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

[Garthanos]

I have been thinking that a free manoeuvre on a crit would be a nice little bonus. But I have no idea why it would be random; just let the player choose.

I think it would enhance the fiction and verisimilitude. The fighter indeed always is able to do this stuff, it just is hard and they need to be lucky. The "power pool" is just to represent the focus/grit etc that allows them to do it reliably at will.

I considered making it analogous to the -5/+10 feat a maneuver can always be done at a penalty if you arent spending that exertion/dice.

Having a critical act as a stand in works too.

One could combine this with the Martial Trick idea : Kind of like saying the first time you try a trick on a target or group of targets its has straight odds but subsequent attempts are at -5.

 

[Undrave]

I think, ultimately, the designers recognized the limits of feat-based, because they added the hybrid multiclassing option. Technically, we still have a very limited form of feat based multiclassing today, with various feats that grant some access to class abilities.

I don't think that most people would find exclusively feat-based multiclassing to be sufficient. You could make it work as an alternative that's available in addition to level-based multiclassing, but I don't think most people would be satisfied by a system that only allowed multiclassing via feats.

I really like the MC feats we have in 5e, they’re fun an impactful and I was glad to see more in Tasha’s. There’s still room for more I’m sure.

I’m personally more a fan of ‘conceptual multiclassing’ than ‘mechanical multiclassing’. That is, options that let you get to the feel of mixing two archetypes instead of just grafting exact mechanics the 3e style multiclassing works. That’s why I prefer the use of feats and subclasses to attain the various combo a player might want.

There’s only so many ‘themes’ in D&D anyway: Martial, Arcane, Divine, Nature, Shadow/Death, Fey, Criminal, Psionic, and Magitech. Everything we have is just various combinations of those, so I don’t really care about adding a specific class so much as adding the specific theme that class is associated with, ya know?

 

[Undrave]

I have been thinking that a free manoeuvre on a crit would be a nice little bonus. But I have no idea why it would be random; just let the player choose.

I think it would enhance the fiction and verisimilitude. The fighter indeed always is able to do this stuff, it just is hard and they need to be lucky. The "power pool" is just to represent the focus/grit etc that allows them to do it reliably at will.

It could have been an interesting design space to have the improved crit range be a base fighter thing, instead of 4 attacks, and have each subclass interact with crits differently. The Champion could just double down on the crit range and get noticeably good at it, but the Battlemaster would get a free Superiority Dice on crits, and the Eldritch Knight’s crit would turn their attacks magical (pick a damage type!) until the end of the next turn. That sort of things.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I considered making it analogous to the -5/+10 feat a maneuver can always be done at a penalty if you arent spending that exertion/dice.

The way I do it is if you have the feat/ability, you get to do damage while using the maneuver, thus removing the real big downside of performing maneuvers.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It’s kind of funny that yet another thread about magic has turned into discussion about how to redesign the Fighter.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It’s kind of funny that yet another thread about magic has turned into discussion about how to redesign the Fighter.

To be Fair this is not a thread about magic or mages alone but WHY people are asking for less magic... so in and of itself part of the topic

 

[Maxperson]

Unfortunately, yes, your "training levels" would almost certainly be enough to put most people off of multiclassing entirely. We can see this with Level Adjustment in 3.X. It was supposed to make playing powerful races balanced. Instead, it made playing powerful races anathema. There's a very good reason the 5e team didn't even bother trying to bring that idea forward.

It wasn't just anathema because it slowed you down, it was also broken as hell. The dancing lights 1x day, magic missile 2x day and a few other minor things that made you more powerful at 1st level were barely a blip by 7th level, yet you were still 2 or 3 levels behind the rest of the party. You went from a bit more powerful to much weaker and just fell further and further behind every level.

Getting rid of ECL was one of the first things I did. I had a standing rule that you could take any ECL 0 or +1 race without consulting me. ECL +2 or higher had to get my okay. If I was okay with it, you leveled just like normal. If I thought it would be unbalancing or a disruption to the game in another way, I said no.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I really like the MC feats we have in 5e, they’re fun an impactful and I was glad to see more in Tasha’s. There’s still room for more I’m sure.

I’m personally more a fan of ‘conceptual multiclassing’ than ‘mechanical multiclassing’. That is, options that let you get to the feel of mixing two archetypes instead of just grafting exact mechanics the 3e style multiclassing works. That’s why I prefer the use of feats and subclasses to attain the various combo a player might want.

There’s only so many ‘themes’ in D&D anyway: Martial, Arcane, Divine, Nature, Shadow/Death, Fey, Criminal, Psionic, and Magitech. Everything we have is just various combinations of those, so I don’t really care about adding a specific class so much as adding the specific theme that class is associated with, ya know?

I see where you're coming from, and I agree that something like a bespoke subclass will often encapsulate certain concepts more synergistically than level-based multiclassing.

However, both subclasses and feats do have some serious fundamental limitations.

The biggest limitations of a subclass are that you can only ever have one, and that you need to make that decision rather early. Whereas feats are fairly small parcels of potency relative to a level, exist in a fairly broad and competitive design space, and are generally not acquired every level.

If you're planning a certain concept at character creation, then I agree that subclass + feats might be sufficient (assuming a sufficiently robust selection of both).

It's organic development that is much more challenging to capture using those options. We've actually had it arise during play several times, where a supernatural entity offered to make a pact with a PC (which would allow them to become a warlock of that entity). Some players opt to take the deal, others don't. However, that would be almost impossible to do with a subclass (without simply changing their subclass), and somewhere between unsatisfying and impossible to do with feats. The most natural feeling approach for that type of character development, IMO, is level-based multiclassing.

 

[Undrave]

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.

Just to nitpick, but if you’re a Barbarian your Dailies are Rages, you weren’t going to be using multiple in the same fight unless you REALLY need the effect of the other one. However, you could spend one for Rage Strike, which would then allow you to transform your ‘useless’ Daily into a pure damage attack that doesn’t end your current Rage.

It’s kind of funny that yet another thread about magic has turned into discussion about how to redesign the Fighter.

True! Maybe we should swerve back to the main concern of WHY the desire for Magic changed.

I always felt like the relationship between Fighters and Wizards in the old days was rooted in the old ‘Jock VS Nerd’ dynamic so popular in 80’s pop culture… could it be that the way this adversarial relationship has become less and less prominent, the supremacy of the concept of ‘Wizards are for smart people, so they’re the best instead of the dumb brute’ has waned?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It wasn't just anathema because it slowed you down, it was also broken as hell. The dancing lights 1x day, magic missile 2x day and a few other minor things that made you more powerful at 1st level were barely a blip by 7th level, yet you were still 2 or 3 levels behind the rest of the party. You went from a bit more powerful to much weaker and just fell further and further behind every level.

were I think your house rule is fine you missed something... ecl 1 isn't always a level behind it is 1,000xp behind but at level 7 it is just a blip (level 6 xp is 15,000 level 7 is 21,000 level 8 is 28,000) ecl 2 is 3,000 behind... if the party has 18,001xp or more they are all 6th level even the ecl 1 and 2.)

now there was some kind of rule about buying off ecl but I didn't get it and don't remember how it worked