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Companion thread to 5E Survivor - Subclasses (Part IX: Paladin)
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8800671" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>I get why you'd say it. It also doesn't work. I <em>know</em> that it's still actually magic.</p><p></p><p></p><p>But "spell slot" <em>isn't</em> "flavor text," is it? It means something. Antimagic fields. Upcast--er, <em>uprallying</em>. "Countercommanding." You <em>can't</em> just change the names--they come with mechanical significance that matters, that runs deep into the heart of the system.</p><p></p><p>My reply to your earlier statement--that I went "on to list some common spell effects"--is that you seem to be trapped in the same kind of thinking I see from a variety of sources, the sources that say Ranger and Paladin needed to be spellcasters and that it was the right choice to offload a bunch of their class features into spells. You are talking about a game where the only way to do special things is to cast spells. I reject that notion entirely. Both the outrightly supernatural, and the more liminal stuff (what I call the "transmundane"), should absolutely be so much <em>more</em> than that. To limit things <em>only</em> to that one narrow mechanical expression is to weaken D&D as a game.</p><p></p><p>There's an underlying further issue though. Even if you could quickly and conveniently wipe away all the mechanical issues with a Warlord who simply takes spells and calls them something that isn't "spells," <em>I would know what they are</em>. I would <em>know</em> what the underlying system is, and it would chafe. Things that are clearly, explicitly <em>not magic in the least</em> and yet copy over the traditional structure of D&D magic? Yeah, that's a problem.</p><p></p><p>It wasn't a problem in 4e because powers aren't spells--they're more fundamental than that. Powers can be <em>anything</em>. Even Melee Basic Attack is a power--literally "I just threw a punch with my hand" can be expressed as a power, because that's just the framework that expresses defined actions. (Skills, meanwhile, cover <em>undefined</em> actions, which is why 4e pushes such an expansive, open-ended concept of skills, and why Skill Challenges are actually really important.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8800671, member: 6790260"] I get why you'd say it. It also doesn't work. I [I]know[/I] that it's still actually magic. But "spell slot" [I]isn't[/I] "flavor text," is it? It means something. Antimagic fields. Upcast--er, [I]uprallying[/I]. "Countercommanding." You [I]can't[/I] just change the names--they come with mechanical significance that matters, that runs deep into the heart of the system. My reply to your earlier statement--that I went "on to list some common spell effects"--is that you seem to be trapped in the same kind of thinking I see from a variety of sources, the sources that say Ranger and Paladin needed to be spellcasters and that it was the right choice to offload a bunch of their class features into spells. You are talking about a game where the only way to do special things is to cast spells. I reject that notion entirely. Both the outrightly supernatural, and the more liminal stuff (what I call the "transmundane"), should absolutely be so much [I]more[/I] than that. To limit things [I]only[/I] to that one narrow mechanical expression is to weaken D&D as a game. There's an underlying further issue though. Even if you could quickly and conveniently wipe away all the mechanical issues with a Warlord who simply takes spells and calls them something that isn't "spells," [I]I would know what they are[/I]. I would [I]know[/I] what the underlying system is, and it would chafe. Things that are clearly, explicitly [I]not magic in the least[/I] and yet copy over the traditional structure of D&D magic? Yeah, that's a problem. It wasn't a problem in 4e because powers aren't spells--they're more fundamental than that. Powers can be [I]anything[/I]. Even Melee Basic Attack is a power--literally "I just threw a punch with my hand" can be expressed as a power, because that's just the framework that expresses defined actions. (Skills, meanwhile, cover [I]undefined[/I] actions, which is why 4e pushes such an expansive, open-ended concept of skills, and why Skill Challenges are actually really important.) [/QUOTE]
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