility magic.

Getting blinded or confused with a divination cast in your inn room is pretty meaningless. You can just try again until you succeed. Alternately, if you make the duration of the status meaningful in downtime (say a day or a week) it becomes basically impossible to use in a dungeon environment.

Yeah that’s a prickly issue.

It’s why I’d only apply it to stuff that you’d want to use in combat. I’d rather move a lot of utility stuff to a more robust ritual system where it can have its own type of costs (I'd probably bring back Healing Surge to have ritual misfires drain those or just drain money, depending). It would also be a mostly class agnostic system in which anyone could gain proficiency in, so your party’s ‘main caster’ could easily turn out to be the high INT Fighter, for example, who only uses Rituals.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Yeah that’s a prickly issue.

It’s why I’d only apply it to stuff that you’d want to use in combat. I’d rather move a lot of utility stuff to a more robust ritual system where it can have its own type of costs (I'd probably bring back Healing Surge to have ritual misfires drain those or just drain money, depending). It would also be a mostly class agnostic

I think this is where you might want a range of effects, some of which would be combat relevant but less impactful in downtime (e.g. 5e blindness) to the reverse (e.g. you exude a foul odor you cant wash off, you have disadvantage on perception and persuasion checks for a week).

Then you have class/subclass abilities to mitigate the risks (e.g. when a wizard preps spells, they reduce the chance of misfire, on a misfired spell, the sorcerer rolls twice and chooses the effect)

 

[James Gasik]

Randomly gaining spells as one adventures is going to have to be campaign-dependent, as published settings often have schools and academies of magic. Plus, one would suppose that in order to survive long enough to be able to teach students, one's mentor would likely have to be somewhat successful and have useful spells.

Then there's the issue that spellbooks and scrolls as treasure will have become...I don't know if necessary is the word, but more pressing, if that's the only way to gain new spells.

As an aside, the ability of divine casters to just directly pray for whatever spell they want in addition to not requiring a spellbook will have to be addressed.

Personally, rather than all of this, I'd like see more specialization among casters- let them grab whatever spells they want, but they have to primarily stick to a few schools of magic, rather than the whole depth and breadth of what's available.

Bring back Spheres for divine casters as well.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Bring back Spheres for divine casters as well.

yes give a 1st level cleric a 'divine' list and then choose 2 lists from a group of 6 or 7 lists... at some point (maybe 8thish level cleric) choose a 3rd list.

 

[Undrave]

Personally, rather than all of this, I'd like see more specialization among casters- let them grab whatever spells they want, but they have to primarily stick to a few schools of magic, rather than the whole depth and breadth of what's available.

I agreed that I'd rather see restrictions on what you can choose from but still allow the choice to be done by the player.

I think this is where you might want a range of effects, some of which would be combat relevant but less impactful in downtime (e.g. 5e blindness) to the reverse (e.g. you exude a foul odor you cant wash off, you have disadvantage on perception and persuasion checks for a week).

Then you have class/subclass abilities to mitigate the risks (e.g. when a wizard preps spells, they reduce the chance of misfire, on a misfired spell, the sorcerer rolls twice and chooses the effect)

It's certainly an idea that would require a LOT of playtesting to fine tune.