D&D 5E What is REALLY wrong with the Wizard? (+)

[James Gasik]

Tbh I don't need it to be a massive penelty. It can be 100% fluff (awful spry 70 year old human since you have the same stats as you did at 20) I just want the player to record that age, let it seep into there minds and there RP.

I never once saw an elf age a year or two and not stop to contemplated it... I guess to some the ageing only mattered if it lowered your str... but to most I knew in 90's the idea of ageing a year in 10 minutes was something you took serious. We never had dragon characters but I do remember the vampire character did joke about haste a few times.

okay. so then we can add the number and let people think and play with it as they do.

I will say this my 18 or 19 year old brash fighter that gets hasted 5 times in 30 days and is all of a sudden 24 is going to have a bit of a crisis

really? I saw permanency used at least 1 or 2 times any campaign that hit 15+ level... did people really freak about a point of con?
I had to look it up, I knew it was a large swath... but 7-14 con didn't do anything to your hp, just system shock and ability to be raised. I didn't see many wizards or clerics with 15 or 16 con

Really. At least in my play group, we took Con very seriously, as everyone wanted as many hit points as possible. Also note that the limit of being raised is your Con score, and everyone wanted the highest system shock possible, as our DM's were ruthless about making us check for it.

"System Shock survival states the percentage chance the character has of surviving the following forms of magical attacks (or simple application of the magic): aging, petrification (including flesh to stone spell), polymorph any object, polymorph other"

And yeah, I noted back that magical aging causes System Shock as well, so I can tell you, I myself avoided spells that age my character like the plague, lol.

Turns out casting Slow on a bunch of enemies was about as good; I never so much looked at Haste twice until 3e. Do note that modern Haste already has a big downside, and the upside is nothing like "double your attacks per round"!

And no, no Dragon PC's. But in one AD&D campaign I was in, just about every spellcasting Dragon I fought had the spell, which was not only nasty on the face of it, it was the DM's explanation for why there were so many powerful Dragons running around (because of course, as monsters, they didn't have a Constitution score, so what system shock?*)

*The DM's words, not mine. I thought that was hogwash at the time, but I couldn't find any official rules saying otherwise at the time (but the answer is in Dragon # 133 if you're curious).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Really. At least in my play group, we took Con very seriously, as everyone wanted as many hit points as possible. Also note that the limit of being raised is your Con score, and everyone wanted the highest system shock possible, as our DM's were ruthless about making us check for it.

"System Shock survival states the percentage chance the character has of surviving the following forms of magical attacks (or simple application of the magic): aging, petrification (including flesh to stone spell), polymorph any object, polymorph other"

And yeah, I noted back that magical aging causes System Shock as well, so I can tell you, I myself avoided spells that age my character like the plague, lol.

Turns out casting Slow on a bunch of enemies was about as good; I never so much looked at Haste twice until 3e. Do note that modern Haste already has a big downside, and the upside is nothing like "double your attacks per round"!

And no, no Dragon PC's. But in one AD&D campaign I was in, just about every spellcasting Dragon I fought had the spell, which was not only nasty on the face of it, it was the DM's explanation for why there were so many powerful Dragons running around (because of course, as monsters, they didn't have a Constitution score, so what system shock?*)

*The DM's words, not mine. I thought that was hogwash at the time, but I couldn't find any official rules saying otherwise at the time (but the answer is in Dragon # 133 if you're curious).

Kind of a non-sequitor, but Dragon #133 was one of my favorite issues. That was the one with the index right?

 

[James Gasik]

Kind of a non-sequitor, but Dragon #133 was one of my favorite issues. That was the one with the index right?

Indeed, on page 86:

It also, somewhat relevant to other threads I've been in lately, had an article suggesting Perception as an ability score, lol.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Indeed, on page 86:

View attachment 279783
It also, somewhat relevant to other threads I've been in lately, had an article suggesting Perception as an ability score, lol.

I remember that! Sometimes seems like that would have been the way to do, huh?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Really. At least in my play group, we took Con very seriously, as everyone wanted as many hit points as possible. Also note that the limit of being raised is your Con score, and everyone wanted the highest system shock possible, as our DM's were ruthless about making us check for it.

again the con HP change is almost never something you saw unless you drop below 7 or start with a 15+

"System Shock survival states the percentage chance the character has of surviving the following forms of magical attacks (or simple application of the magic): aging, petrification (including flesh to stone spell), polymorph any object, polymorph other"

yup I know what a system shock is

And yeah, I noted back that magical aging causes System Shock as well, so I can tell you, I myself avoided spells that age my character like the plague, lol.

we didn't
mot cast them
we just took it serious

And no, no Dragon PC's. But in one AD&D campaign I was in, just about every spellcasting Dragon I fought had the spell, which was not only nasty on the face of it, it was the DM's explanation for why there were so many powerful Dragons running around (because of course, as monsters, they didn't have a Constitution score, so what system shock?*)

*The DM's words, not mine. I thought that was hogwash at the time, but I couldn't find any official rules saying otherwise at the time (but the answer is in Dragon # 133 if you're curious).

yeah I would call BS on no con score... but I will say we often had bad guy NPCs make up ways to steal con from others for permencay

 

[James Gasik]

again the con HP change is almost never something you saw unless you drop below 7 or start with a 15+

Right, but if you did start with a 15+ Con (as most anyone with a d4 Hit Die would want to do), you can see not exactly being keen on casting permanency, right?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Tbh I don't need it to be a massive penelty. It can be 100% fluff (awful spry 70 year old human since you have the same stats as you did at 20) I just want the player to record that age, let it seep into there minds and there RP.

Well, you lost me there.

I don't want to pretend to care about and track things that don't matter. Like rations, arrows or age.

 

[James Gasik]

Well, you lost me there.

I don't want to pretend to care about and track things that don't matter. Like rations, arrows or age.

Hey wait, we have a thread for that!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Well, you lost me there.

I don't want to pretend to care about and track things that don't matter. Like rations, arrows or age.

I would say it a bit different... if you as a table say it's not worth tracking age, rations, or arrows that's great, if you decide it is that's great too.

I know we track rations when the game concept calls for it (surviving in a dessert) but not most games.

 

[Digdude]

I would say it a bit different... if you as a table say it's not worth tracking age, rations, or arrows that's great, if you decide it is that's great too.

I know we track rations when the game concept calls for it (surviving in a dessert) but not most games.

Exactly, there are great narrative places to engage tracking but just not all time. But I wonder what DMs are doing to bleed off all the accumulated wealth? At least earlier editions had magic item costs you could craft and masterwork items.