D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Micah Sweet]

Meh. I don't want to play a glorified commoner who can cast "I win" X times per day.

Meh. In my game, all the PCs start out as glorified (maybe) commoners with a couple uncommon skills anyway.

 

[Remathilis]

This is my issue with 5e design: All "Save or lose" spells should be eliminated or nerfed. In exchange all spells should do bigger thing on a failed save and lesser thing on a succesful one, so even if enemy saves, it never feels like you wated your turn. it's jsut that no spell should be able to solo an encounter.

5e elevated enemy HP in an attempt to not end fights in one round. That weakend damage spells down and made save or suck (save or die is not more) the de facto go to for spell value. It is why legendary resistance is the only reason fights last more than 1-2 rounds.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Good thing none of points I raised were concerning popularity or recentcy, could you actualy adress them properly?

Dying Earth, from which the original Vancian system was derived, is literature, not a video game. And anyway, there's no realistic spellcasting system, so whatever you use just needs to be consistent and make sense in the setting to my mind.

 

[Remathilis]

I think that D&D is fundamentally facing the same issue as Sonic the Hedgehog, when it comes to designign new installments - the franchise has been around so long and evolved so much and so many times, that it now has not one but multiple fanbases that have fundamentally incompatible idea of what it actually is. And both often make msitakes of trying to cater too too many of these groups at once, creating things that aren't comitting in any direction.

I mean, that's every franchise that has lived long enough to have eras: Star Wars, Marvel comics, Doctor Who, etc.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, that's every franchise that has lived long enough to have eras: Star Wars, Marvel comics, Doctor Who, etc.

Which is why I like a broad tent or multiple starting points for RPGs based on those franchises. I wouldn't at all mind D&D doing the same.

 

[Lanefan]

First, thanks for answering my question. Please allow me to lob in some more.

A combat and social focused game with more relational/narrative mechanic built-in. I want a fun punch-up game where classes can do cool naughty word as early as possible, completely skipping the 'early game nobody' part to just be something that's optional with mechanics for either relationships or character arc built into the design of the game.

So, less (or even no?) emphasis on exploration and-or downtime? OK.

Being able to do "cool naughty word" right out of the gate is fine but then how would long-term advancement work? Or would this be specifically designed toward short quick-hitting campaigns?

Alternatively, completely split the 'combat' and 'non-combat' capabilities of PCs so that now being a 'sneaky backstabber that uses advantage' is completely delineated from 'Stealth and trapmaster expert', with each character choosing one combat class and one non-combat class.

And thus the player would choose two classes, one from a list of combat classes and one from a list of social classes - am I reading that right?

If yes, interesting idea; but what would the social classes look like? Right now, other than maybe Bard, I can't think of any classes that aren't either combat-first or exploration-first; almost the whole list of social classes would have to be invented from scratch.

Also kill vancian casting

I've at times held the same sentiment in the past, until I realize I'd have no idea how to usefully replace it. Vancian is clunky as hell but it does serve one function well: by limiting what casters can do over x-amount of time it keeps non-casters viable to play. Taking those limits off means that to preserve even the vaguest hint of character balance either everyone would have to play a caster or nobody would, and I'm not sure how far that would fly.

One way to de-clunkify Vancian somewhat without completely breaking the game is to do away with any form of pre-memorization or spell preparation. Just have per-level slots, and if a spell's on your list or in your spellbook for that level and you've got a slot remaining of that level you can freely cast it. To rein it in a bit, the idea of upcasting or downcasting has to go away - you can only use 3rd-level slots on a 3rd-level spell, period - and spell effects would have to scale with level more, as they did in 3e and prior.

With this, all the player has to track is their slots remaining by level; they don't have to go through any sort of preparation or spell load-out each in-game day in play.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

I said continuous flashy magic. Dragonlance followed the rules of 1e (more or less). No always-on cantrips.

And yet most of time they did pull out magic it was flashy, so the difference was functionalyl nonexistent.

5e elevated enemy HP in an attempt to not end fights in one round. That weakend damage spells down and made save or suck (save or die is not more) the de facto go to for spell value. It is why legendary resistance is the only reason fights last more than 1-2 rounds.

And then people complain legendary resistance is just "nuh uh, I win" and makes them waste their turn doing nothing. Which is why I think these spells need to be nerfed and isntead even on succesful save they do something smaller than main effect.

Dying Earth, from which the original Vancian system was derived, is literature, not a video game. And anyway, there's no realistic spellcasting system, so whatever you use just needs to be consistent and make sense in the setting to my mind.

If this is about how wizards running out of spells and becoming glorified npc feels video-game'y, I reffer you to the following point by other user:

While Conan is a great example of a weapon breaking for dramatic and story effect, the highlighted bit above immediately got me thinking about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, in which weapons do, indeed, break, often a couple times per fight. The result is a video game mentality where you load up on dozens of weapons so you can make it through a fight or three, and constantly scrounging for more weapons. You lose the special impact of Conan's blade breaking. because no weapon is sacred (and in BotW, if you have a weapon you really like, you are pretty much not going to use it for that reason, otherwise it breaks).

The idea of weapons breaking in combat? Sound idea with dramatic potential. The idea of weapons breaking a couple times per encounter? Nightmarish cartoon video game logic scenarios that lead to player and GM frustration and negate the dramatic value of the action being a thing that is less common.

EDIT: Deset Gled made my point already!

It is pretty much the same with vancian magic - it's one thing to use it in story, where the writer controls when the character runs out of spell slots for dramatic effect, but trying to recreate that at the table doesn't work because the system just makes it the caster keeps running out of spells and being useless and it becomes an increadibly frustrating experience to the player, while clearly serving no purpose from the perspective of either realistic worldbuilding or collaborative storytelling, being purely a mechanic to remaind this is a game.

I mean, that's every franchise that has lived long enough to have eras: Star Wars, Marvel comics, Doctor Who, etc.

On paper maybe, but some long-runners have seemingly avoided or minimized this problem. I mean, comapred to Sonic, Mario fanbase seems very chill with all different versions of the game over the years, for example.

 

[Lanefan]

That sounds like you want the game to be badly designed and just offload the task of fixing it to homebrewers.

Somewhat, yes, as each homebrewer is going to fix it to suit their own tastes and table. I want the underlying framework to be well designed and rock solid, however, with enough discrete modular mostly-independent subsystems to allow me-as-homebrewer to mess with one element while not affecting much, if anything, else.

TSR-era D&D got the modularity piece right, though the underlying framework wasn't necessarily as solid as a rock.

There is a difference between being on plan B and being forced to stop playing the wizard you came to play and instead become something you never agreed or wanted to play. I suck at puzzle solving and mapping and would never want to be forced to do either of those because game mechanics told me I am no longer allowed to play wizard I came to the table to play, on my limited leisure time.

That really feels like forcing caster to stop playing their character the moment they run out of arbitrary number, instead of making Fighter actually a good class that can do stuff other than swing sword.

Game mechanics in Risk (and thousands of other games) tell you you can't play at all any more once your forces get wiped out or you've otherwise met the game's loss condition.

With an empty-tank wizard you can still play sub-optimally; and sub-optimal play is always better than not playing at all.

This is a mindset that is not fit to a collaborative storytelling an rpg is, but to a wargame.

Good, as I'm not after a collaborative storytelling game. There's loads of other "indie" games for that sort of thing; were collaborative storytelling my aim I'd pick up one of those and give it a run out.

If your character is literally useless rando and you can throw them away once it breaks with no emotional attachment and they have no story you want to tell with them...then what's the point of playing an rpg? If I wanted to play a wargame, where I control pawns and pieces, I'd play a wargame.

And as D&D is at its heart a wargame, you're in the right place for that.

Just because I have a story I want to tell with a character doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to get to tell it. I hold no such entitlement.

 

[GrimCo]

I've at times held the same sentiment in the past, until I realize I'd have no idea how to usefully replace it. Vancian is clunky as hell but it does serve one function well: by limiting what casters can do over x-amount of time it keeps non-casters viable to play. Taking those limits off means that to preserve even the vaguest hint of character balance either everyone would have to play a caster or nobody would, and I'm not sure how far that would fly.

One way to de-clunkify Vancian somewhat without completely breaking the game is to do away with any form of pre-memorization or spell preparation. Just have per-level slots, and if a spell's on your list or in your spellbook for that level and you've got a slot remaining of that level you can freely cast it. To rein it in a bit, the idea of upcasting or downcasting has to go away - you can only use 3rd-level slots on a 3rd-level spell, period - and spell effects would have to scale with level more, as they did in 3e and prior.

Or use 5e Warlock chasis. You get fixed number or slots per rest which grow in power, but not in number, as you level up. That's your big bang, heavy guns. Utility- those go straight to rituals. If you have them, cast them from spellbook, no slots needed. Those are for out of combat use or pre combat (like summoning and animating, but nerf it a bit). Cantrips are always available stuff, make more of them and give abilities that modify or augment them, like invocations that modify Eldricht blast.

Other option is what you suggest, just have slots. Or better yet, mana pool. So you can fire more weaker spells or burn all of it for couple of strong ones.

@Lanefan

D&D was wargame ages ago. With each edition, it goes further and further from that.

 

[Lanefan]

Some do, some don't. Concetration was skill and for maintaining some spells, you rolled it, mostly if you took damage. And it was painful cause DC=10+spell level+ damage received. But yeah, you could stack buffs.

Prior to 3e there were very few spells - mostly illusions - that weren't just fire and forget. Your spell had a set duration, and that's how long it lasted.

Yeah, but, you prepared each spell in it's own slot. Need fireball again? Too bad, you prepared it only in 1 of your slots, doesn't matter you still have available slots and have it in your spellbook. Also, while yes, there was no concentration and you can stack buffs, because of before mentioned system of preparing spells, you needed to try to guess what will happen that day and what ratio of utility, offensive and defensive spells will you prepare. Now, in 5e, sure, you have limited number of spells prepared, but if you need more utility, you burn slots on utility ones.

Agreed, I've never liked pre-memorization.

Pew pew is just part of it. Like i said in previous paragraph, you finally have rituals, you can take time to cast spells without slot use, you have some minor magic so you don't just run of magic stuff and you have some versatility. Wizard actually feels like wizard. Pew pew cantrips are just small part of it. But still, pew pew all day beats twiddling thumbs and playing third grade crossbowman any day.

Meanwhile once the fighting stops the martials and other non-casters can just take a seat 'cause the wizard can solve everything through casting rituals all day? Sorry, that's not gonna fly.