D&D (2024) Martial vs Caster: Removing the "Magical Dependencies" of high level.

[TheSword]

Bit of column A bit of column B. The effect pushes the boats out and repeats, so if they re-enter it, they get hit again.

It's not my encounter, I don't know the details, but the incredulity regarding the effectiveness of the spell seems, to me, out of scale with the effects the spell is designed to achieve.

Capsizing ships is one of the things it is designed to do. That it was able to do this should not be surprising.

Capsizing large or huge objects. Up to 15 feet on a side. Like a rowboat. Anything bigger than that isn’t affected by that version at all. Ships regularly handle waves higher than 20 feet. The keelboat is described as one of the smallest ships in 5e. It is 60 ft long and gargantuan.

Yeah I mean I guess we can all envision it different but I can’t imagine a 100ft trench opening under my ship to the sea floor ends well for the ship.
If it gets the whole boat it hits bottom and rumps on it side
If it gets the front or back but not both it just tips and is done

The water flowing in slowly instead of crashing makes me imagine it being survivable if you get out of the wreck before the water gets too high though.

The ship doesn’t fall, the water didn’t disappear. Why would the ship be wrecked?

The water level lowers. The ship lands on the bottom on it’s keel on an angle - like what happens every time a ship is beached and the tide goes out?

 

[HammerMan]

Jack Sparrow, John Snow, Katniss, Brienne, Arya, Holga, Aragorn... they are all around level 5 at best. Holga is literally level 5.

Aria can treat a whole town of stray cats as familiars and join with her wolf half a world away to “save” her mothers corps.

You think Lancelot is accurately represented in DnD 5e?

People are going to call him a paladin and give him spells you just wait

Lancelot once hit Gawain so hard that the horse Gawain was riding was flipped onto its back. He snapped the neck of two dragons. He was so fast he defeated 12 knights before they could even draw their weapons. He killed four men with a single thrust of his lance, and defeated one of the great enemies of the kingdom half-armored, with a hand literally tied behind his back. He struck such fear into an army that they fled from him alone.

None of this is possible in DnD for a martial character.

Yup

 

[Emberashh]

Capsizing large or huge objects. Up to 15 feet on a side. Like a rowboat. Anything bigger than that isn’t affected by that version at all. Ships regularly handle waves higher than 20 feet. The keelboat is described as one of the smallest ships in 5e. It is 60 ft long and gargantuan.


The ship doesn’t fall, the water didn’t disappear. Why would the ship be wrecked?

The water level lowers. The ship lands on the bottom on it’s keel on an angle - like what happens every time a ship is beached and the tide goes out?

I imagine the intent behind the spell is that the magic is forcing the ship to capsize rather than it just being a strict consequence of physics...however, the percentage chance tends to conflict with that intent.

 

[HammerMan]

The ship doesn’t fall, the water didn’t disappear. Why would the ship be wrecked?

Wait the water didn’t just in 6 seconds or less rush out of there leaving it? I have to look up this spell I might be remembering wrong.

The water level lowers. The ship lands on the bottom on it’s keel on an angle - like what happens every time a ship is beached and the tide goes out?

And when does the tide go out in 1 combat round?!?

Also if it’s tilted there is a prettt good chance it isn’t floating easily after.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I love reading the amazing things your characters do with spells.

Indulge me, how did you use control water to destroy three ships?

I used the Flood effect.
"If you choose an area in a large body of water, you instead create a 20-foot tall wave that travels from one side of the area to the other and then crashes down. Any Huge or smaller vehicles in the wave's path are carried with it to the other side. Any Huge or smaller vehicles struck by the wave have a 25 percent chance of capsizing.

The water level remains elevated until the spell ends or you choose a different effect. If this effect produced a wave, the wave repeats on the start of your next turn while the flood effect lasts."

Not only do the ships have a 25% chance of capsizing just on their own, but they were forced into each other and crashed. Remember, you are moving a 100 ft cube of water, while two boats are coming in to dock, getting them to smash into each other isn't hard.

Then I created a whirlpool. I don't remember if that took out a ship or not, but I hopefully don't have to explain that whirlpools are bad for ships.

Also how did the wall of Fire destroy the ship?

By catching it on fire? I don't know if you have looked at many DnD ships, but the ship in the DMG on page 314 is only about 70 ft long. Wall of Fire is 60 ft and 20 ft high. So I literally caught the vast majority of the ship on fire. And, again, do I need to explain how catching a wooden vessel on fire is bad for that vessel? It caused everyone on board to leap off the ship too, meaning they weren't attacking the town.

The owner left the key to the door in plain sight of an open window - sounds like the DM was going really easy on you. That said who cares at the end of the day if the wizard casts unseen servant or the rogue picks the lock? The wizard really didn’t let the rogue have a go and thus save a 1st level spell slot?

No, the key wasn't in sight of the window. Unseen servant can do tasks a servant can do, such as fetching things, sewing clothes. It is perfectly capable of grabbing a key and unlocking a door, without the key needing to be in plain sight.

And my druid didn't need to save a spell slot. I can't remember if I had unseen servant because of the feat or the gestalt thing all the characters were doing, but it is a ritual spell. It just took a ritual. And even if it DID take a spell slot (I might have done that to save time), it isn't like I wasn't swimming in spell slots. A single first level spell isn't going to make a difference when I have multiple 5th, 4th and 3rd level spells.

 

[Alzrius]

and defeated one of the great enemies of the kingdom half-armored, with a hand literally tied behind his back.

Admittedly, most of what I know about this comes from William Morris's "The Defense of Guenevere," but I was under the impression that Maleagant was one of those conniving, cowardly villains who were extremely weak when confronted directly.

His whole shtick was that he kidnapped Guenevere, relying on his magic castle to keep him safe, and when Lancelot persevered, it was only Guenevere's intervention that saw Maleagant being spared. Later, when he tried to spill the beans about Lancelot and Guenevere having an affair, Lancelot challenged him to a duel, and he only agreed under the stipulation that Lancelot would fight with no helmet, the left half of his torso unarmored, and his left hand tied behind his back (i.e. unable to use a shield). That Maleagant still lost struck me as a testament to his own weakness as much as Lancelot's strength.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Capsizing large or huge objects. Up to 15 feet on a side. Like a rowboat. Anything bigger than that isn’t affected by that version at all. Ships regularly handle waves higher than 20 feet. The keelboat is described as one of the smallest ships in 5e. It is 60 ft long and gargantuan.


The ship doesn’t fall, the water didn’t disappear. Why would the ship be wrecked?

The water level lowers. The ship lands on the bottom on it’s keel on an angle - like what happens every time a ship is beached and the tide goes out?

Yeah I got the size thing.. I also looked in the PHB (which includes Control Water) and don't see size categories or dimensions listed on any of the boats included there.

Unless i missed it, that stuff doesn't seem to to come in until the Of Ship and Sea UA and then later Ghosts of Saltmarsh book published well after the PHB.

I don't disagree that the sizes listed in the UA are reasonable. But without that information at your fingertips, you've got a caster casting a spell that capsizes water vehicles of a certain size and a core rulebook that doesn't say the size of the water vehicles it lists.

Gasping in shock that this spell, that targets water vehicles specifically with one of its effects, was successful in an encounter with water vehicles seems pretty strange to me.

 

[Krachek]

Gygax, who gave the fighter a freaking army and a castle while punishing mages relentlessly for their choice to play a mage.

It's been buried under caster superiority veiled behind simplicity and verisimilitude.

Then what is your fun or intent for following this thread?

 

[Scott Christian]

..And a weird example to point to as "an archetype delivered"

I stand corrected. I did not have my logic hat on for that one.

 

[Alzrius]

Gygax, who gave the fighter a freaking army and a castle while punishing mages relentlessly for their choice to play a mage.

The whole thing about "Gary hated mages" is very much overblown. From what I can tell, it seems to come from an assertion made by Tim Kask that seems to have to do with a debate over whether or not magic missile automatically hit or required that a roll be made (Gary wanted the latter, while Kask campaigned for the former, which was how it eventually turned out).

The so-called "anti-magic-user bias" strikes me as Gary simply putting more controls on the power of magic spells in an effort to avoid unbalancing the game (much like what's being discussed in this thread).