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

[Vaalingrade]

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

People have stated that pretty much any ability that requires more mechanics than a basic attack is magic to them, so the fighter gets to be in the magic discussion now because My Little Pony: Chokeholds Are Magic, I guess

 

[GMforPowergamers]

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.

replace barbarian with any other class then...

 

[Garthanos]

1. Situational Enhancements.
   • Exertion (1 to 3 points or 1 superiority die)
   • User With Advantage
   • Use a bonus action
   • Enemy Bloodied
   • Triggers enemy retaliation (aka opportunity attack)
   • Uses more than one attack or Uses more than 3 attacks... etc.
   • User Bloodied (when the going gets tough)
   • Reveals Deception (first time use trick benefit)
   • Enemy has just hit User with a melee attack.(3pt)
   • Enemy has just missed User with a melee attack. (2 pt)
   • Enemy has just attacked User (1pt)
   • Enemy has just hit User with a melee attack.
   • One or both of Enemy or User are hit by missile fire or AoE damage
   • Enemy and User have been fighting for more than four continuous rounds (i.e. gaining familiarity with the foe's moves etc.) - this works well esp if you normally have 6 round fights
   • A third party joins the Enemy-User fight (i.e. a distraction) This could be used Enhancing Rally maneuvers in particular.
2. Difficulties
   • Standard Maneuver (penalty of -5 if nothing applies)
   • Harder Maneuver (penalty of -5 if less than 2 applies and -10 if none does)

 

[Undrave]

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.

That is very true and certainly a good narrative reason to keep level-based multi classing. I guess the ideal solution is to have multiple ways of achieving multi classing.

Level based MCing might work better, without disrupting front-loaded designs, if the first level of an MC character and a full class character were different? That every class had a bespoke ‘first level’ for MCing purposes?

 

[Voadam]

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.)

That is not quite how ECL worked in 3.5.

"Experience for Monsters​

A monster with Hit Dice of 1 or less, no level adjustment, and class levels uses the same tables as standard PC races when determining experience needed.


A monster with Hit Dice of 1 or less, a level adjustment, and class levels adds its class levels, and level adjustment together when determining experience needed (class level + level adjustment).


A monster with more than one Hit Die, a level adjustment, and class levels adds its Hit Dice, class levels, and level adjustment together when determining experience needed (HD + level adjustment + class level)."

The Normal ECL experience is that a level 1 ECL +1 character adventures with level 2 characters and they all earn xp and advance together with the ECL +1 character always a level behind the others in the party.

If you started everybody off at level 1 and 0 xp the math is a little different with the +1 ECL PC earning as a character one higher than everybody else and needing that level higher target xp to advance.

 

[Fanaelialae]

That is very true and certainly a good narrative reason to keep level-based multi classing. I guess the ideal solution is to have multiple ways of achieving multi classing.

Level based MCing might work better, without disrupting front-loaded designs, if the first level of an MC character and a full class character were different? That every class had a bespoke ‘first level’ for MCing purposes?

Yeah, I'd even be fine with MC leveling having it's own full progression table, if need be. It wouldn't even take much space. You could probably fit the tables for 4-6 classes on a single page. Then just refer to the features in the class writeup from there.

 

[Maxperson]

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.)

You use the total level + ECL to figure out where on the level chart you are.

DMG page 172

"Use ECL instead of character level when referring to Table 3-2 Experience and Level-Dependent Benefits in the Player's Handbook to determine how many experience points a monster character needs to reach its next level."

Let's look at an ECL +2 PC vs. a normal one.

Normal: Needs 1000xp to reach level 2.
ECL+2 PC: Needs 3000xp to reach level 2 since he's starting at "level 3."

ECL is 2000 behind.

Normal: Needs 2000 to reach level 3.
ECL: Needs 4000 to reach level 3.

Normal has now earned 3k and ECL has earned 7k to reach the same level. ECL is now 4k behind.

Normal: Needs 3k to reach level 4.
ECL: Needs 5k to reach level 4.

Normal has now earned 6k and ECL has earned 12k. ECL is now 6k behind. And it keeps getting worse.

That was for both to reach level 4 in a white room. In game play since the ECL PC has been higher level the entire time due to ECL, he is earning LESS XP per fight than the non-ECL PC. So by the time the normal PC has earned the 6k and is level 4, the ECL PC as probably only earned 4k and is level 3. This rebalances at higher levels since the ECL PC will eventually be lower level than the normal PC, even after EC is counted.

As the levels go on, the ECL PC falls behind by 2k per level. At level 12 the ECL PC is now more than 24k behind the normal PC. That puts him at level 9, 11 with his +2. He's now a full level lower than the normal PC and his +2 ECL abilities haven't helped much for several levels, so he's really just level 9 while the rest of the group is level 12.

Edit: That's not quite right. Once the party is two real levels higher than the ECL PC, they will earn the same XP forever and he will be 2 levels behind from there onward. The ECL PC can't ever catch up. So when the normal PC hits 20th level, the ECL PC will be 18th.

 

[Voadam]

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

It was in 3.5 Unearthed Arcana and made it into the SRD variant rules.

It essentially meant you could play an ECL race at high levels and not be down an ECL for ECL purposes. The higher the ECL the higher class level you had to be to reduce ECL.

If you played through a campaign with it you could spend some extra xp at some relatively lower levels to reduce your ECL calculations.

 

[Garthanos]

1. Conditional Requirements
   • User With Advantage
   • Use a bonus action
   • Enemy Bloodied
   • Triggers enemy retaliation (aka opportunity attack)
   • Uses more than one attack
   • Reveals Deception (first time use benefit)
   • Exertion (2 points or 1 die)
2. Difficulties
   • Standard Maneuver (penalty of -5 if nothing applies)
   • Harder Maneuver (penalty of -5 if less than 2 applies and -10 if none does)

Added a couple more conditionals

Could call them situational enhancers... they arent necessarily required

 

[Bill Zebub]

People have stated that pretty much any ability that requires more mechanics than a basic attack is magic to them, so the fighter gets to be in the magic discussion now because My Little Pony: Chokeholds Are Magic, I guess

More hyperbole.

I don’t see anybody calling shove or dodge or grapple “magic”.

I’ve seen (including from me) that spending per rest resources on martial maneuvers is a spell-like mechanic, and therefore not meaningfully differentiated from spellcasting from a gameplay perspective.

And I’ve seen that fantastic, not-realistic-in-this-world* abilities must in some way be magic, whether that means supernatural or divine or psionic or whatever.

But that anything other than basic attack is magic? No. Unless you can provide a link.

*I can’t believe I have to specify what I mean by realistic.