How powerful should magic be?

[Tinker Gnome]

Powerful spellcasters should be able to do just about anything. Be it destroying a castle to challenging the deities themselves.

 

[Loincloth of Armour]

A 25+ level caster should be able to turn a significant amount of the local real estate into an ocean of lava and slay hundreds of lesser mortals. It's what we expect from our spell-slingers.

But a 25+ level fighter should be able to slay hundreds of lesser mortals (it just will take a bit more time) as well as jump from rock island to rock island in that ocean of lava and get close enough to give that thin guy in robes a run for his or her gold pieces.

Magic should be powerful and give you the opportunity to nudge reality towards what you want. But so long as an equal level character stands an eminantly fair chance of ending your world-wrecking ways via shoving a piece of sharpened steel though your guts, it's all good baby.

 

[Jackelope King]

Depends on the level, but overall, the only measuring stick I want is to keep the overall power level of casters more or less on-par with that of non-casters. I don't mean that I want them to be absolutely identical in every way, but I also dislike the idea of high-level non-casters being forced to play second-fiddle to the casters just as much as I dislike the idea of low-level casters taking a back-seat to non-casters.

 

[Nifft]

In looking at a conversion of the SW Saga rules, something cool emerges.

At low and mid levels, spellcasters can affect warriors (and each other), but at high levels, their Defenses are too high. The only thing that scales as fast as Defenses is BAB. So sure, a 20th level mage can destroy an army -- but a 20th level warrior can kill that mage.

I kinda like that effect.

Cheers, -- N

 

[apoptosis]

I think this is such a fundamental question of the system.

Either basically a fighter is just a wizard with a sword (by that I mean they can basically do everything a wizard can but with a different paradigm) or they are just a fighter. Is magic really the ability to bend the rules or is it just a flavor.

If they balance combat, what about abilities outside of combat. Teleport is better than walking as is flying. Domination is better than intimidation etc.

I think it is probably one of the biggest things to determine when designing a fantasy game (or any game with superhuman powers).

Makes me think that if you want to keep the idea that the fighter can do these superhuman things (and even from the beginning the damage/hp of a higher level fighter even in 1E put him in the superhuman to almost superhuman category) that you should just say that at a certain level the fighters abilities are simply magical (and maybe can be dispelled or canceled in an AMF if they still exist)

 

[Kraydak]

I'd agree with this.

Iron Heroes has a cool conceit called the "Dread Sorcerer" villain class. He can do stuff the PC's can't even dream of, and if the PC's ask how he can do it, Step 1 is selling your soul to a Demon ... so, NPC's only.

Why should selling your soul to a demon be NPC only (in a non setting-specific game)? It isn't as if the literature isn't rife with protagonists who are in more or less voluntary relationships with demonic beings...

Restricting abilities to NPCs really, really annoys me.

 

[drothgery]

In looking at a conversion of the SW Saga rules, something cool emerges.

At low and mid levels, spellcasters can affect warriors (and each other), but at high levels, their Defenses are too high. The only thing that scales as fast as Defenses is BAB. So sure, a 20th level mage can destroy an army -- but a 20th level warrior can kill that mage.

I kinda like that effect.

Cheers, -- N

Actually, outside of Star Wars (where it's a genre convention that high-level Jedi/Sith duke it out with lightsabers), I don't like that effect. My wizard should be able to hurt the BBEG with spells.

 

[jasin]

I love that picture too, but if you think about it that mage isn't very smart.

Must be a sorcerer.

 

[frankthedm]

Why should selling your soul to a demon be NPC only (in a non setting-specific game)? It isn't as if the literature isn't rife with protagonists who are in more or less voluntary relationships with demonic beings...

And how many of those are conductive to being a group enviroment? D&D is about party based play, If that means a caster who reaches world shaping power leaves the scope of the campaign-based play and thus becomes an NPC, so be it. Elric for example is a cool character to read about, but as a member of a D&D party, he gets a failing grade.

Restricting abilities to NPCs really, really annoys me.

Has to be done unless far more time can be devoted to balacing out such things before the game's release. Time better spent on things more groups will use.

 

[jasin]

Eh. That really doesn't need to be Core. At most, a short paragraph in the DMG about the magic spells given in the book being a "mere sample" of what is possible with magic would be enough.

[...]

And when I do world design I always assume that the PHB spell list is just the stuff most often memorized by adventuring wizards. There's a different spell list for the clerics and wizards who spend their lives in "office jobs", tending to their flock or city-folk clientèle.

This is a very interesting point, and I think D&D would be well served with a note like that, preferably even in the PHB.

The PHB list should cover the overwhelming majority of actual play, but in case you need to improve crops yield for a year at the cost of one year from everyone in the village... it would be kind of neat if the option was implicitly included in the rules, so that fewer people's immediate thought was "wait, that's not on the druid list!".