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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 6356163" data-attributes="member: 7635">For starters, citing books rarely wins the day. I can turn around and cite Harry Potter as a prime example of caster supremacy, follow it up with Dying Earth, and then top it off with Star Wars to give great examples of magical characters reigning supreme in a world filled with muggles/mundanes. The reason Gandalf doesn't magic away the one ring is plot contrivance; he might not be powerful enough "to melt snow" but he sure can kill a balrog by his damned self! And D&D has usually focused on "adventure first" when doing world-building. I talk more about that below. I can't speak completely objectively when it comes to 4e; to me it killed far too much of what makes D&D magic what it is. I suggested it since many of your criticisms seemed right in line with "power level" or "cost", something 4e tried to fix. More importantly though, 4e decided to fix magic by discarding D&D's magic system for something entirely new. Yeah, seeds of it were planted in 3.5, but 4e rebuilt D&Ds magic from the ground up. Spell slots? Gone. Spell levels? Gone. Caster Level? Gone. Spells refresh only on 8 hour sleeps? Gone. Trading utility for attack magic? Gone. Easy casting of supplemental magic (IE non-combat spells like teleport or divinations)? Gone. I can go on, but I don't think I need to. You know what else was gone? D&D magic. I think more than anything short of martial dailies, this complete and utter discarding of D&D's magic system was what struck people on a visceral level to proclaim it "Not D&D". When you change the format radically, some people react because they feel its an abandonment of what they know and love. What you are proposing (by way of innuendo) is that D&D magic needs some further revision to "fix" the parts that are still a problem. In essence, just as we get something once again resembling classic D&D magic, we already look to replacing it with a new, balanced system that takes into account various different costs and resources. In essence, scrap the neo-Vancian system and start with another fresh attempt at D&D magic.What makes you think that it will be any more successful than 4e's attempt? Good, the point is too have fun! Call me cynical, but I just don't worry about the kids anymore. New players will find it and play it because it does something no video-game, novel, or TV/movie can; complete freedom. That drug, once tasted, is hard to quit. A group who falls into the notion of a world they can create, destroy, and create again with characters they design and quests they thought up will learn the rules and adapt just to keep that fire going. Yeah, D&D loses players every year to quicker and easier fixes, but the true fans will play, screw something up, and learn. You can't kid-proof the game and expect complete freedom. The trade off for having the right tools for the job is that some of them have sharp edges; a player will learn not to stab themselves with the sharp things if it means they get to keep the tools. I'd rather build a minority of dedicated players than a majority of casuals. The turn from 3e/4e levels of complexity toward 5e's "K.I.S.S." model might be the factor here; I'm a Pathfinder GM right now and game prep is brutal unless I take short-cuts. I hope 5e's systems for monsters, quick combats, and rare magic items mixes well. A good toolbox fixes this. I'm just not sure some of the problems you cite are the rationale for DM burnout.  It seemed like many spells fell into predictable patterns during your analysis.Area of Effect spells were potent due to large damage over a wide area and the potential of friendly fire. The former part IS the point of direct damage; to harm a large group quickly. 3e direct damage was poor due to monster/PC hp inflation and the presence of Save or die/suck. It seems they've tried to make direct damage viable again. Divination magic is problematic since the PCs can learn stuff. Well, yeah. D&D has never worked for murder mysteries. Detect Magic has always been a good tool to weeding out magical traps, items, and effects (and thankfully, its not at-will like Pathfinder!). Detect Magic has some natural limitations (materials, range) but more importantly, why is it bad for the PCs to scan for a magical item on a fallen foe or to see if the hallway has a teleport trigger? It seems the alternative is to force a lot of "gotcha!" rolls (You didn't roll arcana on his belt pouch, so you missed his bag of infinite components bwahahaha!)Likewise, I loathe the idea that magical healing is "too easy". I recall playing d20 Modern where healing magic is not common and Hp is similar to D&D. What usually happened was someone got injured/critted in an early fight and then either sat out the adventure ("the bomb explodes as midnight, I'm too weak, go on ahead") or the group went and rested until full ("Hmm, the mummies tomb is still trapped. Lets come back next week when we're fully healed"). D&D healing magic is a metagame tool to keep the threat of death there, but allow quick recovery to return to play. Yeah, D&D magic doesn't make sense on a simulationist level; nothing in D&D does. A racially diverse group of specialist mercenaries wandering around doing odd jobs for kings and mayors? They descend into subterranean labyrinths filled with a diverse group of independent sentient creatures and working death traps to find enough forgotten gold to finance a city or kingdom? Hell, D&D doesn't work and we've not even GOT to magic! I'm not going to say your critiques in places weren't accurate. I think the problem is many of them fall into the "so what?" category. So what if flying makes a pit trap invalid. So what if a PC goes from death's door to fully healing in 20 seconds? So what if can kill a PC and raise him as a zombie next round. That is the essence of D&D. That is what attracts me too it. The lure of that "unlimited freedom" keeps me playing. I will gladly suspend disbelief on many of these problems for that freedom.</blockquote>

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