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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Herremann the Wise" data-source="post: 5810099" data-attributes="member: 11300">Here's the thing though, what if magic can do anything... eventually. Part of the problem from earlier editions to 3e is that spellcasting has become automatic with a reduced chance of interruption. That problem was compounded by most players not seeking to take advantage of the ways how you could disrupt casting. 4e did a great job of separating out rituals from "spells" but then didn't capitalize on it. I sincerely hope that D&Dn continues with this distinction. If rituals are powerful but take time, resources and planning, and spells are cast but are easier to disrupt, then I think you start bringing back the combat power level of casters to their more mundane colleagues.Why can't non-spellcasters be good with the resources they are good at: loads of hit points to avoid being affected, better defenses that increase in a mundane way (skill bonuses to AC) rather than capping out and relying on magic to take them the rest of the way? Why not use the bulk of stuff from 4e that IS believable, fun and makes mundane characters interesting to play as well as poweful? Make the melee-monster-magic a ritual that takes an hour and uses resources. Or you could take it further and make it usable only from a scroll, where a scroll is not a spell or ritual impressed upon vellum but is its own individual thing, unreplicable as either spell or ritual.You need to learn how to make this scroll and you don't make it easy. It might take years of study, expensive resources or be incredibly specialized requiring a whole bunch of pre-requisites or all of these. Crafting the scroll takes time and it might not be 100% effective all the time, it might have side effects. A caster using it might not be certain of what they get, that is part of what I was referring to as far as magic being dark  and mysterious.A swordsman can be confident with his weaponry and his capacity with that weaponry. A wizard might have confidence with certain magic but would be pushing themselves with other magic. Spells don't need to be deadly, they just need to be capable of fizzing, or using further resources of the spellcaster whether it be their capacity or aspects of their health. You make it so that a player cannot spam these special abilities willy-nilly. They only pull them out when necessary rather than be their typical modus operandi. It does not have to be. What if the introductory spell for flying takes a standard action to sustain meaning a spellcaster can only use move/minor actions and thus the spells they can cast becomes limited to spells castable as minor or move actions? Such spells are obviously less powerful. Or you make Flying a ritual that takes time to cast but only has a short duration. There are so many ways you can limit these spells.As for the mundane fighter, if he can put an arrow into the caster, perhaps the caster needs to use all of their actions to avoid plummeting? Make flying riskier so the caster needs to rely on circumstances being favourable or being made favourable.Invisibility might not be 100% perfect. When an invisible character moves, the light might refract around them in a perceptible pattern that perceptive characters have a greater chance to notice.What I'm getting at here is that you put limits on these spells so that there is an innate fairness to the magic; a fairness that admittedly wasn't necessarily there in previous editions.Why can't spellcasters be good at what they are good at which is perhaps a small subset of the "complete" set of magic. Perhaps there is a further subset of magic that they can cast but is uncertain, leaving the rest of the set of magic beyond their reach. Sometimes what they do will be effective but the guarantee of its effectiveness is no longer there.There are so many ways to limit magic as I've highlighted above. Rationing their use through the Vancian system is really just a small part of what is possible and richly thematic.Extend the capacity for at will spell casting. Also reduce the PCs capacity to control their environment at higher levels. Making shifting/teleporting or MMMing expensive and difficult rather than adventuring macro number one will go a long way to forcing a group to soldier on (rather than the DM having to constantly rehash the "x" is going to happen in "y" hours time trope).You reduce the access and automaticity (making up a word) of spellcasting. It is powerful given optimum conditions, but those optimum conditions are not easily garnered, particularly during combat. Combat needs to be a rough place for the wizard to be.Protection from arrows in 3e was too powerful. There needs to be a "lesser" version that is like a 4e shield spell but requires actions/resources from the caster to use while the effect lasts. Have the full version be a higher spell that is good against grunts but not as effective against the dedicated archer.Casters in 3e really had carte blanche in their actions. The thing is, it is not difficult to ratchet this back a step; limiting such magic but still keeping the wondrous essence so that the caster is still "special" enough. You can limit the caster without resorting to the "hp damage plus condition" ethos that turned a significant subset of wizard-lovers off of 4e.Again I say, it should not be difficult to keep caster-players happy while keeping mundane characters relevant, necessary, powerful, desirable-to-play and significant.Excellent discussion by the way.Best RegardsHerremann the Wise</blockquote>

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