D&D is best when the magic is high, fast and furious!

[Dragonblade]

But in my game, the characters could ascend by climbing or using ropes just as in yours. But with the addition of magic they now have more options as to how they get up that wall.

The game should be about expanding options not limiting them.

 

[Psion]

Now don't these images elicit a cry of "Yeah!! That's cool!!"?? They do for me. Breathtaking images of amazement. Something that I will never see in the real world or even in any movie.

Sure they do. Great.

But that doesn't seem to be the result of your protest. The result of that would be great heroes continually being upstaged and tromped by carbon copy wizards with the same spells because those spells are the best for their level. And lots of spells that would be cool never come up because nobody selects them because they are underpowered!

Make mine variety! And the key to variety in magic is making spells of the same level about the same utility! Same goes with magic items.

Everybody should get a chance to contribute to their tapestry in their own way, not just everyone who chooses to participate in the same overpowered selections.

 

[Psion]

The game should be about expanding options not limiting them.

If you continue to cater to a few best spells, how is that "expanding options"? By catrering to the spells you decry as being nerfed, you force people to take those spells in order to be competitive. That's not my idea of "options."

 

[A'koss]

We've run high magic campaigns where the world was designed to handle HL magic from the ground up as though societies had actually evolved with it to our latest campaign which has gone entirely in the other direction with low magic and power more closely tied to the character. It's harder to die now, but significantly harder to come back if you do. D&D's philosophy of "easy to die, easy to come back" is great for the occassional gamer, but I think is often detrimental for the long-term campaigners.

I can honestly say I can appreciate both styles of play for what they are, and as it's been pointed out, it's the storyline and player involvement that primarily make it work or make it break. Game balance doesn't have to be spot on either if eveyone is having fun. But that said, I'm a huge proponant of better game balance, especially at higher levels as it can break the fun just as easily (if not more).

I have to disagree with you slightly Noah that reducing the level of magic in D&D "wouldn't take much work". It takes *a lot* of work, primarily because the game is so dependent on it, especially at high levels. Increasing the level of magic will be easier to a certain breakpoint. And if you're playing in Sea Wasp's campaign I'm sure you introduced a whole new set of "challenges" on both sides of the screen...

[Originally posted by Dragonblade:[/i]

All of my fondest gaming memories include doing something outrageous and cool in the game, something that invariably involved a sweet spell combination or taking on a powerful uber magical opponent! Aren't your fondest moments the same way?

Actually, most of my fondest memories surround events that I thought were a little more meaningful than just "the crit that saved us". Most of them surround characters creating something for the campaign that outlasted the character who built it. Building The Golden Lyric (an Inn/Gaming House) in our Greyhawk campaign for example that took years to achieve and over 1.5 million in gold IIRC. Convincing Lolth not to kill my character for foolishly trying to backstab her (rolled a 1) and gaining her as a kind of patron. Having another character build a transplanar "travel" guild for adventurers complete with an expensive "rescue" service. One of my players tried to build an entire city once, his "dream city", which was laden with magic and quite well designed actually... It's these kinds of events that stick out in my mind and often we can't even remember the characters who originally did them.


Cheers,

A'koss.

 

[Fenes 2]

But in my game, the characters could ascend by climbing or using ropes just as in yours. But with the addition of magic they now have more options as to how they get up that wall.

The game should be about expanding options not limiting them.

Then why did you talk about "Walls that can only be spider climbed up! Vast chasms that can only be flown across, etc!" ? If you allow some options others become obsolete.

 

[Gothmog]

Originally posted by Dragonblade:

As an addendum to my last post. I would also like to dispute the notion that high magic games or "magic as science" doesn't have the same sense of wonder as low magic.

Well, IMO, high magic is much more wondrous than low magic. Imagine airships flying across the sky!

Not one young dragon swooping down but a Colossal Great Wyrm stretched across a treasure horde of millions of gold pieces!

Armies of giants storming a fortress while hundreds of wizards unleash meteor storms in their midst!

A paladin champion dual wielding +5 Holy Avengers of Speed in a furious duel against a powerful Vampire lord and his +8 Unholy Reaver of Souldrinking!

Now don't these images elicit a cry of "Yeah!! That's cool!!"?? They do for me. Breathtaking images of amazement. Something that I will never see in the real world or even in any movie.

Meh. Those things do nothing for me. Mostly because I have seen those things done 1000 times before, and they don't get any more impressive in the latter attempts. If anything, it makes magic seem even MORE mundane when these things are commonly encountered. It just seems like putting a lot of extra flash in the game when that effort could be better spent on plot and interesting locales. I'm not saying that all high-magic games are extremely linear with simple plots, but almost every high magic game I have been in has been that way.

Originally posted by Fenes2:

This is exactly what I hate - the abilities and skills of the non-spellcasting classes are worth nothing in such a high-magic game. And if they can do something, it is thanks to a magic item.

Exactly! This is one of my primary gripes with high magic- the fighters and rogues become next to useless. Same comparison could be made in the old WEG's Star Wars game to anyone who didn't play a Jedi. In fact, in one guy's game I played in, if you didn't have some sort of spellcasting concept built into your character, you were at a huge disadvantage and possibly even useless baggege for the group. Thats a play style I hate, and will avoid at all costs.

 

[Dragonblade]

I put that as an example of embracing high magic. You could have walls that don't need to be spider-climbed up and then you can go up the mundane way or the magical way.

And let me change my example since I worded it poorly, instead of saying walls that can only be spiderclimbed up, I should have said, a wall of ice or solid stone wall coated with a strange oily substance.

Now the PC's can try to climb up normally. It will be difficult but could be done. They could try to spider climb up. Again difficult but could be done. They could fly up. They could see if there is a ledge above and dimension door up to it, etc. The point is they aren't limited to just one method of getting up.

 

[Gothmog]

Originally posted by Dragonblade:

All of my fondest gaming memories include doing something outrageous and cool in the game, something that invariably involved a sweet spell combination or taking on a powerful uber magical opponent! Aren't your fondest moments the same way?

One of my fondest memories is of my low-level 1E dwarf fighter/thief disgising himself as a goblin to infiltrate a goblin citadel and sabotage the gate mechanism. Role-playing through his skulking through the complex, bluffing the goblin captain, and having an improvised weapon battle in the gate mechanism room with the goblin savant while he was trying to prevent me from opening the gate for the dwarven warband is one of my fondest gaming memories. I was 3rd/4th level at the time, and had no magic weapons or items except potions of CLW and feather fall. Everybody is different- some like tons of magic, and others couldn't care if there was none.

 

[Dragonblade]

This is exactly what I hate - the abilities and skills of the non-spellcasting classes are worth nothing in such a high-magic game. And if they can do something, it is thanks to a magic item.

This is exactly what I love! I think our approach is somewhat different. You don't want magic to be integral to the story or the game.

I do. I want magic to be integral to the game. I think you should have magic items or spellcasting ability to be able to survive. It makes the game more interesting for me, not less. More fantastic and more amazing.

I'm trying to think of a real world analogy that shows the gulf between us. How about airplanes? We are highly dependant on airplanes to travel around the globe or the country but people don't complain that they hate being dependant on airplanes. Nor are people lamenting the fact that those who want to drive are overshadowed by those who buy a plane ticket.

To me thats how silly your arguments sound. Because you are going to limit your games to cars and trucks you are in a sense limiting your game to one city, to carry the analogy. But in my game we can get to any city all over the world and can still drive cars too!

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

This is exactly what I love! I think our approach is somewhat different. You don't want magic to be integral to the story or the game.

I do. I want magic to be integral to the game. I think you should have magic items or spellcasting ability to be able to survive. It makes the game more interesting for me, not less. More fantastic and more amazing.

I'm trying to think of a real world analogy that shows the gulf between us. How about airplanes? We are highly dependant on airplanes to travel around the globe or the country but people don't complain that they hate being dependant on airplanes. Nor are people lamenting the fact that those who want to drive are overshadowed by those who buy a plane ticket.

To me thats how silly your arguments sound. Because you are going to limit your games to cars and trucks you are in a sense limiting your game to one city, to carry the analogy. But in my game we can get to any city all over the world and can still drive cars too!

Your analogy would work if Magic was real...but it isn't...and this is a game. Not every class has magic. By playing in a game that favors spellcasters, the non-spellcasting classes are hurt VERY badly. That's what I, and most of the other posters here, don't like about most high magic games.