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General Tabletop Discussion
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A Slower Caster Spell Progression and other Suggestions
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8495039" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>I have obliquely mentioned this already, but this exact kind of thinking is exactly why this problem persists.</p><p></p><p>But DMs overall...aren't great at catching this. It's hard to make good time pressure--doubly so to do it consistently enough to make "5MWDs" (more on that later) rare. That's another side of this polyhedral problem. Even DMs that <em>succeed</em> at time pressure just (finally) let martials play catch-up. They aren't mitigating the times the martials can't catch up, or elect not to. And, as has always been the case, martials have every reason to support "5MWD" behavior. They lose nothing personally, but gain second-hand by the party's net gain. Why <em>wouldn't</em> you choose to have more gas in the tank?</p><p></p><p>Coming back to "five minute workday." The name is deceptive. It's rarely literally 5 min, or 15, or what-have-you. Even heavy-LR classes (Wiz, Druid, Cleric) usually want at least one SR/day. Plus, there's tons of time padding one can do. Research/training, social encounters where magic is a bad idea (or you have enough already), shopping, travelling, planning. All productive...and all null-resource filler, padding out the day so it doesn't look or feel like five minutes even though it realistically is.</p><p></p><p>All this and more makes the problems hard to spot, and harder still to fix. It's not like this is scheming, conniving optimizers wresting control from poor, beleaguered DMs. It's all pretty above-board, no abuse required. "Hey, I'm out of spells, maybe we should call it a day" is perfectly rational, especially if it's the party healer, or there's a major challenge ahead and the party needs every resource it can get. Worse, with 5e SR being 1 hour, the gap between "enough time pressure that a day's wait is too much" and either "too much so even 1 hour is unwise" or "too little so it made no difference" is narrower than it seems. Particularly when you must sell the players on this being consistently true session after session for most, if not all, of a campaign. 24 hour or smaller time pressure induces a lot of anxiety, making it hard to maintain long-term.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Isn't anything that makes magic a systematic and (relatively, up to attack rolls/saving throws) reliable structure inherently de-mystified? This is a complaint I've never really understood about D&D magic. It's already de-mystified. That's the whole point of having a chapter spelling (heh) out exactly how magic works and what, precisely, each bit of magic does.</p><p></p><p>There's never <em>been</em> anything "mystic" about regular ol' spells in 5e. The whole point of spells is that (assuming the rolls go in your favor) they work exactly as described. All cantrips are is <em>ready-to-hand</em> magic. In principle, it's fine to say that you want magic to feel special or unusual...but if that's the case, you really shouldn't be letting people play classes <em>fundamentally built around casting spells</em> in the first place. (And, honestly, that may mean 5e just isn't for you; I hate gatekeeping arguments but when a full <em>half</em> of all PHB classes are full 9th-level-spells casters, I'm not sure that you're being offered a game where magic is mystical.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8495039, member: 6790260"] I have obliquely mentioned this already, but this exact kind of thinking is exactly why this problem persists. But DMs overall...aren't great at catching this. It's hard to make good time pressure--doubly so to do it consistently enough to make "5MWDs" (more on that later) rare. That's another side of this polyhedral problem. Even DMs that [I]succeed[/I] at time pressure just (finally) let martials play catch-up. They aren't mitigating the times the martials can't catch up, or elect not to. And, as has always been the case, martials have every reason to support "5MWD" behavior. They lose nothing personally, but gain second-hand by the party's net gain. Why [I]wouldn't[/I] you choose to have more gas in the tank? Coming back to "five minute workday." The name is deceptive. It's rarely literally 5 min, or 15, or what-have-you. Even heavy-LR classes (Wiz, Druid, Cleric) usually want at least one SR/day. Plus, there's tons of time padding one can do. Research/training, social encounters where magic is a bad idea (or you have enough already), shopping, travelling, planning. All productive...and all null-resource filler, padding out the day so it doesn't look or feel like five minutes even though it realistically is. All this and more makes the problems hard to spot, and harder still to fix. It's not like this is scheming, conniving optimizers wresting control from poor, beleaguered DMs. It's all pretty above-board, no abuse required. "Hey, I'm out of spells, maybe we should call it a day" is perfectly rational, especially if it's the party healer, or there's a major challenge ahead and the party needs every resource it can get. Worse, with 5e SR being 1 hour, the gap between "enough time pressure that a day's wait is too much" and either "too much so even 1 hour is unwise" or "too little so it made no difference" is narrower than it seems. Particularly when you must sell the players on this being consistently true session after session for most, if not all, of a campaign. 24 hour or smaller time pressure induces a lot of anxiety, making it hard to maintain long-term. Isn't anything that makes magic a systematic and (relatively, up to attack rolls/saving throws) reliable structure inherently de-mystified? This is a complaint I've never really understood about D&D magic. It's already de-mystified. That's the whole point of having a chapter spelling (heh) out exactly how magic works and what, precisely, each bit of magic does. There's never [I]been[/I] anything "mystic" about regular ol' spells in 5e. The whole point of spells is that (assuming the rolls go in your favor) they work exactly as described. All cantrips are is [I]ready-to-hand[/I] magic. In principle, it's fine to say that you want magic to feel special or unusual...but if that's the case, you really shouldn't be letting people play classes [I]fundamentally built around casting spells[/I] in the first place. (And, honestly, that may mean 5e just isn't for you; I hate gatekeeping arguments but when a full [I]half[/I] of all PHB classes are full 9th-level-spells casters, I'm not sure that you're being offered a game where magic is mystical.) [/QUOTE]
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