Falling off the 4ed bandwagon

[Garthanos]

When I think creativity, I think how can I take the vast multitude of parts available to me and build the Apollo 13.

joe b.

From everything I heard where they had designers talking about the process of making space flight happen.... they needed things "they didn't have' and had to come up with new things and bend old things or invent something fresh because it was a problem they had never encountered before. That is what stuck in their minds when they talk about it later. They didn't talk about finding just right piece amongst the hoard of possible options.

 

[Barastrondo]

Having a pixie with 30 DEX raises the question of what dexterity is meant to represent and undermines the simulation goal of the 3-18 range. Whether such extraordinary PCs belong in an adventuring party is up to each individual group, but personally I'm bored by that sort of powergaming, and consider it the province of Exalted, not D&D.

There's always making them the targets of fear and assassination, for with great power comes great threat.

It's just interesting to me, is all. Some choices of special effects — some skins, if you will — are expected to go beyond the usual boundaries, while others are not. In some games, spellcasters have the permission to go beyond the usual boundaries that others are held behind to make casting magic more special; in other games, players are allowed to play unusual races and/or use a different scale for attributes to make their inherent magic more special. Like I say, everyone plays D&D differently.

 

[RangerWickett]

I want to give kudos to the folks contributing to this thread. I'm really digging it, and it's giving me some inspiration for my house rules as I gear up for a new campaign.

 

[pawsplay]

Scry-and-die comes close in 3e, as an example. There are countermeasures but they tend to be non-core and require that any serious opposition has significant magical backup. I'll not argue that it's perfect, just that it's an incredibly versatile and powerful tactic.

Hmm. Hasn't come up much. Truly, at the level at which a party has easy access to greater scrying and lots of "die" spells, that is only one of several very versatile and powerful tactics. Also, scrying allows a Will save and SR, and you get only one attempt per 24 hours. So it works really great on unsuspecting frost giant barbarians, I guess, but not so great against dragons, high level NPCs, etc.

 

[FireLance]

Because one is an exercise of creativity using a spell which is a mainstay of D&D, while the other is a "turn it up to 11" exercise in nullifying the ability score range and creating superhero PCs.

...

Then there's the fact that magic is special. Why shouldn't it cause extraordinary circumstances occasionally? I've never witnessed this apparently common setup of the mage dominating every situation with spells, because a role of the DM is to balance that stuff out. If an adventuring mage is becoming the sine qua non in a campaign, he's also going to become the target of fear and assassination. With great power comes great threat.

I'm highlighting this as a one of the key tropes of D&D which I'm happy to see changed, namely the idea that anything is possible with magic. There are two seemingly contradictory reasons why I dislike it: first, because it it's too restrictive and second, because it isn't restrictive enough. Confused? Let me explain.

The "too restrictive" bit comes in when the idea that "anything is possible with magic" becomes twisted into "some things are only possible with magic" and winds up being a statement of limitation instead of a statement of possibility. While limitations have their place in an RPG, I believe that they should always be subordinate to the central theme that nothing is impossible. In other words, limitations may make achieving a goal more challenging, but they should not make it impossible. Limitations might close off certain means, but the players should have alternate ways to achieve their ends.

The "not restrictive enough" bit comes in when the basic idea gets turned into "anything is possible even with small amounts of magic". This is admittedly a greyer area. Most DMs do want to reward the creative use of spells and other abilities, but may not be happy when the originally creative solution gets used repeatedly and effectively becomes an unanticipated power-up. It's not a problem unique to magic, but magic tends to get more of a pass simply because it is magic.

This is why these days, I tend to take the approach of: "Anything is possible with sufficient skill". This preserves the idea that anything is possible, but broadens it to emphasize that objectives can be achieved with a variety of skills, not just magic, and at the same time narrows it to highlight that certain effects can only be achieved with higher levels of skill.

 

[Mark]

I'm highlighting this as a one of the key tropes of D&D which I'm happy to see changed, namely the idea that anything is possible with magic.

Could you point that out in the passage you quoted, because I am not seeing it, namely or otherwise. As to your idea that "Anything is possible with sufficient skill," I would counter that magic is just a skill of a different nature and I would not like that idea either. Once characters are capable of achieving any goal, no matter the means, the game becomes boring, IMO.

 

[Mort]

A lot of the criticism of Vancian casting seems predicated on an assumption that a caster will know exactly which spells they'll need to get out of hock on an adventure. If water breathing saves a PC from drowning, then that's either pure luck or clever reconnaissance. I don't see how it becomes a cheesy get-out-of-jail-free card in any circumstance. It's equally possible that water breathing won't get used, and to have it the caster gave up a spell that may have saved the day.

As was said way up thread (which is admittedly both quite long and way of topic at this point) this may have held true for earlier editions of D&D but not so much for 3e were scrolls become really easy. water breathing is the perfect example of the type of spell that you don't need often, you may never actually need it, but when you need it you really need it. As such it's the perfect spell for a scroll, and because the mage likely scribed it levels ago, he's not really feeling the cost later. Same goes for knock, tongues, and a whole host of other "perfect for scrolls" spells. The 3e mage has so much versatility as a result it's scary (and quite boring for the rest of the party really).

Then there's the fact that magic is special. Why shouldn't it cause extraordinary circumstances occasionally?

See the problem is 3e magic isn't that special. Sure there's a lot of fluff saying it is and a lot of text about exotic words, ingredients and the like. But at the end of the day, the mage casts a spell, it goes off, does exactly what he wants, and he moves on to the next spell (with extraordinarily few exceptions even at high levels). It's exactly as mechanical as the fighter swinging his sword, only with one shot more fantastic results.
I like magic being more powerful in systems where there are risks involved for the caster, but D&D does not do that at all.

I've never witnessed this apparently common setup of the mage dominating every situation with spells, because a role of the DM is to balance that stuff out. If an adventuring mage is becoming the sine qua non in a campaign, he's also going to become the target of fear and assassination. With great power comes great threat.

I've not only witnessed it I've done it - completely unintentionally. I was just trying to play an effective mage - no cheesetastic char-op builds. The DM tried to compensate but because a well played mage is so versatile (and can laugh at spell resistance, btw) he wound up hamstringing the rest of the party long before he could affect my character.

 

[FireLance]

Could you point that out in the passage you quoted, because I am not seeing it, namely or otherwise. As to your idea that "Anything is possible with sufficient skill," I would counter that magic is just a skill of a different nature and I would not like that idea either. Once characters are capable of achieving any goal, no matter the means, the game becomes boring, IMO.

While not explicit, it seems to be the idea behind sentences such as:

"Because one is an exercise of creativity using a spell which is a mainstay of D&D" - why just spells and not any other abilities?

"Then there's the fact that magic is special" - why just magic and not any other type of skill?

I agree that magic is just a skill of a different nature. At least, it should be - which was my entire point. And IMO, part of the attraction of RPGs (at least to me) is that characters are capable of achieving any goal, at least in theory, although not necessarily immediately and certainly not necessarily easily. To me, the choice of what skill to use should be like the choice of what road to take to Rome: they should all get you there eventually, but you may experience different obstacles depending on your choice.

 

[Mark]

While not explicit, it seems to be the idea behind sentences such as:

"Because one is an exercise of creativity using a spell which is a mainstay of D&D" - why just spells and not any other abilities?

"Then there's the fact that magic is special" - why just magic and not any other type of skill?

The first sentence calls for magic to be used in ways not thought of by designers of the game, but I would argue that's also true of equipment, skills, abilities, etc. Magic is special because it has no real world example as a guide. When I create a range of weights that can be lifted using the Strength ability, I have real world examples to assess for guidance. So, too, when I create a rope using skill. Or when I calibrate the varying effectiveness of weapons or armor. I don't know. That's my take on what was said. Maybe you have it right. I'll leave it to the quoted to settle it.

I agree that magic is just a skill of a different nature. At least, it should be - which was my entire point. And IMO, part of the attraction of RPGs (at least to me) is that characters are capable of achieving any goal, at least in theory, although not necessarily immediately and certainly not necessarily easily. To me, the choice of what skill to use should be like the choice of what road to take to Rome: they should all get you there eventually, but you may experience different obstacles depending on your choice.

I don't believe that the City on the Hill is ever meant to be reached (unless you're done playing).

 

[Beginning of the End]

I am going to say that its funny that you have to houserule to do something like this. Your character has an action left yet technically by the core rules you can only stand there and watch a fellow adventurer fall to his death. Little too rules tight for me.

I'm pretty anti-4E myself (since it's deliberately designed to be antithetical to everything I enjoy about gaming), but I find your critique of it here funny. It's not like 3E features mechanical support for out-of-turn actions in combat.