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

[EzekielRaiden]

I was thinking more like NPC classes

Aristocrat-> Bard, Fighter, Rogue
Commoner-> Barbarian, Rogue, Warlock,
Expert-> Bard, Ranger, Rogue
Mage-> Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Magewright-> Artificer, Warlock, Wizard
Priest-> Cleric, Druid, Paladin
Smith-> Artificer, Fighter
Warrior-> Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger

Of course testing would be needed. But it would help solidify a link between training types and open up lower magic worlds.

I mean, in a certain sense that is the system described.

In FFXIV, for example, you have the Marauder class, which has basic axe-wielding defensive stuff. At level 30 you get the Warrior job stone, however, and start to learn how to manage your rage ("Inner Beast") and pick up more actively supernatural abilities. Archer becomes Bard, Lancer becomes Dragoon, etc. This has roots all the way back in FF1, where you'd start out with a basic class (e.g. Thief or White Mage) and graduate to a powerful version later on (Ninja and White Wizard, respectively.)

 

[Garthanos]

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.

In 4e the malediction invoker had powers which had a backlash whenever used ... very cool I thought they made the best Witch actually.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I found 4e feat and paragon multiclassing to be a mixed bag.

I played a 4e ranger feat multiclassed into wizard and it was fun but I recognized the sub par power cost in a very finely tuned balanced system. A straight ranger could have been more mechanically powerful than a staff fighting ranger wizard with scorching bursts and lightning bolt.

The level 1 feat is very strong, giving a bonus themed weak encounter power (a wizard at will as an encounter power for the wizard one). Plus qualifying as the multi-class for feats and such.

The next three are just straight equal level power swaps of your original class for one from the multiclass. This is the one where the powers are all balanced well so they are basically equivalent power wise, but you are down three feats compared to non-multiclassed characters. This is trading power for flavor and variety, a power downgrade.

The paragon path multiclass is OK, but you are down the four dedicated prerequisite multiclass feats to get there while everyone else is equally powerful in their class stuff but has four bonus feats to power up with.

in 4e I had 3 multi classed character... a Warlord who picked up a few bard tricks. a fighter that went hard fully swaping for all the base feats with rogue, and a Swordmage/wizard that not only took all the feats but paragon multi classed
Only the 3rd one was amazing and it cost alot.

 

[Bill Zebub]

In 4e the malediction invoker had powers which had a backlash whenever used ... very cool I thought they made the best Witch actually.

Didn’t play it but I like the sound of that.

 

[Lanefan]

Which you pretty much never fight so it never matters.

Speak for yourself.

In the last six adventures I've run/am running, the primary foes were/are:

1. Humanoids (mostly Gnolls)
2. Undead
3. a mix of Humans, undead, and demons
4. Humans
5. Yuan-Ti (who can fight and cast just as well as Humans and who use the same class-level structure), plus a few demi-human types
6. thus far, a mix of Humans and some brand-new humanoid creatures (also with classes and levels) invented for this adventure.

 

[Hussar]

I was thinking that the players might want to know why they had limits?

Do they want to know now?

Does your Battlemaster player want to know why he has limited maneuver dice? Does any fighter player want to know why he has limited action surges? Does any barbarian player want to know why his rage grants him damage reduction?

Or, do the players not care at all, or, if they do, then they come up with their own explanations?

Speak for yourself.

In the last six adventures I've run/am running, the primary foes were/are:

1. Humanoids (mostly Gnolls)
2. Undead
3. a mix of Humans, undead, and demons
4. Humans
5. Yuan-Ti (who can fight and cast just as well as Humans and who use the same class-level structure), plus a few demi-human types
6. thus far, a mix of Humans and some brand-new humanoid creatures (also with classes and levels) invented for this adventure.

So, you are using Yuan-Ti differently than what the rules say, and you have a bunch of homebrew stuff. Not really countering my point here. Sure, fifty years after you started playing? Maybe then you start using class leveled NPC's. But in the 80's? Practically nothing had class levels. I'll see your home campaign and raise you about two or three dozen 1e modules where there were virtually no NPC's with class levels, and, the only things that did have class levels were the odd human or demi-human, most of which were friendly.

 

[Hussar]

As far as the "why can't I do this all day" argument goes, it was lost the second 5e was released. Fighters have abilities that they can't do "all day long". Non magical abilities with meta-game restrictions like Second Wind or Action Surge, never minding Battlemasters.

AFAIK, the only class that has no /time period limitations is the rogue. Every other class in the game has /time period (short rest, whatever) limitations. So, if we already accept that a fighter can only parry an attack 4 times before he has to go have a lie down, and, for some reason, parrying an attack 4 times means that he can't tell an ally to make an attack (and by 4, pick a number=to the Superiority dice of the fighter), then any argument that states that we must have explanations for why a fighter can't, for example, incapacitate a single opponent for 1 minute (with a save/round) just like Tasha's Hideous Laughter, falls flat on its face.

I did always hope for a subsystem for battlemasters that would allow them to spend more than 1 superiority die on an attack to gain a "bigger" effect. Seems a pretty simple way to give fighters some much needed versatility. Add in a few maneuvers that can be used out of combat and you're pretty good to go.

 

[Undrave]

By this I assume you were not around during the dung-storm that swirled around feat based multiclassing during the days of 4e.

I actually didn't mind the 4e feat based multiclassing. I didn't think it was great, but it was... okay.

A very vocal number of folks on these boards, however, had a lot lower opinion thereof than I did. That was a regularly seen artillery shell on the battlegrounds of ye fourthe edition wars of olde.

I think the FIRST feat in the multiclass chain was very good and usually well regarded. It gave you a skill proficiency and a limited use of a signature class feature. It's the power swapping feats that sucked.

 

[billd91]

As far as the "why can't I do this all day" argument goes, it was lost the second 5e was released. Fighters have abilities that they can't do "all day long". Non magical abilities with meta-game restrictions like Second Wind or Action Surge, never minding Battlemasters.

Except there is a rationale built in - a rest, even a short one, gives the fighter enough of a rest to recover them.
The idea that there are resources that refresh with sufficient rest isn’t really the problem. The problem comes from how those are structured. If the battlemaster had 4 maneuvers, each of which he could use once, but only once each, per rest, then you’re looking at the kind of structure people really complain about. But if he’s got a pool of, say, energy that he can tap into 4 times but in any combination he wants, that’s an abstraction people are less likely to mind because we can rationalize being able to push one’s self a limited amount of time before we‘re simply out of gas and have no more to push.
But hey, historically, I know you’re not going to acknowledge the difference between these two arguments...

 

[Garthanos]

Except there is a rationale built in - a rest, even a short one, gives the fighter enough of a rest to recover them.
The idea that there are resources that refresh with sufficient rest isn’t really the problem. The problem comes from how those are structured. If the battlemaster had 4 maneuvers, each of which he could use once, but only once each, per rest, then you’re looking at the kind of structure people really complain about. But if he’s got a pool of, say, energy that he can tap into 4 times but in any combination he wants, that’s an abstraction people are less likely to mind because we can rationalize being able to push one’s self a limited amount of time before we‘re simply out of gas and have no more to push.
But hey, historically, I know you’re not going to acknowledge the difference between th

How about tricks that only work once per fight (or even once per enemy) because you know after they see the trick its a lot harder to pull it off/fool them ... instead of repeat repeat repeat... like the 5e disarm is. (or riposte or whatever). Boring boring boring riposte after riposte after riposte.

Or another : The more complex the trick the more it is likely dependent on things that are unobvious like a special type of opening an enemy happens to leave. Letting the player choose when those narrative bits happen is more fun than making them a random die roll to me. if I wanted things to just be a random die roll that is what the champion is for.

How about a mixture of those.

instead of oh a disarm makes me tired... just seems more plausible to me, sigh