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

[Fanaelialae]

I don’t think I’m seriously proposing this…just brainstorming…but what if every time the character gains/learns a new effect, you assign it to a d20 result. When that’s your unmodified attack roll, you get to use the effect (if applicable). It takes all agency away, but I personally would still find it fun. At high levels you might have a whole table of effects.

13th Age did something vaguely like this, wherein some abilities could only be used on an even attack roll and some on an odds. My understanding is that a lot of people didn't love that.

When you want to trip an enemy, the master of fighting ought to be able to trip an enemy. He shouldn't have to hope for a 5% chance (after actually hitting).

Although, I actually did once have an idea for a caster designed along these lines. It was intended as a magic system in which magic is chaotic and hard to master. The wizard would start with one spell that "contained" the equivalent of several D&D spells. When you cast it, you would roll for the effect. If you didn't like the effect, you could choose not to have it release and instead continue casting into the next round, trying to force the magic into your intended form. As wizards leveled up, they would refine their spells, trimming spell effects from the list (thereby making the new spell more reliable). I'm not sure it would have worked, but I thought it had some merit. Mostly, IMO, because the randomness would have potentially made it feel more magical. Which isn't really something you want for a martial manuever.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I like exertions too but it does not address spamming and without spam limits one has a select always the "best" issue which makes your system potentially boring and require heavier balance.

Combat maneuvers are situational. PCs vary their attacks because different attacks work better for different situations. Do casters just span the "best" spell for every combat?

And if they insist on spamming, what of it? Clearly they're enjoying themselves, and we wouldn't want to mess with player agency would we?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

One level of exhaustion is enough to get many players IME to whinge nonstop until it goes away. My opinion stands.

Fatigue and strife in Level Up work better for me.

I have players from 1e (like before I was born) I have players that start with me in the 90's and players that started at the middle of 3rd-middle of 4th all in my current group of friends. I know people and have played with people who started as recently as 2018.

Everyone of them gasps and is appalled if the DM pulls out exhaustion.

 

[Eric V]

again and again as a MAJOR 4e stan I have to say... that is a good complaint, and something that should have been fixed moving on.

Was it a problem? I don't remember 4e barbarians being locked into their choices. Couldn't a player pick a power or two for the times when there is just one solo monster to fight?

 

[Garthanos]

There is party wide death spirals when a party member is taken out too...

 

[Garthanos]

I have players from 1e (like before I was born) I have players that start with me in the 90's and players that started at the middle of 3rd-middle of 4th all in my current group of friends. I know people and have played with people who started as recently as 2018.

Everyone of them gasps and is appalled if the DM pulls out exhaustion.

It is an icky effect

 

[Bill Zebub]

When you want to trip an enemy, the master of fighting ought to be able to trip an enemy. He shouldn't have to hope for a 5% chance (after actually hitting).

It would require a shift from narrate-then-roll to roll-then-narrate.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Was it a problem? I don't remember 4e barbarians being locked into their choices. Couldn't a player pick a power or two for the times when there is just one solo monster to fight?

I don't think you understand the problem (and where it wasn't a major one it was there and should be and can be fixed)

lets say I have 3 encounter power and 2 daily powers... my subclass focuses on whirlwind strikes hitting multi opponents. so 2 of those 3 levels that I got choices I got an added benefit for choosing an encounter power that hits 2 or more targets for less damage then other encounters that hit 1 single one does. 1 of those 2 levels of daily same thing.

I DID choose that 1 daily, but of the 2 encounter powers I only took 1 of them instead of both.

My at wills 1 is generic, and 1 is a multi attack.

now we go to fight a giant... a single enemy. Everyone of equal level has 2 at will 3 encounter and 2 daily to choose from... I have 1 daily and 1 encounter that wont help (and an at will too)... the daily isn't bad I just save that for the next or the one after that... sooner or latter I will get that encounter power though is a BIG hit.

baiscly I am at 2/3 power for this encounter (again not SO bad)

but what if all 3 of my encounter powers are multi target... now how screwed am I?

Even my warlock chasie doesn't 100% fix this. If I have 5 abilities in my 'known' list and can use any combo of them twice and all 5 or even 4 of the 5 are multi target it can still be an issue, but one less likely to feel like it happened TO you and more feel like YOU messed up.

 

[Fanaelialae]

It would require a shift from narrate-then-roll to roll-then-narrate.

I wasn't referring to the fiction of an encounter. I was referring to the game of an encounter.

I mean, look at the wizard. What if any time they cast a spell they just rolled randomly on their entire spell list and that was what they cast?

Hoping for Magic Missile at an enemy 30' away? Sorry, you cast Burning Hands instead.

It would be essentially unplayable. Even if you rolled and then narrated some reason for why you cast Burning Hands. Maybe you could justify narratively, but it would more or less remove the concept of tactical play from the wizard. Just as it would for the fighter.

 

[Garthanos]

Combat maneuvers are situational.

some are a lot less and some more so ... and situational maneuvers are generally picked less often as a known maneuver because of that rather severe limit on how many you can know. It would be nice if a maneuver or spell being more situational could be more open ended for learning purposes. Learn 6 truly situational maneuvers that only come up once per fight is analogous in some ways to 1 maneuver you can use every fight. A maneuver that applies nearly every round of every fight once engaged (and is only broken up when you arent hardly counts as situational).

PCs vary their attacks because different attacks work better for different situations. Do casters just span the "best" spell for every combat?

They literally cannot cast their best spell every combat just every day (probably except when spells are miss leveled) since they have spells level gated by level... after it quits being best (in theory) it becomes more spammable by a arguably less efficient over casting. (that is the spam reduction right there)

.. ie we cannot compare even the mostly at-will spamming to a daily.

Spamming because you really cannot do anything better... is anti-agency
like a fighter with all their effects not really scaling

I