Is D&D (WotC) flaming out?

[MrMyth]

@ProfessorCirno

What if instead of WIZARDS-the games casters were more like Warlocks?

So I haven't really been following this thread (ever since it dived into an ever so thrilling rehash of the The Edition Wars XXVII: The Editioning!), and when I opened it up to this post without an actual quote for context, my mind immediately assumed the 'Wizards' being mentioned here were the Wizards (of the Coast) in the thread title, and I spent several moments trying to figure out what it would actually mean if they suddenly became "Warlocks of the Coast".

Anyway, I just found the concept mildly entertaining. You may all return to your daily scheduled [-]nerdrage[/-] debate over irreconcilable differences in playstyles.

 

[Ariosto]

Every time I think of houserules to make for 3e, "do something about spellcasters" is first on the list.

Lightning bolts and poison don't work any more?

 

[Ariosto]

Professor Cirno, have you looked into Raven Crowking's rule set?

It looks to me as if the designers of 3e really did not grasp D&D, and either
(A) didn't even understand that they didn't understand, or
(B) just didn't give a flying fig.

Still, they seem to have understood more than the players who convinced themselves and others that this or that further cockeyed scheme was "the rules" despite not being in (or even contradicting what was in) the books.

The end result is a travesty of "D&D", even (or especially?) when it's bashed into a shape that actually works pretty well.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

The point you're missing is that it doesn't matter if the wizard blows up an encounter. I want them to blow up encounters. That's what wizards do.

I ran a session of OD&D the other day: We got through 14 combat encounters in 4-5 hours.

How is that possible? Because clerics can blow up encounters with turning and wizards can blow up encounters with spells. (In ways which completely dwarf their 3E counterparts.)

Was it fun? Sure. Why? Because they weren't My Precious Encounters(TM) and none of us viewed the 8-10 encounters rapidly dispensed with as "spoiled fun". The use of the wizard's spells is strategically interesting and often requires the tactical abilities of the other characters in order to work to best effect. And, of course, when the strategy calls for the wizard not to blow-up an encounter (or he can't because their strategy has failed and they've used up their blow-up powers while still being stuck in the dungeon) then the tactical abilities of the other classes are given their moment.

It must be great to play a non-caster in your games. Man, I can just picture it now; sitting there and watching the wizard and the cleric doing everything, basking in how awesome they are and how awesome you aren't. That sounds really fun.

That's like designing a modern murder mystery where the weapon is next to the victim, there are fingerprints on the weapon, and the fingerprints are in the national database and trivially identify the murderer. (Who can be found watching TV at the address listed on his driver's license.)

You're right: That sounds like a boring adventure. You should probably take into consideration the investigatory capabilities of the characters while designing your mystery scenarios.

Except the investigatory capabilities of the wizard is "Can find out pretty much anything in the universe."

Only when you do your selective quoting thing. You surely don't think that all those servants and followers a high-level fighter lord receives are only useful for combat, do you?

Yes, the fighter has the DM give him a keep and he has some servants, while the wizard can fly, teleport, reshape the landscape, bind demons to his will, and create his own demiplane.

(1) If you don't buy into My Precious Encounter(TM), the wizard blowing up encounters is irrelevant from a prep-to-play standpoint.

(2) Quite a few of the spellcasters' "blow up this encounter" techniques work by making the other PCs look awesome (through buffing and the like). The others rapidly dispose of entire encounters in mere moments, so their impact on spotlight time is minimal.

(3) When played by mature people, D&D is a cooperative game. The guy who comes up with a nifty plan involving the wizard's spells is often having just as much fun as the guy actually rolling the dice to use those spells.

(4) If you aren't trying to railroad your players, the ability for spellcasters to blow up the railroad is irrelevant.

YOu really, really don't get it.

The problem in combat is that the wizards do everything while the melee twiddle their thumbs.

Except my issue isn't just with combat.

You keep talking about combat. That's not the (only) concern. Adn even then your examples are all "No see it's ok because the wizard is meant to utterly overshadow everyone else."

@ProfessorCirno

What if instead of WIZARDS-the games casters were more like Warlocks?


I feel this thread has kinda sorta moved a considerable way from its original topic, but here's just a thought as far as magic countering more magic-dont a lot of creatures have Spell-Like Abilities or basically "magical powers" to use against the PCs? Certainly they dont always have to be countered by magic, do they I mean of course, they're abilities are usually limited in number, and may be usable at will or a few times ber day.

Warlock lacks many of the utility abilities of the Wizard or Cleric has BUT he has High UMD so he can use any magic item he comes across, as well as any scrolls, wands, or staves he is allowed to buy or loot and he can craft items as a class feature even though he cannot actually cast any of the requisite spells if he makes a high enough UMD check and expends the gold. If he fails the check, he can never try to craft an item with that spell again, until he gains a level.

I like Warlock class, its fun and has a lot of flavor. I've played Warlock, Hellfire Warlock, and right now I'm playing a CE Cleric3(Cloistered)/Warlock4/Eldritch Disciple8. As a 15th lvl character I only just got 5th lvl spells. Though I do enjoy the versatility gained, what I really like is the thematic combined Warlock and Divine angle, and my Warlock abilities are still my favorites -especially The Dead Walk and Nightmare Made Real.

Actually, in the semi-low-magic stuff I've been halfheartedly designing from time to time, I've been looking far more into Bards then anything else. They still have a few problematic bits, but my goal is for the "spellcaster" to be less of a blaster and more of a loremaster.

4E's cure for this problem you have with D&D is worse than the disease. The result is just another fantasy heartbreaker, and no amount of ridiculously hyperbolic Poseidon analogies will change that.

And you are certainly allowed to your opinion, regardless of how I or others may feel about things.

One caveat though: the bit about 4e being a fantasy heartbreaker? Yeah, that's an opinion.

Incidentally, if you're going to comment and the analogy, why don't you demonstrate how my specific bit on the role of Deus Ex Machina is wrong?

 

[Beginning of the End]

It must be great to play a non-caster in your games. Man, I can just picture it now; sitting there and watching the wizard and the cleric doing everything, basking in how awesome they are and how awesome you aren't. That sounds really fun.

It's really difficult to have a conversation with someone who insists on so blatantly misrepresenting the text they're replying to.

Let's take a standard OD&D sleep spell, for example. This is a powerful, encounter-ending power. Let's take a look at how it tends to play out at the table:

DM: You see 8 goblins. They haven't seen you yet.
Sara the Cleric: . Time for a sleep spell. Go for it, Bob.
Bob the Wizard: Gotcha. I cast sleep.
DM: Roll 2d8.
Bob the Wizard: (rolls dice) 9.
DM: (rolls saving throws) 7 of the goblins fall unconscious. The remaining goblin is looking around in confusion.
John the Fighter: I charge up and stab the goblin. (rolls dice) Hit AC 4.
DM: Gimme damage.
John the Fighter: (rolls dice) 7
DM: You skewer the goblin.

I'm not really clear on what you find onerous in the 30 seconds we spend resolving the sleep spell. (Compared to the 5 minutes we'll spend resolving the fighters tussling with the carrion crawler in the next room because the group decides it doesn't make sense to waste a spell on them. Or the 30 seconds we'll spend with the rogue disabling a nasty trap in our 3E game. And so forth.)

Like I said before, these "encounter-ending" abilities you keep talking about fall into one of two categories:

(1) Spells that allow spellcasters to single-shot large quantities of the opposition. Such spells, by their nature, are quick to resolve and require very little spotlight time.

(2) Spells that allow the spellcasters to buff their allies so that the combat will be easier for them. Such spells, by their nature, share the spotlight of awesome with the other PCs.

Apparently, at your table, the fighter PC can't really enjoy receiving an enlarge person spell because they somehow believe that the "fun" belongs exclusively to the guy across the table who cast the spell on them.

That's not the way it works in the games I've played for the last 20+ years. My friends tend to do things like cheer the enlarging and then start singing "Tip Toe Thru the Tulips" as they stomp their way through the goblins.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90JCY0Eh1s4&feature=related]Tip Toe Thru the Tulips[/URL]

YOu really, really don't get it. (...) You keep talking about combat.

You not only quoted me specifically talking about non-combat aspects of this "problem", you also replied to me talking about the non-combat aspects of the problem.

In fact, you did it in the paragraph immediately preceding the one I'm quoting here.

And yet you claim that I'm talking about combat to the exclusion of everything else. Why would you do that? Are you really posting in such an irrational stream of consciousness that you completely forget what you write as soon as you write it?

 

[Ariosto]

This is so very, very true.

Typically, spells used by casters against heroes in fiction were either out of combat spells that took a lot of time, summonings of beings to fight for the casters, pre-cast spells with long durations or were defensive in nature. Sure, Gandalf did a bit of TK in the movie, and you might see a shapechanger or two, but direct, reliable and quick attack spells were rare.

I mean, look at the aforementioned Conan, Grey Mouser and Fafhrd: typically, enemy casters got one or two spells off against them before they closed and the fight was over. Ulrich of Craggenmoor's attacks against Vermithrax Pejoritve were repetitive and not exactly quick.

King Arthur Pendragon has that (and more) covered.

So do some other games that are not D&D.

I reckon it ought to be fine for D&D to reciprocate by being itself and not them, too.

Variety is the spice of the gaming life.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Agreed, which is why I'm over 70+ RPGs on my shelf...down from over 100.

(FWIW, I'm one of those guys in the "never seen the 15 minute day" club; who doesn't have problems with wizards or CoDzilla doing everything all the time, etc.)

 

[Sorrowdusk]

It must be great to play a non-caster in your games. Man, I can just picture it now; sitting there and watching the wizard and the cleric doing everything, basking in how awesome they are and how awesome you aren't. That sounds really fun.

And oh, that was 14 Encounters in 4 hours he was talking about-but he never said the Wiz/Cleric blew them ALL up.

@ProfessorCirno

As for the murder mystery bit-realize that you can do mysteries in RPGs as The Alexandrian has said before, but also realize D&D is a robust system that can represent everything from mundane to heroic people (1-5th) to friggin superheroes, demigods, and then straight up Immortals!

YOU want a murder mystery? Solved as IF by mundane CSI, Sherlocke Holmes, The G**dam Batman, or the like? Then keep it Lvl 5th or lower.

Hell, The Alexandrian basically proved Olympic Athelethes, Einstein and the greatest minds of our time would only need to be about lvl 5th (or less) to represent them properly in D&D-as would Gandalf, and basically Conan, and most fictional heroes you are familiar with. Gandalf and Conan ARE NOT 20th level, and its mistake on many peoples part who try (usually for fun) to translate them or those kinds of characters under the ASSUMPTION that "oh these guys are the greatest heroes of fantasy literature-they must be high lvl".

This is not a flaw in the system, rather this is a strength, because of the sheer range you can represent. This is something many systems cant do, representing both the mundane grittyness and the deific. Just realize that you style fits within a certain section of that range (specifically the lower end), and you may not want to play the full 1-10 or 1-20 experiencing the full ascension in power.

The Alexandrian - Misc Creations

You want superheroes or demigods to solve a common 'murder mystery'? A NORMAL murder mystery-with no elements honest to goodness requiring their most powerful abilities?! Honestly that sounds beneath them. WHY are superheroes and demigods solving a murder mystery when THE COPS (AKA The Mundane City Guard) could do it. Adventures should involve challenges that can ONLY be circumvented by the PCs simply because they're THAT good, talented, or beyond human.

I'm not saying you cant do it in D&D but realize how much ground the full scope of lvls cover-and where those kind of adventures belong. E6 or a lower EX may be more to your taste. Superman doesnt often murder mysteries, he usually leaves that to the authorities because he's too busy saving the planet, and you know-sometimes the only way to do it is to spin it backwards.

Hell, at a certain point-superheroes can no longer become lost, a thing of gritty low tier heroes. Dont know where The Bloody Palace of Torment is?

Well I BET YOU Lord Geno Cide VII didnt expect you to just walk into Murderor-BUT HEY. You know EXACTLY where you're going because you have a Find The Path divination. You know exactly how to get to his hidden keep, exactly, how to circumvent whatever inanimate obstacles (but not creatures) that are in your way, ALL the passwords past his Glyphs of Warding, and to sense the existance of ANY trip wires to his traps (although not how to disarm them). AHAHAHAH-did he really believe he was going to stop you with a mere maze? And any natural features, impossibly tall mountains and raging rivers? Pah, that wont stop you guys-the natural world is no longer a threat.

You're fantasy superheroes.

Of course, the BBEG probably watched your ascent to power and probably realized you would come after him eventually and prepared accordingly watching you closely through his networks of spies should magical means fail him. That could mean Hide The Path, Forbiddance, and Blood Mortar made with Gorgan Plasma and plenty of other things.

Lord Geno Cide VII doesnt have to be a wizard or a cleric, but as a charismatic leader with many followers, he probably has a fair number of both, as well as vast armies of soldiers and slaves, and perhaps even Devils and Demons he has bargained with, as well as potent magical treasures he accrued from his own adventuring days.

Money talks, and if he doesnt have anything, he can shell out the gold to pay for any services, buffs, or creations he cant do himself. MOST dusty old wizards and Liches are probably more concerned with their millenial study, not the politics of ruling Murderor or anywhere else, and cant be bothered fooling with that and collecting large amounts of heavy taxes from suppressed peasants as it gets in the way of their "work"-and yet casters need gold for their eternal research and experiments. Likewise, Cultists want gold as offerings to their Dark Deities or Demon Princes, whose outsiders want to collect to use to tempt other mortals and fund cults in other places. BOTH would happily accept payments or "donations" from Lord Geno Cide VII and ally with him. The Casters dont outshine Lord Geno Cide VII, who was probably a Fighter or Paladin, and later a Blackguard -NO they are tools for him.

ANYONE remember Lord Robilar? Remember his Heraldry? It was a green dragon on a yellow shield. The yellow represented gold, which Robilar believed was a more powerful source of power than magic, for with it, one could gain anything or anyone.

If he wasnt prepared the first time, he may survive via his Clone Spell or Astral Projection and recover in a stronghold on another plane warded against divinations or scrying. Then...he plots his next move.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Locate Object and Detect Thoughts are both level 2 spells. More importantly, Zone of Truth is a level two spell, too.

Level 3: welp, there goes the mystery. ALL the mystery.

E6 doesn't help because for the millionth time it isn't about combat.

Again, this is narrative power. Besides, at level 10, you still have mostly normal people. They're just the non-spellcasters due to this absurd thought that only spellcasters get to be magical. Certainly they're non-spellcasters with really high strength, but they're still just normal people. They aren't the Hulk.

 

[Sorrowdusk]

Locate Object and Detect Thoughts are both level 2 spells. More importantly, Zone of Truth is a level two spell, too.

Level 3: welp, there goes the mystery. ALL the mystery.

@ProfessorCirno

OH REALLY?
I. Dont. Think. So.

Let me count the ways ProfessorCirno...

#1. Locate Object
If you're trying to find something specific, say the Macguffin, that implies that you have PERSONALLY observed the said object and NOT through scrying. It also must be very well known, or clearly visualized requirng an specific and ACCURATE mental image. If you saw the locket you might be able to locate it if its hidden within range-BUT MIND YOU it has a limited range starting at at least 400ft. If you have an ENTIRE city, and you have to figure out where to start divining IN THE FIRST PLACE. Which is not necessarily obvious. Now, if the Butler has the locket in his POCKET and he's RIGHT in front of you, or wandering about the mansion then yeah, you could realize he had it.
Locate Object :: d20srd.org

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#2. Detect Thoughts
This ONLY detects SURFACE thoughts -and so it would only reveal that the Butler had stolen the locket and given it to Myster Man Mr. X IF and ONLY IF he was thinking about it at the time!! "~Hahahaha, I cant believe we got away with it!~" You CANNOT read someones mind like a BOOK. Albeit, yes, there ARE more powerful spells and abilities that can, but they either REQUIRE YOU to EAT someones BRAIN (a very nasty Corrupt Spell from BoVD ), OR to subdue them to subject them to it (Psionic 5th lvl Mind Probe which takes a full minute to manifest).

BUT YOU ARE THE DUNGEON MASTER.

Divinations like that are "Ask the DM", likewise with Augury, Divination, or Communion. IF YOU DONT WANT TO REVEAL SOMETHING-then dont do it.

The Butler doesnt have to be thinking about the theft at the time, when the PCs try to detect his thoughts, ALBEIT-you can use the divination to drop a HINT by what they DO detect OR even drop a red herring. Although as TheAlexandrian notes in his article on mysteries you usually dont have to drop red herrings because the PCs interpretation often leads them to making them on their own.
Detect Thoughts :: d20srd.org

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#3. Zone of Truth

HMMMM-WHAT exactly makes the PCs think that the subjects failed their saves? There's no way for them to know!

From the SRD:
Spell Descriptions :: d20srd.org

Succeeding on a Saving Throw

A creature that successfully saves against a spell that has no obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack. Likewise, if a creature’s saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell you sense that the spell has failed. You do not sense when creatures succeed on saves against [effect] and [area] spells.

Zone of truth is an area spell. You do not sense when creatures succeed on or fail on saves. THEREFORE-you can NEVER KNOW if it worked. A dude could lie to you ALL DAY and you could think he was speaking the truth.

If its a lvl 1commoner with a GARBAGE SAVE-then perhaps he deserves to be caught just that easily. Heroes dont catch commoners, they catch WORTHY opponents like other PCs or NPCs with class lvls. BUT-if the guy is waaaay better than a commoner but dresses just like one, you may falsely believe he "couldnt have resisted our spell, he's just a common man and we're soooo powerful. You're free to go sir. We're SO sorry to trouble you! We thank you for your cooperation."

AND DONT FORGET-it ONLY works on "any deliberate and intentional lies". What if the maid THOUGHT she saw someone else, NOT the Butler steal the locket? She didnt lie, she told exactly what she BELIEVED. And who knows, if there were illusions involved, people cant lie if thats what they "saw".

FURTHERMORE-you can always CHEAT. You're The Dungeon Master- and if need be they have always had the liscence to do so. Comes with the Title. There's a reason why rolls happen behind a screen.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/zoneOfTruth.htm

Welp, there goes the mystery-IT GOES ON that is!