D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

[Alzrius]

Cook:

"The goal here is to embrace all forms of the D&D experience and to not exclude anyone. Imagine a game where the core essence of D&D has been distilled down to a very simple but entirely playable-in-its-right game. Now imagine that the game offered you modular, optional add-ons that allow you to create the character you want to play while letting the Dungeon Master create the game he or she wants to run. Like simple rules for your story-driven game? You're good to go. Like tactical combats and complex encounters? You can have that too. Like ultra-customized character creation? It's all there. In this game, you play what you want to play. It’s our goal to give you the tools to do so."

Mearls 13 years ago:
"wizards and the way they approach spells is fairly iconic to D&D, but the chief advantage of a class-based game is that we don't have to lean on one magic system. We've already shown some subtle differences between how clerics and wizards use spells. As we show off more classes, we can show off more approaches to magic.

Vancian magic has been an issue in D&D since the first house rules in 1974, and I think this is our chance to offer people options there, rather than dictate things."

First of all, once you provide quotes, you should also include the sources, othertwise I do not know where to look and see if they actually said that and you are not making things up.

For those interested in the sources for those quotes, the Monte Cook one can be found over on a January, 2012 Legends & Lore article, while the quote from Mike Mearls apparently comes from a 2012 Ask Me Anything that he did on reddit.

 

[mamba]

True but since none of us here are going to write our own 6E....

not sure why that would be relevant, this was a criticism of D&D and something WotC should address.

Pretending that something is fine unless people individually decide to write their own TTRPG to fix it would basically mean that nothing ever was broken in any edition

 

[Zardnaar]

not sure why that would be relevant, this was a criticism of D&D and something WotC should address.

Pretending that something is fine unless people individually decide to write their own TTRPG to fix it would basically mean that nothing ever was broken in any edition

WotC isnt going to fix it.

Also it may not even be a problem. If the greater player base like it its fine.

Just means 5.5 is even more easy mode. That may be a feature not a bug.

You have 3 options.

1. Dont play.
2. Play do nothing.
3. Play hack it yourself.

Pick one.

 

[Minigiant]

WotC isnt going to fix it.

Also it may not even be a problem. If the greater player base like it its fine

I don't think the greater player base think it's fine.
I think the greater fan base don't know of a better solution but see the drawbacks of leaving greater than staying and sucking up that boss fights are rocket tag.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't think the greater player base think it's fine.
I think the greater fan base don't know of a better solution but see the drawbacks of leaving greater than staying and sucking up that boss fights are rocket tag.

Gard to say. If I was designing 6E I would poll about spell DC scaling and briefly explain it in nice simple terms. Eg old D&D you made your save 75-95% of the time. New D&D higher level you can fail 95% of the time versus a bad save.

Also point out monsters are in the same boat. You foukd skip that part I suppose but if it blows up in your face.....

 

[Staffan]

Your arguing a completely irrelevant point using hair splitting focus on where the only real mention is found to paper over the fact that 5e stripped a set of gm tools from the gm toolbox by remove the mechanical hooks they delendedyonIt doesn't matter that it's described in player facing language that fails to provide GM's with the structural mechanical hooks in the DMG. What matters is that matters that the mechanical hooks required to structurally support a selection of gm tools that once occupied meaningful pace in the GM toolbox no longer exist . That overly split hair didn't even hold up in the pre 3.x days when people actually tried banning players from reading the DMG.

No matter if you look at the 3.x way of high but restricted∆ player CharOp options with expected magic item churn the gm was supported through a risk that blends lethality with excessive consumable needs that cut into the expected churn progression or the pre-3.x low CharOp high danger, they are both gone. Instead 5e has extreme CharOp with minimal hurdles, characters that have the benefits of full on Christmas tree from the base pc granting no real need for magic items, almost no lethality, and no structural support for them to collaboratively get players to put their finger on the scale for the gm

∆ prerequisites that took actual investment with opportunity cost. 5e's "OpTiOnAl" footnote attached to things most consider required for the d&d experience is just shifting blame for the resulting problems not a restriction to CharOp.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you complaining that 5e doesn't allow the DM to control which PC gets which item by choosing to hand out items for particular body slots? I mean, good? What business is it of the DM's who gets what item? And should it be important, why not use the other tools available like requiring attunement by a ________?

And overall, the magic item creation rules in 3e were bad. Mostly because items that didn't provide straight bonuses but instead mimicked spells, or otherwise had interesting effects, were vastly overcosted because of the formulas that were based on spell level x caster level (meaning spell level squared, because the minimum caster level was based on spell level), and because offensive items had DCs based on the minimum needed to cast the spell in question. I mean, who the heck would want a DC 11, d4 damage wand of burning hands?

In my experience, it was common in 3e to get rid of items that didn't match what anyone in the party needed. You found a cloak of charisma +2 with no sorcerer or paladin in the party? Sell it. In 5e, there is no default magic item market. There are downtime rules you can use to try to sell or possibly buy things, but they're more akin to high-end art deals than going to the local Cannith enclave.

 

[mamba]

WotC isnt going to fix it.

that much is true, after 5.5 I have basically given up on WotC moving in a direction I’d like, Not going to wait for them

 

[Eric V]

No, even in a casual discussion like this burden of proff is on one making the claim.

Nah. Casual conversations with strangers have no burdens.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

that much is true, after 5.5 I have basically given up on WotC moving in a direction I’d like, Not going to wait for them

I scratch my head when I see this nebulous claim. What is the “direction” that WotC is moving that you don’t like?

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you complaining that 5e doesn't allow the DM to control which PC gets which item by choosing to hand out items for particular body slots? I mean, good? What business is it of the DM's who gets what item? And should it be important, why not use the other tools available like requiring attunement by a ________?

And overall, the magic item creation rules in 3e were bad. Mostly because items that didn't provide straight bonuses but instead mimicked spells, or otherwise had interesting effects, were vastly overcosted because of the formulas that were based on spell level x caster level (meaning spell level squared, because the minimum caster level was based on spell level), and because offensive items had DCs based on the minimum needed to cast the spell in question. I mean, who the heck

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would want a DC 11, d4 damage wand of burning hands?

In my experience, it was common in 3e to get rid of items that didn't match what anyone in the party needed. You found a cloak of charisma +2 with no sorcerer or paladin in the party? Sell it. In 5e, there is no default magic item market. There are downtime rules you can use to try to sell or possibly buy things, but they're more akin to high-end art deals than going to the local Cannith enclave.

I see the problem by looking at the examples in the last paragraph of your post, none of them apply to what I was talking about when you first quoted me. Back in 509 you partially quoted my post and ignored everything else in order to dismiss what was being said. The rest of that post explains it when read in the context of the post or two back that I had responding to at the time. Now your asking me to repeat what was being discussed absent context. The "Christmas tree" was part of a toolset given to the gm in every edition prior to 5e and at least from ad&d2e on those editions provided the gm tools I previously elaborated on as well as ample advice on important aspects of using the tools they included. 5e turned that on its head and stripped those tools from the gm while simply giving their player facing results to base PCs and claiming it was done to make it easier for the gm.

Unfortunately this kind of selective reading is par for the course why the gm cannot be expected to fix so many of 5e's problems and rough edges.