D&D 4E 4e death of creative spell casting?

[Mort]

but bugs cease programs from working, the lack of balance doesn't halt a table-top RPG, also to some a balance isn't even a good thing.

But lack of balance can keep a table top game from working well, or even adequately - and that counts for a lot.


As to the original topic: In most of the examples provided (and in most examples I've seen) "creativity" as to spell casting seems to often arise from exploiting ambiguity. In most games this is a bad thing.
When my player picks a spell, I want both of us to have a good idea when the spell is useful.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's a major problem for me in all rpgs, that magic PCs are just plain better than non-magic PCs. In HERO, powers are better than skills, and that's a point-based system. In Amber, powers are better than stats, likewise point-based though it's so crazy unbalanced I don't know why they bother. D&D 4e is at long, long last holding out the promise of fighters and rogues being equal to magic guys. If they can pull this off it will be something truly amazing, a first in roleplaying.

I don't think you've played enough RPGs if you believe that to be universally true, nor explored the possibilities of the ones you have played thoroughly enough. HERO is an extremely poor example for your assertion, because you should be building a lot of your "skills" as powers.

That's exactly what D&D is doing here - making Fighter abilities (at the very least, presumably Rogue ones too), into spells with a "martial" source. That's not unique or new or a "first in roleplaying", it's something HERO players have been doing for years. I mean, you want a HERO character who does a whirlwind style attack? You don't buy some skills and then cry that the rules don't allow for it, you buy up a power that allows it. You want to throw your axe in a deadly way, and the rules for skills don't cover it? You buy a physical RKA...

It's not the most elegant solution in the word, but it's mechanically extremely similar to what's being done in D&D - turning all abilities into "spell/power" equivalents.

I could go on, but other RPGs have done similar things, and MMORPGs have been doing it since Dark Age of Camelot, and later MMORPGs, Asheron's Call 2, particularly, really expanded on the idea of treating everything "like spells" but varying the power-sources (Rage, Energy and Mana in WoW, for example). Some now have even gone past that and come out the other side, as it were - Warhammer Online, for example, treats all abilities "like spells", but has a universal power source "Action Points", with every class having a unique additional "power up" source and a "morale" bar that powers different, additional abilities.

I don't say this to be mean, and I'm glad that you're excited by this, but it is far from a "first in roleplaying" for most of us. It's a first in D&D-based roleplaying, though, that's for sure (if you ignore Bo9S).

 

[apoptosis]

I agree with Hong entirely (as usual). The quest for balance is a good and desirable thing and it does not necessarily lead to identical PCs. For sure, it's not an easy goal to achieve, but that's why I pay game designers to do it for me.

For example, one could certainly balance medium-high level core 3e better by increasing the power of fighters, bards, rangers and barbarians, while reducing that of wizards, clerics and druids. It's just a matter of changing the numbers.

D&D 3e is probably the most balanced rpg out there, one of the reasons it's the best imo. But it could be even better in this respect as it's claimed 4e will be.

The quest for balance is good if that is what is important to you and of course by what you define as balance.

The most balanced game would have every character at the same level capable of the exact same thing (obviously this not what anyone is calling for, though some games do this and the flavor is just the player describing how things are done with little mechanical effect).

For me the aesthetics of the game trump balance every time. Now incredible imbalance can impact the aesthetics, so that is the worry, not the balance in of itself.

I think it really delves into how much you want D&D to be a game and how much you want it to be an world/roleplaying immersion and how much the two conflict (with some people not at all, with others a lot).

Wizards being more powerful than fighters doesnt bother me in the least; as a matter of fact i would far and away prefer this, it coincides with my aesthetics of a fantasy world which is what i hope a game I run can translate well.

Though i would want wizards to have to pay in some way for the extra power (spell slots was one way, maybe not the best); risky spellcasting, long-term harm are other ways to make a caster pay for using magic.

Apoptosis

 

[ruleslawyer]

Or just make the wizards higher level than the fighters in your world.

"Perfect balance" may be a chimera, but to throw out the idea of balance entirely because perfect balance is impossible to achieve without congruence of character options is taking epistemological relativism to its worst extreme. Things certainly can be better balanced or more imbalanced, and there isn't always a flavor "sacrifice" in doing so.

More to the point, this "creative spellcasting" argument has little to nothing to do with balance, and everything to do with gameplay. The ability to use a spell in a non-standard way that is anticipated by the rules and common sense is fine; however, the example used by the OP, and similar examples presented by others in this thread, are not so. They're essentially replacing the spell's core mechanic with a bunch of ad hoc rules, except that these rules are being proposed by the player, which is worse because they lead to a break in the game in which player and DM argue over how the spell should work "according to the laws of physics," "in real life," or whatever. I had these sorts of arguments in my game all the time in 1e/2e (to the point where we actually gave the most even-keeled player a "silly argument gavel" used to shut them down and get on with the game), and I have absolutely NO inclination to go back to having them.

In short, clearly-written rules for spells that limit the spells to explicit effects are good for gameplay. You want to play it differently? Fine. Go through the spell list and add whatever wonky "science-based" special effects you like. But for core gameplay for a ruleset being used by thousands of gaming groups, I'd rather simple, concise, and properly circumscribed, thank you.

 

[apoptosis]

Or just make the wizards higher level than the fighters in your world.

"Perfect balance" may be a chimera, but to throw out the idea of balance entirely because perfect balance is impossible to achieve without congruence of character options is taking epistemological relativism to its worst extreme. Things certainly can be better balanced or more imbalanced, and there isn't always a flavor "sacrifice" in doing so.

If this is directed at me, i was responding to another post about balance.

I think you can have flavor and balance in a completely generic system, it would be that the flavor has no mechanical impact, stake-setting systems have been doing this for awhile. Fighter character and wizard character describe what they are attempting to accomplish (say kill a dragon), roll the dice (same dice same chance of success) and explain how the action occured through their paradigm - wizard cast lighting bolt and kills it, fighter chops its head off (you have flavor and balance); but many people would find this to be somewhat boring.

What I said is that balance will always be less important to me than the aesthetics of the world/story/game etc. The lack of balance can impact the aesthetics and that is what is important to me, not so much the balance itself (though taken to an extreme ti could be a problem).

No reason to make wizards higher level in the world (and that has other implications on hitpoints etc.) - you can just make spells more powerful than the corresponding mundane equivalent (fireball vs sword) and at the same time you can add some cost for the wizard (this keeps the balance in some sense but is more important that the cost of power is an important aesthetic to me).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

"Perfect balance" may be a chimera, but to throw out the idea of balance entirely because perfect balance is impossible to achieve without congruence of character options is taking epistemological relativism to its worst extreme.

Could you point me to the posts where people are actually suggesting this? I can't seem to find any except those, like yours, where it's being used as a "Straw Man" to tilt against.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I don't think you've played enough RPGs

I've played Moldvay D&D, RC D&D, AD&D 1e, AD&D 2e, D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, Top Secret, Tunnels & Trolls, Champions, Fantasy Hero, Villains & Vigilantes, Golden Heroes, Superworld, Marvel SAGA, Stormbringer, SpaceMaster, Pendragon, Over The Edge, Vampire, Vampire LARP, Mage, Earthdawn, WHFRP, WH40K, BESM, Adventure!, Space: 1889, Traveller, Amber, Call of Cthulhu, Feng Shui, Nobilis, Rifts, SkyRealms of Jorune, James Bond: 007, WEG Star Wars, Dragon Warriors, Maelstrom, SLA Industries, The Fantasy Trip, In Nomine, Everway, Paranoia, Gamma World, 7th Sea and a few homebrewed systems.

I've GMed some of the above plus RuneQuest, Hawkmoon, DC Heroes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Could you point me to the posts where people are actually suggesting this? I can't seem to find any except those, like yours, where it's being used as a "Straw Man" to tilt against.

I beg your pardon?

Players getting equal amounts of fun out of their characters and encounters going as expected is good, but "balance" is a mythical beast that you can chase into some very unfortunate places. The only genuinely "balanced" RPG would be one where everyone had exactly identical abilities, as I'm sure you're aware. Once rules have gotten past the "we made it up on the spot" place, and into well-considered and tested rules, then balance is just a matter of how much you're willing to sacrifice differentiation, really.

I was responding to you. Please don't accuse me of strawmanning.

 

[Rakin]

Or just make the wizards higher level than the fighters in your world.

"Perfect balance" may be a chimera, but to throw out the idea of balance entirely because perfect balance is impossible to achieve without congruence of character options is taking epistemological relativism to its worst extreme. Things certainly can be better balanced or more imbalanced, and there isn't always a flavor "sacrifice" in doing so.

More to the point, this "creative spellcasting" argument has little to nothing to do with balance, and everything to do with gameplay. The ability to use a spell in a non-standard way that is anticipated by the rules and common sense is fine; however, the example used by the OP, and similar examples presented by others in this thread, are not so. They're essentially replacing the spell's core mechanic with a bunch of ad hoc rules, except that these rules are being proposed by the player, which is worse because they lead to a break in the game in which player and DM argue over how the spell should work "according to the laws of physics," "in real life," or whatever. I had these sorts of arguments in my game all the time in 1e/2e (to the point where we actually gave the most even-keeled player a "silly argument gavel" used to shut them down and get on with the game), and I have absolutely NO inclination to go back to having them.

In short, clearly-written rules for spells that limit the spells to explicit effects are good for gameplay. You want to play it differently? Fine. Go through the spell list and add whatever wonky "science-based" special effects you like. But for core gameplay for a ruleset being used by thousands of gaming groups, I'd rather simple, concise, and properly circumscribed, thank you.

I think some of this comes from bad playing due to bad DMing. Right on the spot the DM should let a player that wants to do this, "Tell me what you want to do, and I'LL tell YOU the outcome."

That's the name of the game, the fun in saying you want to do something and then finding out the outcome, if the outcome doesn't match what you expected, sucks haha. In the end the GM is always right, right? (But as a GM you have a responsibility to be as fair as possible, in turn, and look at the situation from a total nurtal stand point)

In the end it's just a game.

 

[ruleslawyer]

No reason to make wizards higher level in the world (and that has other implications on hitpoints etc.) - you can just make spells more powerful than the corresponding mundane equivalent (fireball vs sword) and at the same time you can add some cost for the wizard (this keeps the balance in some sense but is more important that the cost of power is an important aesthetic to me).

It's this last bit that is of concern to me. It sounds like you still want the wizard to be more powerful than other class options, strictly speaking. Your response to my suggestion to make wizards higher level is a concern about hit points? That seems somewhat insufficient to me, particularly since a high-level wizard is still not going to have all that many hit points (d4 doesn't compare to d10 any day).

I have no problem with mechanics and resource management being different for different classes; but one class being just plain better "because of the aesthetics of the game" is IMHO nonsense. PC classes being better than NPC classes? Fine. One PC class outshining another PC class? Not so much. Just IMHO.