D&D General A puzzle about spell casting in D&D

[Ruin Explorer]

Its not nonsensical. Its apropos (because it was decried then, and YES I AGREE...INCOHERENTLY OR INCONSTENTLY, but is being championed now).

I also agree that it wouldn't solve LFQW (by itself)! LFQW is the intersection of many different axes of power (proliferate spells, extremely powerful spells, the ability to dictate recharge pretty trivially, the power of spells lower in the level hierarchy, Save DC inflation, the progressive ability to dictate all terns of engagement/obviate an absurd number of obstacles or conflicts outright/and completely render null the perceived weakness of the class at low level).

Can you put the first two sentences there in like, simple English? I must be dim or whatever but I understand each word there individually but I do not know what you're talking about re: "decried" and "championed" particularly.

Re: LFQW, imho those are all minor factors compared to how outrageously powerful spells get a higher levels. Even in 2E LFQW was a problem, what masked it was how few games got to L9+ where it really kicks in hard, and how those that did tended to have so many magic items that non-casters could use those to keep up.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Nefarious or not is irrelevant.

What is relevant is that it was (a) a misappropriation of what was said (both the words and the way those words intersect with the conversation at large) and (b) that misappropriation isn't helpful to clarity (the opposite in fact) on the conversation particulars.

I feel like you really need to chill with the debate-speak and consider writing like an actual human person. This isn't like Philosophy 201, dude. You're obfuscating your actual point behind needless and ridiculous words like "misappropriation", which I'm pretty sure you're using wrong anyway. Especially considering you're doing this on behind of your apparently psychic understanding of someone else's post.

 

[Manbearcat]

I feel like you really need to chill with the debate-speak and consider writing like an actual human person. This isn't like Philosophy 201, dude. You're obfuscating your actual point behind needless and ridiculous words like "misappropriation", which I'm pretty sure you're using wrong anyway. Especially considering you're doing this on behind of your apparently psychic understanding of someone else's post.

Its just the way I write. I do the best I can with the brain I have. I know it annoys some. It annoys me as well. I've tried to rewire it, but it didn't take. So I suffer (myself) alongside you and everyone else.

 

[Manbearcat]

Can you put the first two sentences there in like, simple English? I must be dim or whatever but I understand each word there individually but I do not know what you're talking about re: "decried" and "championed" particularly.

D&D has always heavily abstracted stuff in order to be a playable game (to hit rolls, Armor Class, HPs, etc etc etc).

Often, that isn't a problem. In fact, the design is typically championed for what its trying to do. But it does sometimes arbitrarily become a problem, typically when people want HP to be meat or want D&D to be a granular process sim game (or at least parts of it to be).

The problem is when those two positions persist simultaneously (eg martial characters must be bound by earthly physics and spellcasters can just do whatever) and that persistence becomes (a) obviously incoherent and inconsistent (at the design level and how that design level manifests in play - make a proficiency check for this but don't make a proficiency check for that...even though they're the same thing) and (b) (at least for me) a contributor to balance issues (and we circle right back to play functionality).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Its just the way I write. I do the best I can with the brain I have. I know it annoys some. It annoys me as well. I've tried to rewire it, but it didn't take. So I suffer (myself) alongside you and everyone else.

It's not about annoyance. It's about being borderline incomprehensible.

But you've just posted so I'll read that.

 

[pemerton]

the spell attack roll (or resisted save) determines "how proficiently/potent this particular instantiation of their deployment of" spell is.

What about the many, many spells that don't have attack rolls or saving throws? Why does a thief player have to roll to see if his/her PC can actually perform the movements necessary to pull of a piece of stage magic, or pick a lock, or whatever; but the player of a wizard/MU does not have to roll to see if his/her PC can actually perform the movements necessary to cast a Knock Spell, or a Transmute Rock to Mud spell, or a Polymorph Self spell, or . . .

What is the principle of game design that means some feats of manual Dexterity call for a check, but others don't?

you could have casters check to see if they successfully cast spells and so on routinely, but then you'd either need to given a lot more spell slots, or make it so they didn't lose a spell slot on a miscast.

The second of these would be the obvious solution. It would parallel Rolemaster, where most spell failures, particularly for non-attack spells, do not drain power points. (That system's functional analogue to spell slots.)

But before we start talking about "solutions" I'm still interested in interrogating the question. What is the principle of design that is at work in the current system?

Further the question "verisimilitude to what" arises. D&D isn't simulating something. It's not a simulationist game. It's a highly abstracted game that most embodies gamist principles (in every edition). Sometimes it has some half-arsed simulationist baggage, or makes a nod towards narrativism, but it's not like it's trying to be a specific fantasy setting and spells getting miscast happens all the time in that setting, but for some reason D&D is missing this.

So is your answer to my question "just because"?

Maybe that is the answer, but in that case it doesn't seem a very good one.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

D&D has always heavily abstracted stuff in order to be a playable game (to hit rolls, Armor Class, HPs, etc etc etc).

Often, that isn't a problem. In fact, the design is typically championed for what its trying to do. But it does sometimes arbitrarily become a problem, typically when people want HP to be meat or want D&D to be a granular process sim game (or at least parts of it to be).

The problem is when those two positions persist simultaneously (eg martial characters must be bound by earthly physics and spellcasters can just do whatever) and that persistence becomes (a) obviously incoherent and inconsistent and (b) (at least for me) a contributor to balance issues (and we circle right back to play functionality).

Sure, I agree with all of that.

I just don't feel like 4E was particularly controversial because it leaned in to that abstraction - it was controversial for more specific reasons, I think the biggest of which, is often little discussed, that being that it was 100% incompatible with a hugely popular edition people had invested in incredibly heavily, as had 3PPs. As such @pemerton's reference to 4E was presumably about something else, or is invalid.

Put it another way - if 4E hadn't leaned into abstraction any more than, say, 5E or 2E (so much more than 3.XE, which was the least abstraction-oriented), but had been equally incompatible with 3.XE and 3PP products for it, and had equally had terrible marketing, and used jargon and approaches that put people in mind of MMORPGs (however accurately or inaccurately), would it still have been controversial?

I say absolutely it would. I say it would have had the same fate - or a worse one.

So is your answer to my question "just because"?

Maybe that is the answer, but in that case it doesn't seem a very good one.

What question?

My question is "verisimilitude to what?" You need to answer that I think. You clearly have something in mind. It is unclear what it is.

But before we start talking about "solutions" I'm still interested in interrogating the question. What is the principle of design that is at work in the current system?

Gamist balance is the principle I see, given the evolution of D&D from wargaming.

Also, at a certain point, you may need to allow that the main design principle is inertia, and that adding a new subsystem to "simulate" something in a highly abstracted game like D&D requires overcoming a fair amount of inertia, so needs some kind of further justification, like "this is necessary for balance" or "this will make the game more fun".

A lot of D&D's sacred cows are simply poorly-considered decisions made by inexperienced designers operating a near-vacuum design-idea-wise (rather than rich soup we have today). It may well be that this is simply how Gary saw Vancian magic working, in his mind, that it would go wrong if someone hit you, but that he didn't envision wizards just screwing it up otherwise.

The only edition which did have this was 3.XE, which simulated it if you wore certain armour (spell failure % or whatever it was called).

 

[pemerton]

From my point of view this is not mostly about LFQW. It is about why some fiction to do with feats of manual dexterity - eg picking a lock, juggling some skittles, doing a bit of stage magic - is gated behind a player-side check but other seemingly very similar fiction - performing the intricate gestures for casting a spell - is not gated behind such a check.

Maybe the answer to the question feeds into class balance and the like. But we can't know that until we have an answer.

The reason I raised 4e was that it took one answer - allowing some "auto-successes" for player-established feats of prowess facilitates effective gameplay - and generalised it. Just as players of casters have a rationed ability to always succeed at performing their gestures, so players of other classes also have rationed abilities to always succeed at some of their key feats of prowess. But the generalisation of this principle seemed to me very controversial (eg in seemingly endless debates about daily encounter and martial powers).

Hence my surprise that some posters in this thread think the answer to my OP question is that players of casters have a rationed ability to have their PCs to succeed N times per day at feats of manual dexterity because this is good for game play.

 

[pemerton]

What question?

The one I asked in the OP, which is the rationale for the thread (which is titled "a puzzle"): Why does spell-casting get this sort of benefit of the doubt?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The one I asked in the OP, which is the rationale for the thread (which is titled "a puzzle"): Why does spell-casting get this sort of benefit of the doubt?

Oh ok - pretty sure the answer is "because that's how Gary Gygax envisioned Vancian magic working".

I mean, maybe this answers your verisimilitude point too - the verisimilitude is to, what, Vance's Dying Earth books? Which to Gary seem to have the most suitable or persuasive spell system for this new game he was making. So, question for someone who has read them - in the Dying Earth books, do casters foul up spells without anyone interfering with them? If that's not something that happens in those books, why would Gary invent mechanics for it?

It's a very common theme in some fantasy - the "I can't move my hands/say the words well enough to cast the spell!". But was it a common theme in the Dying Earth books? They have a totally bizarre take on magic, that's haunted D&D through the years and is I think part of why D&D has had so many heartbreakers and competitors and so on, because so many people can't stand it, and it just can't work with a lot of fantasy settings. In those settings I can think of where people can foul up spells themselves, they don't have anything like Vancian magic, note.

Also, could you not just do like 4E did and have the caster roll instead of the target save and say it's this. Mathematically isn't that basically identical in modern editions? You're just swapping who is rolling.