"I know the spell to solve the problem!"

[Dannyalcatraz]

I was addressing his specific point that casters in his campaign don't have the time.

Right.

And I was reiterating that "not having time" is an element of why OUR casters don't craft. It is just that- for us, at least- it is as much a self-imposed limitation from our RP as one imposed by the DM moving the campaign world's events along.

Above a certain level, isn't the XP/gold cost trivial?

Depends on the campaign. We've had games where all the PCs were upper class & wealthy- GP were never a scarce resource, even at lower levels- and others where the PCs were living treasure to treasure.

You know my 13th level Geomancer from the RttToEE campaign that drives Hussar nuts when I describe it? He has 3 scrolls- as-yet unidentified treasure*- and several magic items...but less than 1000GP negotiable wealth. He'd have to barter items or services for anything more than that.





* going back to that thread's discussion, he also has 3 wands- all treasure found with charges only in the low teens- 2 of which are of mid-level attack spells and the third, like the scrolls, is as-yet unidentified.

 

[Spatula]

Bug. This drove me crazy in 3e. The ease of getting your hands on magic meant that when confronted with a problem, the players would hit the books to look for a spell that would instantly solve it, instead of trying to figure something out themselves.

In earlier editions, magic was generally more limited (depends on the DM, really), but it also curbstomped the poor thief. It's not just that knock always works or that invisibility lasts 8 hours. On top of that, the thief's chances of successfully using his/her skills were abysmal, and usually could only be tried once.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Yeah, having a spell for every things was a major bug in 3.x

And a big reason fighters and rogues were left behind, as well as any player who wanted to use their braing to figure things out.

Skills are still a barrier to useing a brain to think things out, but a lesser one.

 

[Elf Witch]

I meant to vote for it depends but evil kitty chose that moment to climb my bare leg and my hand jerked.

I think that the spells are in the game to make it possible to accomplish things without a full party. I am playing a wizard and when I was playing with the full party I never bothered with spells like knock because It made no sense to use up a valuable slot on something that the party rogue could accomplish without wasting resources. Now my wizard is no longer with the party. I am playing her in a one on one game with the DM. It is just her and an cleric NPC without access to utility spells like knock we would be hosed.

As for scribing scrolls and making items we have never had a lot of time off and most of mine was spent just trying find time to scribe scrolls into my spellbook . I know in different games that may not be a problem.

I dislike the way 4 handles knock I think it royally screws over the wizard forcing them give up resources like gold and a healing surge for a spell that helps the entire party. And for a party without a rogue it really screws the wizard. The cost becomes to high.

As for adding to skill bonuses that also seem rather unfair to me Here again you are asking the wizard to use a spell slot to add a bonus to a skill that is not a class skill and most likely won't make enough of a difference to actually open the door.

Part of this issue is a player issue why would you as a wizard have scrolls and wands of knock when you have a rogue in the party who has built a lock picking character, you would have to know that you would be stepping all over his toes.

As for the other spells take charm everyone is acting like it is better than bluff well lets look at it. First of all you have to succeed at the spell if the NPC makes his save he knows you just tried to cast a spell on him good luck in getting him to help you then. And even if you get the spell off it means he is friendly to you that does not mean he will do what you ask. You may still have to bluff to get your way just now it is easier.

Speak to dead only works if the person saw who killed him which is why poison and arrows in the back are good for murder mysteries.

And there are ways around detect evil. If you know that people have the power to detect evil then you would use your resources to find away to stop it magically.

 

[Hassassin]

You're telling me your campaigns never have the "ok you guys saved x, again, take a much needed week off!"

No, I'm saying there are a lot of things a Wizard would rather spend his time on than scribing knock scrolls, like writing new spells to their spellbook.

Yes there might. Are all locked doors trapped in your world too?

And again, this is just knock - there are a host of low level offending utility spells.

Not all locked doors are trapped, but not all traps are on locked doors either. To replicate something the rogue can do for free (checking for traps, opening locks), you'd need a Wizard to cast a 2nd level spell and either a Cleric to cast a 2nd level spell or a combination of some mundane skill + detect magic. Then if there *is* a trap, you still have to disarm it.

Is that overpowered? Not in my opinion. Does the Wizard make a rogue's open locks redundant? Yes, if the wizard has high enough level and sacrifices some resources. Does the Wizard make the rogue's whole skillset redundant? Not by a long shot.

I agree that some utility spells solve problems a bit too easily, but I don't consider knock to be one of them. OTOH, spells like create food and water or rope trick make a whole class of challenges a non-issue, even if they don't directly overlap anyone's skills.

 

[Hassassin]

That is purely a setting issue. I can make mages/magic illegal in my campaign world and that would solve the problem too, but it does not address the mechanic issue.

Everything in the game is ultimately a setting/campaign issue.

You might have a wilderness campaign without any locks and traps. No one would even have to "steal the limelight" to make some of the rogue's skills useless. OTOH, you might have a campaign world where natural antimagic fields are very common, and the wizard would be weaker.

Nothing in the rules says all spells and items are always available. If someone plays his campaign that way and has problems, maybe the rules are not to blame?

 

[Rogue Agent]

Above a certain level, isn't the XP/gold cost trivial?

You're like the guy saying, "$4 lattes every day is a trivial cost." But $1500 per year here and $1500 per year there and suddenly you're talking about real money.

Let's put some numbers on this. Let's very conservatively estimate that the group only encounters 4 locks per level. That 80 locks in 20 levels. If you're using knock scrolls to open them, you've just spent 12,000 gp worth of wealth. IOW, there are some pretty useful items you've passed up in order to buy those scrolls.

If you want to talk about just knock spells, then, sure, there's probably a point in the high teens where the costs become sufficiently trivial that it just doesn't matter.

But we're explicitly not talking just about knock. The knock spell is being proffered as just one example of a wide and pervasive range of spells which are supposedly knocking out broad swaths of character utility from the other classes.

Let's say there are just 10 such spells. Now we're talking about 120,000 gp. Hmm... That's starting to look like a significant chunk of change.

OTOH, if we are just talking about knock and nothing else... Well, then, I don't really care. I don't think the rogue somehow becomes instantly unenjoyable if their theoretical monopoly on lock picking has been disrupted. (I've seen plenty of rogues who didn't put any points into Open Lock in the first place.)

I've seen lots of niche-interference problems in my years of gaming. Most of them came in purely skill-based systems when two players stepped on each other's toes. Of those that I've seen in D&D, it's never been because the spellcasters have decided to throw their limited resources after problems that have limitless solutions. I'm not saying it never happens; but I am saying that these problems are pretty much fundamentally unavoidable, and going after examples of niche-interference that result only because people aren't playing the game very well is going to be a no-win scenario.

(The easiest solution to niche-interference, BTW, is to allow one or both players to rebuild their PCs to find a define a different niche for themselves.

Quickest way to screw a rogue in pre-3E? Have a second player also playing a rogue. Instant niche interference across the board.)

 

[Walking Dad]

I agree that wands are cheaper for continued use than scrolls. Even cheaper were the 'permanent' wand in 3.5 (introduced somewhere in Eberron) that were 2/day. Two of them and you can do the 4 locks example every day at no cost.

 

[LurkAway]

"I know the spell to solve the problem" assumes that the problem is static and absolute.

Yes, you can eliminate the spell. But you can also change the problem or adapt to it.

This is exactly the same dilemma as real-life "magic" (ie., technology) changing the way stories are told in film and novels. The solution is to a) tell stories set in the 1980's or earlier, or b) adapt the story to account for and adapt to fingerprinting and cell phones and Internet (which are different but equally interesting kinds of stories).

In sci-fi, you get to decide whether you want "magic" like teleporting, plasma weapons, spaceships, etc. Good sci-fi asks what kinds of unique stories happen when people can teleport anywhere instead of driving to work? Authors that are afraid of these questions probably shouldn't be writing sci-fi novels.

In D&D, I personally think the Knock spell is a little metagamey in a simulationist sense when I think about it, but I don't want to insulate the players against interesting magic based exclusively on the fear of stepping on toes and stealing the limelight (it is a factor to consider but not necessarily the primary one). When you go down that road, you might as well have a rule preventing 2 players from choosing the same class/build in the same party.

I think that if the players want to roleplay a party of 3 rogues, then make a story with many locks (to make them feel justified for choosing 3 thieves) and obstacles that cannot be unlocked (to give them a challenge). If the players want a rogue and a utility wizard, then adapt the story just as well. In terms of game design, plenty of good ways for balancing interesting edgy magic have been suggested that don't throw out the baby with bathwater.

 

[broghammerj]

I look it at using the character perspective. This generally results in two scenarios for the wizard when he wakes up in the morning (note the rogue in his party):

1. My wizard roles over and wonders...who is that random chap I picked up in the bar for the purpose of killing things and taking their stuff? What was his name? Hopefully he is proficient in helping me assault the evil lords castle. Oh well, lets see. I'll need fly to scale over the walls, knock to get through the doors, etc.

versus

2. Ah, it's good to have my friend, Proficius, with me. All those years together. Remember the time he got us out of that jail in that ramshackle town. Or even better was the time he jumped from the balcony using the curtains to reach the stage in the middle of a performance. Ah well, I better focus at the task at hand. Rumors of the evil lord's demon spirits. Only I can smite them with my lightening....etc.

Never found utility spells to be a problem. I also wasn't an a-hole planning to ruin the rogue or fighter player's time at the table. They do their thing and I do mine.