"Kill the Sacred Cow!"

[Moggthegob]

I think it really boils down to is i dont want a new system. I never had a problem pulling out the crossbow at low levels. Its the lumps you take on your way to never running out of spells IME once you hit 5th you never run out of spells before its hitpoints that cause you to rest. not abad trade and a nice power curve if you ask me.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Of course you have to consider, is resource management FUN? ...

You act like people are whining that they can't throw fireball all day long....

A crossbow would be a more damaging option than those spells, but it will at least feel more like you are a wizard.

Resource Management is fun, to some people. On occasion I have even enjoyed it.

There *are* people out there whining that they can't throw fireballs all day long

'Feel like a Wizard'? I think this is the crux between you and me. I look at the fantasy iconic mages... Gandalf and Merlin. They both rely more on knowlege and a well turned phrase than they do on mystical blasts of arcane offensive power. To me, that is what it means to be a wizard, not tossing blasts of flame about ala Tim the Evoker. But I digress. Notice too, that I prefer the EoM system that is much more flexible and interesting...while still letting you play a Tim if you so desire.

HussarOn the whole forward planning thing you said "((Yeah, yeah, gather information and all that, but, stick with me here))"
Sure I will get stuck here... that is exactly it. How many times have you had a group research a dungeon or temple before walking in the front door? IMHO too many D&D players are stuck in the trope of 'bash the door down, kill the BBG, grab the loot' ...even the wizards. I much prefer a game that includes limited resources.. which in turn encourage planning... which requires research. Instead of having the typical game campaign where the PC's go from town where they sell the loot, to the dungeon where they grab the loot .. rinse, repeat with new BBG...

Ugh, boring. The town should be a place that is alive and vibrant.. a part of the world with characters and politics, guilds and power-plays.. and information that the PC's can glean to prepare themselves for an adventure... or even be in an adventure.

Hopefully 4e mechanics support this, as well as support the 'bash in the door' style of play.

YMMV

 

[Tarek]

All the planning ahead in the world does you no good if you have to spend all your spells to keep people alive and then you end up w/more encounters prior to resting. That is an example of a class being punished for doing its thing, as has been mentioned in a few other threads and I think at the GenCon sessions.

Lucky to find magic items and 1E should never be mentioned in the same sentence. Players needed to have a castle at level 1 just to hold all the loot they got in modules


"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke

There was an old article in Dragon years ago about how D&D would look different if they actually followed the logical extensions of having vast curative, food/water generation, flight, fireballs, continual light, etc. It was very interesting. I know that Ptolus took a lot of the aspects of 3E and followed them to logical conclusions, which I thought was pretty great.

If your party isn't doing the smart thing and pulling back instead of charging ahead when they're nearly out of resources, then it sucks to be in your campaign. It's even worse if the DM is out to get you, in which case it doesn't matter what you do, the DM just wants to see characters dead.

Retreating is an option for the party. Use it.

If you are planning ahead with expendable magic items, but your party isn't, then they need to start. You also need to remember that you *don't* need to cast *every* spell you have over the course of four encounters, assuming that you'll have the option to rest... because sometimes you won't.

I've been rereading the modules. The low-level (1-3) modules don't have large amounts of magic items. It's only when you get to about level 7 or so that magic items start becoming commonplace, and even then you're talking usually +1 or so, sometimes +2, with the occasional +3 item being held by the bad guys who are using it against you.


As for the Clarke quote, it's true, but it's not on point.

When magic becomes commonplace, it is no longer fantastic, it is no longer something awesome, it is no longer *magical*. It isn't anything that one looks forward to, it becomes familiar, something one starts treating with a degree of contempt.

That's what's missing; the sense of fantasy. "More Magic!!!1!" isn't going to change the problem.

 

[mmadsen]

On the whole Vancian Magic=Forward planning.

In a system where spell-casters must forecast which spells they'll use, their forecasts will be wrong -- the only question is, how wrong? That's not necessarily bad for a game, but it does put a huge premium on versatile spells, which the game designers did not take into account when assigning costs (levels) to spells. (Also a highly specialized spell is worth more or less depending on who is casting it and whether that caster needs to prepare specific spells ahead of time or not.)

 

[Tarek]

In a system where spell-casters must forecast which spells they'll use, their forecasts will be wrong -- the only question is, how wrong? That's not necessarily bad for a game, but it does put a huge premium on versatile spells, which the game designers did not take into account when assigning costs (levels) to spells. (Also a highly specialized spell is worth more or less depending on who is casting it and whether that caster needs to prepare specific spells ahead of time or not.)

The game designers don't need to take it into account, thanks to (in 3e) Scribe Scroll. If you can scribe scrolls, then you have the potential of always having those limited use, specialized, or utility spells available. The only problem with Scribe Scroll is the ridiculous XP cost requirement... why would you ever lose XP for creating a magic item, when in previous editions you either didn't lose XP, or you'd actually *gain* XP for making one? The XP cost requirements are something I house-rule out for all the magic item creation feats, substituting time and rare materials instead, which are not necessarily common.

Want to create a Pearl of Power? Find a Giant Oyster bed and harvest the naturally grown pearls by hand, using only the perfect examples. Ideally, find a Giant Oyster bed on the Elemental Plane of Water...

That's something I'm glad is going away, the 3e kludge of spending XP to create magic items.

 

[Hussar]

*snip*
I've been rereading the modules. The low-level (1-3) modules don't have large amounts of magic items. It's only when you get to about level 7 or so that magic items start becoming commonplace, and even then you're talking usually +1 or so, sometimes +2, with the occasional +3 item being held by the bad guys who are using it against you.


As for the Clarke quote, it's true, but it's not on point.

When magic becomes commonplace, it is no longer fantastic, it is no longer something awesome, it is no longer *magical*. It isn't anything that one looks forward to, it becomes familiar, something one starts treating with a degree of contempt.

That's what's missing; the sense of fantasy. "More Magic!!!1!" isn't going to change the problem.

Quasqueton has a pretty excellent run down of the magic and treasure available in those old modules. It's pretty high. It would be pretty unlikely for module adventurers not to have magic weapons by second or maybe third level.

In a system where spell-casters must forecast which spells they'll use, their forecasts will be wrong -- the only question is, how wrong? That's not necessarily bad for a game, but it does put a huge premium on versatile spells, which the game designers did not take into account when assigning costs (levels) to spells. (Also a highly specialized spell is worth more or less depending on who is casting it and whether that caster needs to prepare specific spells ahead of time or not.)

QFT. This is exactly what I'm trying to get at. Cleric spells are probably the biggest culprits here. Why would you memorize Water Breathing unless you knew you were going swimming? It's a very, very limited use spell and, most of the time, completely unnecessary. And clerics don't get Scribe Scroll for free. Never mind the poor Sorcerer who's spell list is incredibly limited. It's not a big surprise that most sorc builds are blasters. That's simply a reflection of the fact that damage spells are the ones that are going to get used the most in most campaigns.

Put it another way. How often do you see a Sending Spell memorized? Arcane Lock? Secret Page?

IMO, you could strip out about 2/3rds of the spells in the PHB an no one would notice. Actually that's not true. DM's would notice because they're the only ones who use these spells. Player's wouldn't care in the least if Sculpt Sound disappeared from the books.

 

[funkysnunkulator]

not looking foreward to 4th ed.

have never really understood why everyone has such a problem with v.3/3.5

the words "broken" "munchkin" "balanced" "unbalanced" have become mantra and dogma among those who seem to use them to add validity to thier observations.

i.e.: "i will sound so much smarter and so much righter if is say broken and unbalanced"

and to this day, have yet to see anything in the game that can't be dealt with as it sits with a little forethought.

but ok. lets get "real" here. players want the perfect, irreproachable, unassailable game. fine. dm's want easy to plug in features for thier game. fine.

we are about to have it thrust upon us.

and it has the capability of killing the biggest fattest most sacred cow of all.

a fun game.

"so what the hell does this funkysnunkulator person know about MY fun game?"

plenty folks. you are here aren't you? part of this game is invention. innovation. and despite what a lot of posters out there (many sites, not picking on ENWorld here) want you to believe, they are in fact having fun with the current system.

just look at the huge number of homebrewed spells, prestige classes, races, magic items, monsters, environments, planes, gods and whatnot out there. even some alternate takes on saving throws, grappling, attacks of opportunity, aging, resurrection and everything else. the bottom line is that gamers love this sort of thing.

lets be blunt here. who cares if forgotten realms is overpowered? who cares if raistlin is more or less powerful than elminster. who cares if greyhawk is undeveloped, forgotten realms is overdeveloped and dark sun is gone.

who cares? apparently a lot of people. but heres the rub folks: if you don't like something change it. you think something is missing add it.

NOW.... this has all been debated to death, yes? what has this to do with version 4?

everything and nothing.

everything: we will all check out version 4 (you know you will, don't deny it, any of you. no gamer can resist the sirens call of a new version. no gamer.)

some of us will love it "it does/has everything d&d should do/have"
some of us will hate it "its missing everything d&d should do/have"

give it a chance (though personally, the need for a new version still doesn't exist). likely, this gamer will do what so many others will. just invent what needs to be invented.

the only downside is that forums like this where we freely exchanged homebrew stuff will go defunct. v4 content will apparently be controlled by wotc via computer. to bad. all the best developers (and yes gamers, a huge chunk of you are developers, just look at the stuff you have contributed here) have always been here in the forums.

guess the biggest thing that this gamer will miss is all the ideas you other gamers come up with.

broken, unbalanced, perfectly balanced... a lot of it is really cool stuff.

that is the sacred cow at issue with this gamer. the fun of the game. the invention and seeing others inventions. that is a big fat cow. and when it hits the ground, the "thud" will be LOUD.

 

[funkysnunkulator]

gotta say something here.

"what? funkysnunkulator didn't say enough in that last post?"

nope.

IN FAIRNESS>>>>>>>

the guys and gals at wotc have gotten it from behind by a lot of gamers. over the past couple of years, there have been hundreds (maybe thousands) of posts that say things to the effect of "wotc is stupid" "wotc developers don't know what they're doing" "the geniuses at wotc brought us the most broken whatever"

guess what? those geniuses at wotc bust thier humps to give us all a game. and it is likely they wil continue to do so with this version.

again, personally not looking foreward to it, but it is unlikely that wotc will do any less than thier best to give us a quality game.

yeah, it will cost a lot, but so do cigarettes and hookers, right? hahahahahaha.

at least this isn't going to be cyberpunk v3 all over again (how many years was that? hahahaha).

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

funkysnunkulator, WOTC has already stated that the OGL/SRD will continue and some of the publishers here and other places will be able to get there mitts on those documents 'in advance' so they aren't scrambling to catch up to 4E's release... so EnWorld and others will continue to generate HRs and 3d party material...

Thanks for the comments.. and if no-one has said it yet, welcome to EnWorld!

 

[Gentlegamer]

And, really, take Vancian magic for a second.

This is only a sacred cow because of its existence in earlier versions of D&D. The idea of fire and forget magic certainly isn't a trope of fantasy. In fact, most fantasy sees either magic as a long drawn out process totally inappropriate for adventuring, or, the spell casters can cast all day long.

So, we have an element whose sole existence is dependent on the fact that it appeared in earlier editions. So, is that enough to give it the pass into the next edition? Previously, I think so, but, now, I think that game designers are being given freer reign in what bovines they can safely slaughter.

Vancian magic was first included in D&D and has persisted because it works in a game format (allows powerful, yet limited magic). The other two source-material magic traditions you cite do not work in a game format, generally. And it should be noted that AD&D magic (from which 3e/d20 magic comes) is not wholly Vancian, it is a synthesis of Vance's mnemonic magic and the sympathetic magic from Camp and Pratt's "Harold Shea" stories ("The Mathematics of Magic, et al).

If the designers wish to find another method of allowing powerful, yet limited magic in the game, that is appropriate. But to say Vancian magic is purely a sacred cow with no rational game format basis is patently false.