D&D 5E 2024 D&D is 2014 D&D with 4E sprinkled on top

[EzekielRaiden]

That is not what I said. You are changing what I said and then attacking it. That is the very definition of a Straw Man argument.

Yes. It is. You explicitly responded to what was said with saying: well, it was popular, so it must be right. That is precisely the fallacious argument that gets presented over and over and over in these discussions. 5e sold well, therefore it isn't possible anything it did was irrelevant or even negative to those sales.

Honestly, I said it somewhat tongue in cheek. Yes, I know we can't prove any particular part of the 5e rules are solely responsible for the success of 5e, or even that it is a significant reason, but the fact remains that it was successful. And the way they handled magic items is part of 5e. Are you honestly trying to say that magic items in 5e are bad or unpopular? Because that has not been my experience at all.

Actually...yes? I kind of am!

Because the only people I know who think this was the best thing ever are the people who absolutely hate magic items except as extremely rare, once-per-character kinds of things. Most of them (IMO very mistakenly) think that making magic items super ultra hyper mega rare, blink-and-you'll-miss-it fare is how you "make magic feel magical again", when that has jack-all to do with it. (The actual ways to make magic "feel magical" again, whether class-based or item-derived or whatever else, are much too complex for an aside in this thread. If that specific topic matters enough to you I'll make a separate thread about it.)

Most people I personally know who play 5e either emphatically break from it and see magic items as extremely important, even essential, for the kind of gameplay they expect from D&D, or follow it begrudgingly because they don't want to break the math even though they really would prefer to have (or, in three cases, DMs who wish to feature) cool, exciting magic items and chafe under the anti-magic-item culture of play that 5e has advocated.

So...yeah, I really do believe that this was a bad choice on the designers' parts, and that the current player base, especially those who cut their teeth on fantasy video games (which is...the vast majority of the new blood 5e brought in, who massively outnumber anyone who was a pre-5e D&D player, regardless of preferred edition), would very much prefer that magic items be integrated rather than practically excluded by so many DMs.

 

[Minigiant]

A lot of talk because "Martial" is a combo source.

"Martial" is like "Divine" from before 4e.

4e split Divine into Divine and Primal (and Elemental). And Arcane into Arcane and Shadow.

Martial really is

1. Focus/Ki
2. Non magical Tech skill
3. Metahuman/Mutant
4. Mental Skill
5. Physical Skill

Captain America, Thor, and Hawkeye are all Martials. But Thor is basically an alien with alien powers. And Cap has Tech steroids.

Hawkeye is just a human weapon master.

But you can't create crazy trick arrows nor get 20 Weapon Masteries and all weapon feats.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Now if you expand your sense of mundane as you do here to include "internal setting logic," then I think that you are moving the goal posts for what constitutes mundane. I would even say that there is an implicit admission here that the mundane is not entirely mundane if it also requires "internal setting logic," which may contradict the otherwise "laws of reality."

this is what it really boils down to i think, the bar for 'mundane' of DnD settings is just not set at the same level as the 'mundane' of the real world, a guy being able to bench press 20 tonnes might be impressive, but that doesn't make it magic, it doesn't require require the blessings of gods or the blood of giants, people can just, learn to do that, it's ordinary in that world.

 

[Minigiant]

this is what it really boils down to i think, the bar for 'mundane' of DnD settings is just not set at the same level as the 'mundane' of the real world, a guy being able to bench press 20 tonnes might be impressive, but that doesn't make it magic, it doesn't require require the blessings of gods or the blood of giants, people can just, learn to do that, it's ordinary in that world.

I think it's like Kryptonians under a Yellow Sun.

D&D verse take off the limiters much like Marvel and DC does.

Being a demigod or giant blood just let you get your power faster and be less likely to die before you pass the limit.

Most level 11+ mundanes are demigods , giant bloods, and alchemy boosted. But not all.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i think one of my favourite examples of transmundane-ism comes from discworld, where a forcibly retired death (meaning he doesn't have his powers, he's functionally a mortal) takes a regular old beaten-up farm scythe and with all his millennia of experience of wielding scythes, proceeds to sharpen it with progressively finer materials, starting with the usual whetstones and ending up using the finest silk, a spider's web and finally the light of the approaching dawn to create a blade that contains 'the idea of sharpness' and who's cutting edge extends a short distance beyond the physical edge of the blade and can slice through sound.

martials in DnD achieve extraordinary feats by just removing the limitations of flesh and skill of the real world because they don't exist in the real world, they're only doing things that ordinary people do, just at a level of magnitude that's not usually possible to achieve, supernatural effects, mundane methods.

 

[Joshua Randall]

So let me ask this: you are a DM and you get two players in your new D&D campaign.

One says: I want to play a character who uses magic, magic, and more magic. He’s super magical.

The other says: I want to play a character who doesn’t use any magic at all. Magic killed his parents, stole his girlfriend, and ran off with his dog. He never, ever, ever will use or do anything magical. He will not do anything that a normal human wouldn’t be able to do, like jump super far or attack 37 people in one round or hold his breath for hours or lift 3000 pound statues, because all that is MAGIC.

How do you make those two characters work at your table?

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

So let me ask this: you are a DM and you get two players in your new D&D campaign.

One says: I want to play a character who uses magic, magic, and more magic. He’s super magical.

The other says: I want to play a character who doesn’t use any magic at all. Magic killed his parents, stole his girlfriend, and ran off with his dog. He never, ever, ever will use or do anything magical. He will not do anything that a normal human wouldn’t be able to do, like jump super far or attack 37 people in one round or hold his breath for hours or lift 3000 pound statues, because all that is MAGIC.

How do you make those two characters work at your table?

You can nerf magic heavily, like how it works in most other systems, and you could have something workable to fit both players in.

Another option is to play low level only, which would also fit both players in.

The key understanding is that the character the second player wants to play is actually a low level character.

 

[GobHag]

Magic can be as broad, or narrow, as you like.

Then aything that your fighter has done is magic

 

[Remathilis]

And it became the most popular version in D&D history. So looks like the grognards were right!

It was the most popular version despite this glaring flaw.

 

[GobHag]

You can nerf magic heavily, like how it works in most other systems, and you could have something workable to fit both players in.

Another option is to play low level only, which would also fit both players in.

The key understanding is that the character the second player wants to play is actually a low level character.

Yeah I think the best way to do this is to just make Fighter a completely level 1-3 only class. Everyone else that wants magical stuff gets to have it--if that guy dies or doesn;t have fun, it's their problem for picking something not magical.