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Is It Time To Not Assign Spellcasting Classes ANY Casting Mechanics?
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6023004" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>I agree with you that *if* we were to pick one casting mechanic that would be a default... Vancian would make the most sense from a tradition point of view. But there are a couple issues with that which we now have to deal with...</p><p></p><p>1) What do you do with the Sorcerer class?</p><p></p><p>If we are selecting ONE default mechanic that covers EVERY spellcasting class (prior to casting mechanic swap-outs), does the Sorcerer become superfluous? Considering the whole point of the Sorcerer was to get away from Vancian mechanics in the first place?</p><p></p><p>2) Are the people who don't like or outwardly HATE Vancian magic going to be willing to buy the game if it ASSUMES as default that Vancian trumps other methods? *Even if* the book says quite clearly "you can exchange the Vancian mechanics to another one as you'd prefer"?</p><p></p><p>We've seen quite clearly all along (and especially in 4E) that just because the book tells the players THEY CAN change things (like "refluffing" for example, to create a Fighter archer by using the Ranger class and stripping away the nature fluff)... more often than not they get annoyed and bothered that the game EXPECTS them to do it.</p><p></p><p>The advantage of not assigning ANY casting mechanics to any of the classes (prior to the "Here's a default campaign build you can use!" chapter in the back) is that the book and by extension Wizards of the Coast is telling everybody that "All of your preferences for magic are equal to each other, and no one mechanic trumps any other. You ALL can/have to choose how magic works in your game."</p><p></p><p>I myself think that's the preferable way to go with some of the "big" game mechanic issues, because you don't alienate a percentage of your audience right off the bat. HEALING is another one. Because just by saying in some book "Healing Surges are the default style for this game, but you can take it out and put in this other non-healing surge mechanic if you want"... you immediately piss off every single player who can't stand healing surges (or whatever surge-like system 5E eventually has). And even though THEY CAN swap it out... they're instead going to react with "SCREW THIS GAME, I'M NOT EVEN GONNA PLAY IT IF THIS IS THE CHOICES WOTC ARE GOING WITH!"</p><p></p><p>To my mind... some things are almost universally accepted by 95%+ of the D&D audience, and thus you can have a "core" default. Like Hit Points to determine your total health. But some things ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE to being universally accepted (and indeed, you'd be lucky to get 50% of the audience to agree with what the "default" should be)... and thus at that point WotC shouldn't even TRY to make a "core" rule and instead just tell everybody up front "Choose any of these options for your game that work for you, because we know each of you disagree with what should work best."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 6023004, member: 7006"] I agree with you that *if* we were to pick one casting mechanic that would be a default... Vancian would make the most sense from a tradition point of view. But there are a couple issues with that which we now have to deal with... 1) What do you do with the Sorcerer class? If we are selecting ONE default mechanic that covers EVERY spellcasting class (prior to casting mechanic swap-outs), does the Sorcerer become superfluous? Considering the whole point of the Sorcerer was to get away from Vancian mechanics in the first place? 2) Are the people who don't like or outwardly HATE Vancian magic going to be willing to buy the game if it ASSUMES as default that Vancian trumps other methods? *Even if* the book says quite clearly "you can exchange the Vancian mechanics to another one as you'd prefer"? We've seen quite clearly all along (and especially in 4E) that just because the book tells the players THEY CAN change things (like "refluffing" for example, to create a Fighter archer by using the Ranger class and stripping away the nature fluff)... more often than not they get annoyed and bothered that the game EXPECTS them to do it. The advantage of not assigning ANY casting mechanics to any of the classes (prior to the "Here's a default campaign build you can use!" chapter in the back) is that the book and by extension Wizards of the Coast is telling everybody that "All of your preferences for magic are equal to each other, and no one mechanic trumps any other. You ALL can/have to choose how magic works in your game." I myself think that's the preferable way to go with some of the "big" game mechanic issues, because you don't alienate a percentage of your audience right off the bat. HEALING is another one. Because just by saying in some book "Healing Surges are the default style for this game, but you can take it out and put in this other non-healing surge mechanic if you want"... you immediately piss off every single player who can't stand healing surges (or whatever surge-like system 5E eventually has). And even though THEY CAN swap it out... they're instead going to react with "SCREW THIS GAME, I'M NOT EVEN GONNA PLAY IT IF THIS IS THE CHOICES WOTC ARE GOING WITH!" To my mind... some things are almost universally accepted by 95%+ of the D&D audience, and thus you can have a "core" default. Like Hit Points to determine your total health. But some things ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE to being universally accepted (and indeed, you'd be lucky to get 50% of the audience to agree with what the "default" should be)... and thus at that point WotC shouldn't even TRY to make a "core" rule and instead just tell everybody up front "Choose any of these options for your game that work for you, because we know each of you disagree with what should work best." [/QUOTE]
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