[D&D Design Discussion] Preserving the "Sweet Spot"

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

And for some people this is not a problem at all.

They do have cost/consequence (mostly)
Raise dead: It's only as easy to cast as it is to find diamond dust.
Commune: I don't nerf commune but I also tend to litter my campaigns with childish, self-centered, know-little, ancient-Greek-style gods. Sure, commune will get you truthful answers but the gods don't have all the answers and so sometimes you just get the gods true opinion on the matter.
Plane Shift: Like raise dead, they need to find these tuning forks. Make them rare and PS is rare.
Teleport: I admit, it would be nice if the RAW had more anti-teleport spells besides the 8th level dimension lock.

Which, basically, is what we're talking about, just a matter of degree. I'd prefer such spells to be 'at the speed of plot' as it were; instead (and this is a central tenet of 3e I think), players are encouraged to think of them as entitlements, and that if I don't let them have them, I'm ruining their fun. Pushing these spells to the end of the curve still lets me introduce them on an ad hoc basis, but I don't have to plan around them, and they don't become common.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

One thing I always introduce into my home-made campaigns is something stolen from Steven Brust's Dragaeran series of books.

The Morganti Blades.

These are essentially soul-stealing blades, and are used only when you absoultely positively have to have your opponent dead. No resurrections.

Nodding to the ease of being raised from the dead in DnD with enough resources, the saying goes like this...

If you want to give someone a warning, send in an assassin to kill them.
If you want to really kill someone, send in an assassin with a Morganti Blade.

Of course, all those in power and with resources absolutely despise such things, so the ownership and use of them is highly illegal, probably more so than any other item. By using Morganti blades in my games I can keep around any PC that died due to a poor roll or bad luck, but if its a cinematic BBEG battle he may be sporting a Morganti blade and then you know this battle is for keeps.

DS

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

One thing I always introduce into my home-made campaigns is something stolen from Steven Brust's Dragaeran series of books.

I've been borrowing Morganti blades for years. I also swiped his 'puke on teleport' too. Cuts down on the scry/buff/teleport technique if you've got a good chance of puking your guts out for several rounds after you arrive.

(As an aside, the next Vlad book, Dzur, comes out tomorrow!)

 

[jmucchiello]

I claim not to be a low-magic type? I am sure that would come as a surprise to all the folks who purchased Grim Tales.

I have said that this thread that this is not specifically a low-magic complaint, and it's not.

But I say this thread is a quintessential low-magic complaint thread. You just complain later then most since you can handle invisibility and fly. The low-magic complaint threads also nash their teeth on the evils of teleport, plane shift, raise dead and commune.

(Once again this is no indictment or finger waggling pomposity. There's nothing wrong with low-magic. I'm just trying to get you to see that all you've done is move the cutoff point for when magic becomes too much for you.)

And as I said above, I don't have a problem with the default magic level of D&D up through the sweet spot. And that's why you have not seen any complaint about invisibility or fly, or the availability of magic items, or alternate spell systems like "spell burn" and so on.

You haven't proven to me that 9th level is past the "sweet spot". I say it stays sweet through to 30th level. In fact, it's somewhat bland before 10th level as compared to after 10th level.

The Fellowship of the Ring.

You know, if I had to pick something iconic and genre-defining.

Huh? LOTR has no D&D rogue for whom a lock is beneath him. Which door do you refer to here? My Tolkein-fu is minimal.

But you missed the point. I mean "dramatic obstacle" in the sense of "not a forgone conclusion."

No, I didn't miss the point. You can have all the dramatic obstacles you like. But when the characters are 20th level. Don't use a locked door for this purpose. Afterall, not only do the locks not stop the thief, but the wizard can passwall, dim door, teleport without error. The cleric can stone shape. And quite frankly, the fighter should be able to shoulder the door if you want a really heroic effect.

You obviously haven't been playing it as a Gamist experience. Since the beginning of the thread we've had folks chiming in on how simple it is to fix this problem with D&D if we just change the focus away from the broken mechanics and concentrate on story, and I've been saying all along that the point of the design exercise is to fix it within 3rd edition's decidedly Gamist framework.

Gee, I thought I had a rep for being like 90% gamist. I don't see that the game is broken. You do. That is our disconnect. Until you can convince me that teleport, commune, and the rest of the 5th level spells you have a problem with but that I've never had a problem with for 25 years are supposed to sour the game for me, we can't speak the same language.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Yeah, I'm going with some version of puke on teleport, I think. Fort save vs. nausea and Will save vs. confusion, with neither effect to last more than 2d6 rounds.

Overkill?

 

[Mark]

Yeah, I'm going with some version of puke on teleport, I think. Fort save vs. nausea and Will save vs. confusion, with neither effect to last more than 2d6 rounds.

Overkill?

Add in a chance of insanity for overuse of any magic and you've got a winner. Static magic, like items that don't have one/off powers might also have some long-lasting effects but high level spells should come with a cummulative and progressively higher chance of driving the caster mad as a (tall-pointy) hatter.

 

[BryonD]

What impact would it have if you replaced D20s with 3d6 and made all 3 be exploding?
You replace a wide linear range with a skewed bell curve over a wider overall range.

You could pull down high DCs a little and nudge open a window where a secondary character could do the heroic task with a really good roll.

 

[Eltharon]

Huh? LOTR has no D&D rogue for whom a lock is beneath him. Which door do you refer to here? My Tolkein-fu is minimal.

There are some in The Hobbit, as i recall.
There is, of course, the Dwarven Magic door in FotR, but it doesnt get picked.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Yeah, I'm going with some version of puke on teleport, I think. Fort save vs. nausea and Will save vs. confusion, with neither effect to last more than 2d6 rounds.

Overkill?

I'm not so sure... I'd make the mechanic more like Hold Person - you can Fort Save your way out of it. I don't think I'd go with Confusion; I'd pick some other way of mimiizing the fighters.

In one 1E game I played in, Teleport involved travelling through an immensely cold transitive plane, and if you messed up, you could get caught between. Perhaps a time delay based on familiarity, with cold damage accruing each round? Or you could make it far realms based - then you've got your justification for the Puke/Confusion effect.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Huh? LOTR has no D&D rogue for whom a lock is beneath him. Which door do you refer to here? My Tolkein-fu is minimal.

That wasn't the set up. The set up question you asked was "Picking a lock is neither heroic nor dramatic. Locks should be made obsolete as a dramatic obstacle. Tell me of a legendary story where a lock gets picked?"

I'm not sure if this is what Wulf meant by his reference to Fellowship, but the entrance to the mines of Moria were certainly blocked by a door that took a serious effort to overcome. It wasn't a rogue picking a mechanical lock, but are all locks mechanical devices? Just guessing that was what he referenced.

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But to the topic, I believe there is a sweet spot that even WotC recognizes. For evidence, the RPGA's Living Greyhawk (which uses the rules pretty much as written) forcibly retires characters once they achieve 16th level. It was once going to be open to 20th levels, then they put in 18th level retirement, then 17th level, and now once 16th level is reached... retired from the campaign.

And combat between 9th level and 15th level is one continuous series of all of the worst problems that have been described through various "high level play nightmare" threads.