D&D 5E How would YOU nerf the wizard? +

[TwoSix]

I thinks if the chances of failure are reasonably low and if failure has interesting consequences (not all of which have to be negative), there's plenty of room to work here.

It certainly can work. I mean, the entire play loop for casters in DCC RPG is based on the idea that every spell and spellcasting action is open to a ton of variation and randomness.

But on the flip side, you can have something like 3.5 Truenaming.

I feel like for most games, if you put randomness into the spellcasting action, the general result should be "Yes, but consequences" for a bad roll rather than "Spell doesn't work".

 

[Gammadoodler]

It certainly can work. I mean, the entire play loop for casters in DCC RPG is based on the idea that every spell and spellcasting action is open to a ton of variation and randomness.

But on the flip side, you can have something like 3.5 Truenaming.

I feel like for most games, if you put randomness into the spellcasting action, the general result should be "Yes, but consequences" for a bad roll rather than "Spell doesn't work".

Partially agreed. Spells fizzling isn't very interesting.

That said. I think "Yes but consequences" or "No and consequences" can both be fun in their own ways.

It'd require tuning to make the juice worth the squeeze of course, and there'd need to be some guardrails to ensure some level of general effectiveness.

It doesn't need to be unduly punishing. But I think it should be more interesting than infallibility.

 

[Gammadoodler]

No one is arguing that - but a few people seem to be arguing that reliablity has nothing to do with fun or that being less reliable won't impact gameplay.

Most things that have a chance to do nothing don't require a limited resource to attempt. The few few spells that do nothing on a successful save tend to do a lot on a failed save (ie disintegrate)

Do you think the sorcerer class would be more popular if all subclasses had that feature? Do you think people would be happy if all magic was wild magic?

I'd say that's where we already are, making spells less reliable will just increase the number of feelsbad moments for casters without making noncasters get more.

I, for one, don't want to balance the game by taking away the fun parts. I'd rather add more fun parts where they're lacking or make the decision points more interesting.

There are loads of things that cost a resource to potentially do nothing. Indomitable rolls, luck dice, basically any limited source of advantage on anything, action surge attacks that miss, etc.

I think if you asked which subclass, out of all the subclasses feels the most "magical", the Wild Magic Sorcerer would win by a landslide. That said, I don't know one way or the other if people would be more or less happy if all magic worked that way.

I think making spells less reliable could add both feelsgood and feelsbad moments, and what would be sacrificed are the feelsnothing moments.

Also, I think that failure can be made fun.

 

[Lanefan]

It certainly can work. I mean, the entire play loop for casters in DCC RPG is based on the idea that every spell and spellcasting action is open to a ton of variation and randomness.

But on the flip side, you can have something like 3.5 Truenaming.

I feel like for most games, if you put randomness into the spellcasting action, the general result should be "Yes, but consequences" for a bad roll rather than "Spell doesn't work".

Better yet, "spell does something random". You gathered the magic but didn't release it in quite the way you intended, and who knows what happens now? Summon an angel? Or a demon? Heal everyone in the room? Kill someone in the room? Make flowers sprout out of someone's shield? Make yourself uncontrollably sneeze for a few minutes?

The one thing in D&D that can never be big enough are lists and tables of possible wild-magic surge outcomes.

And sure, one of the more common of those random things could very well be "nothing happens", as the magic dissipates harmlessly.

 

[TwoSix]

Better yet, "spell does something random". You gathered the magic but didn't release it in quite the way you intended, and who knows what happens now? Summon an angel? Or a demon? Heal everyone in the room? Kill someone in the room? Make flowers sprout out of someone's shield? Make yourself uncontrollably sneeze for a few minutes?

The one thing in D&D that can never be big enough are lists and tables of possible wild-magic surge outcomes.

And sure, one of the more common of those random things could very well be "nothing happens", as the magic dissipates harmlessly.

I'm fine with that for some caster classes, but not all. Some people have strong preferences for reliability and control that should also be catered to.

An ideal D&D design, for me, recognizes that a lot of different psychological types come to the table for D&D, and uses exception-based design to cater to them. Maybe the wizard uses old-reliable fire and forget, the sorcerer just has elemental blasts, and the warlock is entirely dependent on satisfying their patrons with skill checks.

 

[Reynard]

It might be realistic that your devil summoning only works 40% of the time, but is that actually fun at the table?

Ad with a lot of situations, we can answer this with a "Yes!" if failure doesn't mean "nothing happens." In RPGs broadly but D&D in particular, losing a turn is pretty much the most unfun outcome of any attempt to do anything. If we make misses or failure interesting, we can make some stuff harder.

By the way before anyone leaps at me: yes, I believe this is true for fighters and stuff too. We could easily create outcomes for missed attacks that include something besides "nothing happens."

 

[Gammadoodler]

I'm fine with that for some caster classes, but not all. Some people have strong preferences for reliability and control that should also be catered to.

An ideal D&D design, for me, recognizes that a lot of different psychological types come to the table for D&D, and uses exception-based design to cater to them. Maybe the wizard uses old-reliable fire and forget, the sorcerer just has elemental blasts, and the warlock is entirely dependent on satisfying their patrons with skill checks.

It certainly seems like a good way to differentiate different classes/subclasses.

It's also the kind of thing that can be granted through leveling. Maybe in the later levels, spells you once needed to succeed on a check on to even perform become automatic. Or you can choose between automatic and a rolling a check to try and put some extra mustard on it.

 

[Remathilis]

Better yet, "spell does something random". You gathered the magic but didn't release it in quite the way you intended, and who knows what happens now? Summon an angel? Or a demon? Heal everyone in the room? Kill someone in the room? Make flowers sprout out of someone's shield? Make yourself uncontrollably sneeze for a few minutes?

The one thing in D&D that can never be big enough are lists and tables of possible wild-magic surge outcomes.

And sure, one of the more common of those random things could very well be "nothing happens", as the magic dissipates harmlessly.

Ugh. No. I would hate trying to cast detect magic on a piece of treasure and TPK the party by summoning a demon. Any game built like this would be fun for a session while I try to figure out how many character sheets I can make my party and I go through in a session, but I would hate to play it as a regular game.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm fine with that for some caster classes, but not all. Some people have strong preferences for reliability and control that should also be catered to.

Fair. I see wild magic as much more an arcane/Mage thing (and, if they must be casters, a Bard thing) than a divine/Cleric thing. Clerics have deities behind them making sure things work properly.

An ideal D&D design, for me, recognizes that a lot of different psychological types come to the table for D&D, and uses exception-based design to cater to them. Maybe the wizard uses old-reliable fire and forget, the sorcerer just has elemental blasts, and the warlock is entirely dependent on satisfying their patrons with skill checks.

Again fair, though I'd rather see those three classes concatenated into two (I've never really seen the point of Warlock, it seems like a Mage built on a Cleric chassis).

 

[Lanefan]

Ad with a lot of situations, we can answer this with a "Yes!" if failure doesn't mean "nothing happens." In RPGs broadly but D&D in particular, losing a turn is pretty much the most unfun outcome of any attempt to do anything. If we make misses or failure interesting, we can make some stuff harder.

Or we can just get a whole lot less hung up on missing a turn or ten, and accept it as a known aspect of the game - no matter what class or character we're playing at the time - that not everyone is going to be involved all the time.