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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dragonblade" data-source="post: 915867" data-attributes="member: 2804">Excellent responses all! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />However, I feel that the word "gritty" has been co-opted by DM's who prefer to run low magic games.  As if high magic games cannot be gritty.High magic games can in fact be very gritty.  And they also give a PC group far more options to overcome obstacles.Lets say we have a low magic game where every fight is a life or death situation.  And because the game is low magic, no one has anything more than a +1 sword.To me a combat in this world comes down to die rolls.  Who will survive?  Who will fall?  The first person to roll that critical!  The battle is going to be a relatively static back and forth exchange of blows or arrows.No in a high magic game that same battle is drastically altered.  Now you have opponents who can fly, or ones blasting away with their own spells.  Invisible opponents or ethereal ones.The PCs in such a game are forced to think about strategy in more than just two dimensions.  They have to use every spell in their arsenal to stay alive.  The wizard cast fly on himself to get out of melee.  Haste and Bull's Strength on the fighter.  Perhaps their opponent has barricaded himself behind a wall of force.  Well now the group frantically checks their spell list to see who has dimension door or teleport handy!Too me this is far more exciting and also far more challenging!I also notice some of you dislike high-magic because it allows players to get around the constraints of your plot.  Well thats simple.  Change your plot to embrace high magic rather than fearing it!Have rooms that can only be reached by teleporting into them.  Instead of making the dungeon a dead magic zone so that the PCs have to go through a fun house of booby traps, have the traps use magic.  Walls that can only be spider climbed up!  Vast chasms that can only be flown across, etc! Give the bad guys as much or more magic than the PC's.  Now the relative power level is the same as in a low magic game thus ensuring "grittiness" but the PC's have a lot more options and abilities at their disposal than swing +1 sword ad neauseum!Now I won't defend all spells as not being game breaking, but Haste is not one of them.  Rather the spells that WotC should eliminate are Detect Alignment, Scry and some Divination spells.  IMO, these are the spells that ruin a good plot.But in the end if your adventure or villains can easily be defeated by clever spell use, than that doesn't mean the spell or the game is "broken".  It more likely means your adventure wasn't very well thought out.Anyway, think about all your best gaming moments at the table.  All of your favorites stories of playing with your friends.  Do your memorable moments include your first level fighter running from kobolds?  Or do they begin with "...And then we teleported into Lich's citadel and then the cleric cast...."?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?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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