D&D General Reification versus ludification in 5E/6E

[Micah Sweet]

But they aren’t because you can easily have both a player character and other NPCs who are even better.

So long as they're an explicit reason why they're so good, and it could be learned by others, it's fine.

 

[Remathilis]

So long as they're an explicit reason why they're so good, and it could be learned by others, it's fine.

This is the canard. There are plenty of abilities in the 2014 Monster Manual that are used by humanoids that cannot be learned by others. Martial advantage. Brute. Parry. Multiattack. Pack Tactics. Taunt. These abilities as written in the MM cannot be learned by a PC. In theory, they can be learned by an NPC or monsters, but there is no reason a gnoll or a lizardfolk can't do 2d10 with longsword either. Those are abilities built for NPCs to be easy to use and powerful enough to matter, giving them to a PC would be unbalanced. You cannot have 1:1 parallelism unless every NPC is built using PC classes.

 

[Teemu]

So long as they're an explicit reason why they're so good, and it could be learned by others, it's fine.

If I'm an abjurer wizard in 5e 2014 and there's an evoker wizard in the party, can I learn the evoker wizard's Sculpt Spells, Potent Cantrip, Empowered Evocation, and Overchannel abilities? Can the evoker wizard learn my Arcane Ward, Projected Ward, Improved Abjuration, and Spell Resistance abilities? After all we could spend months and years adventuring and traveling together. In fact, we can share the spells in our spellbooks. What about those other abilities?

 

[pawsplay]

If I'm an abjurer wizard in 5e 2014 and there's an evoker wizard in the party, can I learn the evoker wizard's Sculpt Spells, Potent Cantrip, Empowered Evocation, and Overchannel abilities? Can the evoker wizard learn my Arcane Ward, Projected Ward, Improved Abjuration, and Spell Resistance abilities? After all we could spend months and years adventuring and traveling together. In fact, we can share the spells in our spellbooks. What about those other abilities?

Logically, you could. In this case you are up against a bit of reification: those are class features, and you can't multiclass between subclasses in the same class. The fighter can, by taking levels in wizards.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is the canard. There are plenty of abilities in the 2014 Monster Manual that are used by humanoids that cannot be learned by others. Martial advantage. Brute. Parry. Multiattack. Pack Tactics. Taunt. These abilities as written in the MM cannot be learned by a PC. In theory, they can be learned by an NPC or monsters, but there is no reason a gnoll or a lizardfolk can't do 2d10 with longsword either. Those are abilities built for NPCs to be easy to use and powerful enough to matter, giving them to a PC would be unbalanced. You cannot have 1:1 parallelism unless every NPC is built using PC classes.

If there's a way to learn an equivalent skill as a PC, even under a different name, that's fine too. I want my fictionally equivalent creatures to not be mechanically not too out of whack with what a PC could do. Keep the numbers in the same range, and make sure what you're doing works in the fiction. That 2014 5e often doesn't accomplish this doesn't change anything for me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If I'm an abjurer wizard in 5e 2014 and there's an evoker wizard in the party, can I learn the evoker wizard's Sculpt Spells, Potent Cantrip, Empowered Evocation, and Overchannel abilities? Can the evoker wizard learn my Arcane Ward, Projected Ward, Improved Abjuration, and Spell Resistance abilities? After all we could spend months and years adventuring and traveling together. In fact, we can share the spells in our spellbooks. What about those other abilities?

If I had chosen to be an evoker, I could. It's up to me, and I would be cool with allowing stuff like that in my game anyway.

 

[Remathilis]

Logically, you could. In this case you are up against a bit of reification: those are class features, and you can't multiclass between subclasses in the same class. The fighter can, by taking levels in wizards.

Kinda sounds like another artificial limitation. Which is why class systems, which I infinitely prefer btw, are bad for that kind of granular skill acquisition. A point buy or talent tree system would handle that much better, and then create monsters with as many talents as needed to make them hit the numbers needed. But D&D is class system an you have to accept some skills are non-transferable regardless of how illogical that is.

 

[Remathilis]

If there's a way to learn an equivalent skill as a PC, even under a different name, that's fine too. I want my fictionally equivalent creatures to not be mechanically not too out of whack with what a PC could do. Keep the numbers in the same range, and make sure what you're doing works in the fiction. That 2014 5e often doesn't accomplish this doesn't change anything for me.

Just out of curiosity, is this limited to humanoid creatures or can a PC learn to fly and breathe fire like a dragon?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Kinda sounds like another artificial limitation. Which is why class systems, which I infinitely prefer btw, are bad for that kind of granular skill acquisition. A point buy or talent tree system would handle that much better, and then create monsters with as many talents as needed to make them hit the numbers needed. But D&D is class system an you have to accept some skills are non-transferable regardless of how illogical that is.

You want to learn the archetype abilities of another class instead of your own? No problem. Just replace the ability and explain to me how you learned it.

If the rules are getting in the way of the setting, change the rules. But it's always easier starting with something closer to what you want.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Just out of curiosity, is this limited to humanoid creatures or can a PC learn to fly and breathe fire like a dragon?

Those are biologically-based abilities (if requiring ambient magic in the universe to function), so I would need a better than usual explanation for them. But I like to keep an open mind.