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

[Garthanos]

I don't remember any explicit goals about the equivalence of the ritual magic system and the skill system. Do you have a reference?

In the DMG2 The benefit for a ritual that worked for a skill challenge (whether it worked was situational not a die roll) was one success exactly like if you made a successful skill check (or rarely at the most 2 successes and in the RC a skill was allowed to have 2 success if it was a crit. A successful skill use was def supposed to be equivalent to a ritual which helped... unless something special made either one more valuable (ie 2 success).

Note some declared we didnt need Martial Practices because by allowing benefit on those rolls for spending a HS was very close to the value and method of a skill use in a challenge already. I am not as certain that is the case but I can see their point.

Martial practices reinforced the idea that skills alone could reach ritual value as well. (and predate the DMG2 if I recall)

With skill powers reinforcing the same for spells a bit later.

I called it a goal .. .but technically its a guideline.

 

[Voadam]

Just curious: are there monsters in later books (aside from Volo's) that try and pull this kind of thing? Because I feel like this vagueness that can screw the PCs but could maybe possibly if you squint provide a solution like in modern installments is part and parcel of the early push to appeal to old school sensibilities without actually pulling the trigger directly.

Do you mean in Mordenkainen's? There have only been the MM, Volo's, Mordenkainen's and the compilation and update Monsters of the Multiverse which is just Volo's and Mordenkainen's redone. 5e has not had a ton of official monster books. So excluding the MM and Volo's cuts out the majority of official monster lore (roughly two thirds).

 

[dave2008]

And everyone survived to high level? They are special!

We come from 1e, so my players tend to be cautious. They are not very tactical, but they are strategic and tend to only take on things they no they can and/or with careful planning. Then are also the rare group that will run if needed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

We come from 1e, so my players tend to be cautious. They are not very tactical, but they are strategic and tend to only take on things they no they can do and/or with careful planning. Then are also the rare group that will run if needed.

I'm impressed. Wish my players were more like that.

 

[dave2008]

I was suggesting that characters that can't die, and are therefore contiguous, might lead to longer campaigns. You said you had the same PCs for the entire long campaign.

OK, it feels like you are jumping in mid stream and missing the boat. FrozenNorth discussed not having enough Martial options because you would get bored with only 2-3 choices. My response was about 2-3 choices doesn't matter when you on every use 1. Then GMforPowergamers mentioned he runs one campaign every 12-16 months and that they get to know their characters in about 1 month (2+/- levels). At no point was character death ever being discussed.

 

[dave2008]

I'm impressed. Wish my players were more like that.

Well I pretty much only game with my friends that I've played with since highschool. Good things and bad things about that. The only other group I've played with is when I taught the game to my children and their friends.

PS I have played some adventures with other people, but not full campaigns

 

[dave2008]

This is a great example of table playstyles. I like my campaigns done in four to six months.

That's called advancing from level 1 to level 2 for us!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

OK, it feels like you are jumping in mid stream and missing the boat. FrozenNorth discussed not having enough Martial options because you would get bored with only 2-3 choices. My response was about 2-3 choices doesn't matter when you on every use 1. Then GMforPowergamers mentioned he runs one campaign every 12-16 months and that they get to know their characters in about 1 month (2+/- levels). At no point was character death ever being discussed.

in my campaigns death is rare but not unheard of. In the last 5 campaigns (2 as DM and 3 as player) we had a total of 6 or 7 deaths depending on how you count revivify. However 1 of those campaigns had 0 deaths.

Edit: and to go back to what you said before about 2-4 months to level...at weekly that is 8-16 games at bi weekly it's 4-8... I can see going 4 sessions but after that I can't imagine not leveling. Sometimes at low level (3-5) we level every week.

 

[Voadam]

A biggy the ritual magic and a skill check were explicitly supposed to be capable of accomplishing the same amount of story impact.

In the DMG2 The benefit for a ritual that worked for a skill challenge (whether it worked was situational not a die roll) was one success exactly like if you made a successful skill check (or rarely at the most 2 successes and in the RC a skill was allowed to have 2 success if it was a crit. A successful skill use was def supposed to be equivalent to a ritual which helped... unless something special made either one more valuable (ie 2 success).

I see.

I would not extrapolate from applicable skills and rituals both being one success on a skill challenge to them being explicitly supposed to accomplish the same amount of story impact outside of a skill challenge context.

Note some declared we didnt need Martial Practices because by allowing benefit on those rolls for spending a HS was very close to the value and method of a skill use in a challenge already. I am not as certain that is the case but I can see their point.

Martial practices reinforced the idea that skills alone could reach ritual value as well. (and predate the DMG2 if I recall)

Martial practices aren't skills alone are they? I thought they were a feat based system similar to how you could use a feat to pick up ritual magic which uses skill rolls to succeed at the magical effect. It was a later 4e thing that I never saw much of.

With skill powers reinforcing the same for spells a bit later.

I called it a goal .. .but technically its a guideline.

Skill powers are feats leveraging skills to do things that the skill descriptions alone don't say they do, right? So their power level is designed to be roughly equivalent to that of other feats of their tier whether magical or nonmagical.

Or am I misremembering? Are they utility powers open to anyone with the trained skill and so designed to be roughly equal power to equal level utility powers, whether magical or not?

 

[Micah Sweet]

OK, it feels like you are jumping in mid stream and missing the boat. FrozenNorth discussed not having enough Martial options because you would get bored with only 2-3 choices. My response was about 2-3 choices doesn't matter when you on every use 1. Then GMforPowergamers mentioned he runs one campaign every 12-16 months and that they get to know their characters in about 1 month (2+/- levels). At no point was character death ever being discussed.

You mentioned that you had all the same characters for a very long campaign. I wondered if you had PC death allowed in that campaign, as a lack of it might be a factor in the length.