D&D 5E [+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap

[Crimson Longinus]

The consistency of the setting exists in the fiction and not the mechanics. The mechanics exist so that players can run their characters while the GM can run their NPCs. Characters in the game cannot see the mechanics.

I don't like mechanics being just arbitrary gamey stuff. To me they need to represent the underlying fiction and preferably do it at somewhat consistent manner.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't like mechanics being just arbitrary gamey stuff. To me they need to represent the underlying fiction and preferably do it at somewhat consistent manner.

Then why do you play D&D with its hit points and arbitrarily defined classes? Or do you actually play Order of the Stick style where for magic reasons the class system is written into gameworld physics?

Seriously, this is one of the reasons a lot of people first look away from D&D

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It’s fairly trivial to present NPCs as being fictionally consistent with PCs even if they have different mechanical underpinnings, unless the players are actively looking at the NPCs mechanics and trying to confirm that they match PC build parameters.

What aids me in this is that I’m a stickler about presenting every NPC as unique, and being very clear that classes are not something that’s extant in the fiction. A PC and an NPC might both call themselves “wizards” and use arcane magic, but they learned magic differently and have different talents, and this use very different mechanics.

Then why cannot I make character that learned the magic similarly than the NPC? What do we do if we want to mechanically represent the PC wizard's old rival that went to the same school and took the same classes than her?

I get the need to streamline, but I really don't see the benefit of giving NPCs arbitrarily different sort of powers than the PCs have.

 

[TwoSix]

Then why cannot I make character that learned the magic similarly than the NPC? What do we do if we want to mechanically represent the PC wizard's old rival that went to the same school and took the same classes than her?

I get the need to streamline, but I really don't see the benefit of giving NPCs arbitrarily different sort of powers than the PCs have.

Who says they can’t learn it? If a player comes to me and says “I want to play a character that works like this NPC”, I’ll totally play ball. Hell, I’ll probably give them a bonus.

If I somehow wanted to make a NPC that was a mirror to the PCs, then I’d just do that. Seems fairly basic.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Then why cannot I make character that learned the magic similarly than the NPC? What do we do if we want to mechanically represent the PC wizard's old rival that went to the same school and took the same classes than her?

I get the need to streamline, but I really don't see the benefit of giving NPCs arbitrarily different sort of powers than the PCs have.

I don't see the benefit in arbitrarily assuming that all NPCs develop in the same way as professional adventurers do. I mean I would expect a wizard who has spent a hundred years learning magic in a tower, barely leaving the library and the lab to be capable of entirely different stuff from a professional adventurer and combat mage. I certainly wouldn't expect the superb researcher to be able to take a punch the way a high level adventuring wizard can.

And why can't you create a lab-wizard? Because they aren't adventurers and one physical combat and they are likely to freeze or fall over. Every D&D character is intended to be a professional adventurer, not a farmer or a cleric who stays with their flock.

 

[FrozenNorth]

And how exactly does that do anything for in-setting consistency?

Ooh, I’ll play! Different people are different. There should be no expectation that an NPC, who in-fiction is a unique person whose background, experience, training etc. is different from the PCs, should have the same characteristics.

On the contrary, expecting that the 1st level wizard I created that is a 21-year old prodigy and the 1st level wizard that I created that has been studying magic for 30 years follow the same rules strains verisimilitude more than the fact that NPC A can attack 3 times with a sword, but PC B can only attack twice (but has different abilities).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Then why do you play D&D with its hit points and arbitrarily defined classes?

Nostalgia and the ease of finding material mostly TBH.

Or do you actually play Order of the Stick style where for magic reasons the class system is written into gameworld physics?

Some of it yes. Like the Nine Circles of Magic is a canonical concept in my setting. I also have cultural origins for many concepts represented by the subclasses. And that's why it was so important for me to the caster class metaphysics to be distinct and coherently defined. Classes are weird, but they are even weirder to me if they exist just because and not because they actually represent something that exists in the fiction.

Seriously, this is one of the reasons a lot of people first look away from D&D

What is? Things not making sense? Yes, probably.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And how exactly does that do anything for in-setting consistency?

Note: if "in-setting consistency is irrelevant" or similar is your answer, please try again.

It doesn't impose a cookie cutter in-setting consistency where all members of a given class are sent by central casting. And all magic using clerics, no matter how peaceful their area, are skilled with weapons and gain weapons skill proportional to their magical ability.

A video game setting where there are only a tiny handful of character models that are repeated again and again is more consistent than the real world. This is normally considered a worldbuilding problem unless it's an active in-setting problem. So what it does for in-setting consistency is enables the people to match their roles within the setting, not a handful of cookie cutter roles all of which are suitable for adventurers or are a very narrow number of half-made alternatives (thinking of "NPC classes" from 3.X).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Who says they can’t learn it? If a player comes to me and says “I want to play a character that works like this NPC”, I’ll totally play ball. Hell, I’ll probably give them a bonus.

If I somehow wanted to make a NPC that was a mirror to the PCs, then I’d just do that. Seems fairly basic.

But now this approach needs to come up with houserules for feats allowing taking NPC powers and new spells to mirror the NPC spells. Wouldn't it be hella lot easier if the NPCs just used same spells and features than the PCs to begin with?

 

[overgeeked]

But now this approach needs to come up with houserules for feats allowing taking NPC powers and new spells to mirror the NPC spells. Wouldn't it be hella lot easier if the NPCs just used same spells and features than the PCs to begin with?

Or, even easier is if the NPCs simply did not work like PCs and be done with it.