Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
An interesting point, but not actually to the poster's challenge to name contemporary touchstones.
D&D 5E [+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap
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Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
And it more or less worked. You just might not like how it worked.Gygax wrote about why. He was, I kid you not, trying to make sure magic-users would be able to keep up with fighting men.
Game Balance. Game balance is why we got Vancian.
Tony Vargas
Legend
I think it's a different thread where I ranted about how many of those balancing factors have been stripped away.
But, early D&D, Gygaxian D&D, like 0D&D, and especially 1e AD&D, where he talked about balance over and over in the DMG, had these very elaborate attempts to balance, and to re-balance the Vancian he had come up with, but apparently over-shot intended caster power.
Clearly from his writings in Sorcerer's Scroll or Strategic Review (can't remember which ATM), he'd been worried magic would be too weak or low impact or whatever so he chose the "relatively short spoken spell" of Vance (and Finnish Mythology? IDK?)
Magic was very much not too weak, and in AD&D the limitations were harsh, indeed, trying to reign it in, even as it ended up with 9 levels of spells... IMHO, reading those spells, it seems like after 5th level, EGG had painted himself into a corner and didn't know what to do with 'em. They got weird. But, whatever, saves got really good at those levels, for everyone, not just for your "good" save.
Balance is not a binary quality, it's not like equality, one game can be better balanced than another.
If you create a game with two balanced options and a game with 200 options, 99% of which are non-viable, either way, both have got two worthwhile choices.Sorry, astigmatism, can't make it out.
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Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
The vast majority of that is either anime/manga, or inspired by/derived from it. Is that really the near-entirety of contemporary touchstones?
Tony Vargas
Legend
anime/manga is big, but video games are even bigger, bigger than what people our age think of as visual media - TV & movies.
And, D&D influenced video games... and anime...
Mecheon
Sacabambaspis
Berserk alone is one of the more influential ones out there. It pretty much popularised the 'warrior with dark armor using a greatsword' and was a massive influence on stuff like Dark Souls. Plus, D&D's taken from anime in Spelljammer at least, Spirit Warriors are just Aura Battlers. I'd argue the other side would be video games, though on that I'd drag more into Elder Scrolls and Warcraft as the more 'fitting D&D mold' ones, as oppposed to other stuff like Monster Hunter or Dark Souls which, while popular, don't fit the mold the best due to how they play
But, I'm not aware of any novels that sort of fit the same high as the ones back in the day. Certainly some in the past, but nothing recent
Well, yes. If you don't want player characters to be powerful, you shouldn't play them at high levels.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
I'm not sure which of those anime provides a good model for playable magic users, but I really wish dnd was more like Zelda and Final Fantasy for martials.
Give me martials that play like that from low level and adds in more shonen swordmaster stuff as you level, and casters that are a mix of how magic works in the witcher, and ritual magic that works like potion brewing in the Dresden Files a bit. That is, you need a circle (container), base, catalyst, and sympathetic/symbolic "ingredients", a spark of power, and ritual tools, and I'd be happy forever.
Oh, and martials and casters should be learning tricks out in the world during adventures like wizards currently learn spells, but with more narrative meat.
I think there's been some confusion. I was asking for examples of contemporary spellcasters. Especially ones with anything akin to 5e style powerful unlimited no resource cost at will cantrips.
That's a list of spellcasters? Most of those have been refuted for various reasons and aside from the one where the main character has the same name as the show none of them actually name someone (that's important and explained below). I've seen or read most if not all of what you listed there though & the vast majority of them don't contain spellcasters, it reads more like a list of recent anime than examples of contemporary spellcasters.
- Avatar: manipulation of chi powers bending. It also puts quite the strain on the body in ways that are going to be a fairly significant clash with 5e's unlimited at will no cost cantrips & I seem to remember a lot of weapon use even with bending in play. There was quite a bit of rapidfire bending though so I guess it's close to cantrips but from a resource pool?
- I assume you were not referring to the James Cameron version
- Naruto: This is a good example of why I asked for names given the many many characters spread over 220 episodes. Yes there was quite a lot of ninjitsu/genjitsu in that but the main character & several regular ones have pretty hefty spirits bound to them & I'm not sure I'd call any of the characters in it a clear mold for spellcasters without applying some kind of gestalt fighter/rogue/spellcaster template.
- Demon slayer: Really? You are telling me katana wielding boulder slicing Tanjiro is a spellcaster?
- Sword World Online?... this is one I've never heard of & figured you meant SAO, that's backed up by googling for it even pointing to SAO. I can't say that I've played sword world but have heard it's pretty much d&d if you were talking about that. I recall significant use of weapons in SAO though.
- Berserk: It's been a while & memories are fuzzy but Guts the black swordsman is a spellcaster? Any specific character or characters? @Mecheon you mentioned this too
- Goblin Slayer: Priestess & other spellcasters literally talk about the number of spells of each type they have prepared vancian style & the author talks about TTRPGs in the afterwards. I read several of the LN & don't recall anything resembling cantrip spamming, why is this listed?
- Mushoku Tensei: Again it's been a bit since I read these, but don't the spellcasters pretty much use a very much not unlimited mana type power source?
- Finalfantasy:
- The Atma weapon scales with character level(?) but isn't it generally unique? I've missed some of the more recent games in the series but don't characters mostly have a mana pool to power spells & abilities when they aren't doing the default attack based on whatever weapon/staff/bow/etc they happen to be wielding, has that changed? I think that replacing 5e's cantrips with FF style wand weapons that need upgrading would be an improvement in a lot of ways though.
- Zelda: Huh?... I have not played or seen the most recent version but I never considered link a spellcaster?....
- One Piece: This one never really clicked for me & I lost track in the first season or two when life got busy. Spellcasters?... really?
Tony Vargas
Legend
Try slicing a boulder in half with your 5e champion.
:: DM drops Katana of Boulder Slicing::
Oh, OK, carry on....
