D&D 5E Martials v Casters...I still don't *get* it.

[Mort]

Teleport is the greatest example misunderstanding narrative control.

In your example either the players have teleport... in which case the DM knows this and has placed the restrictions of time and distance in place, knowing this is the case. There is no narrative control as the DM has both assumed and required the players to use this spell to be successful.

Really, There are plenty of DMs who take great pride in designing their adventures with expressly NOT taking specific characters and abilities into account. Plenty of threads on this board on this very thing recently.

Regardless, the very fact that the DM has to design around the specific spell proves the point in and of itself!

Or the players don’t have teleport in which case if the DM is imposing a time restriction they have been set up to fail in advance. A campaign plot that requires the teleport spell to be successful is as much DM fiat as anything else.

If the players can travel there mundanely then they are achieving the same narrative result as with the teleport spell. It just takes longer. Though as we don’t detail every step they take this has little or no material impact on the game... unless the DM decided through fiat it did.

Do you realize how many fantasy novels with magic actually have teleportation magic as a regular plot? Not many! Wizards travel by giant eagle, horse, boat, wolf shape, carriage, flying carpet or broom, dragon and other monstrous figures. Most instant travel in fantasy fiction is by portal not by a teleportation spell.

in fact Harry Potter is the only one that regularly features people zipping in and out... and only at the point where they have that ability and the writer creates situations where it’s needed. In fact JK spends most of the time creating situations where it’s irrelevant.

Exactly!

Teleport defines games! Once it comes into play, the DM must account for it in some way (even if that way is to DM Fiat ban it).

Plenty of other spells that the DM also must account for - from low level onward. And that's the point magic can shape the play loop, it's not just a short cut.

 

[Asisreo]

Teleport is the greatest example misunderstanding narrative control.

In your example either the players have teleport... in which case the DM knows this and has placed the restrictions of time and distance in place, knowing this is the case. There is no narrative control as the DM has both assumed and required the players to use this spell to be successful.

Or the players don’t have teleport in which case if the DM is imposing a time restriction they have been set up to fail in advance. A campaign plot that requires the teleport spell to be successful is as much DM fiat as anything else.

The most egregious of the Teleport examples are that they simply forget that you could literally have lived in the location your entire life but if you don't have an object associated with that location, you have a minimum 25% chance of not actually making it there.

And that's going back to your home base. Imagine trying to go to a lair that you've only really heard of through teleportation. Heck, even if you scry there, you have less than a 50% chance of being on-target and a 33% chance of getting hurt and restarting.

Teleport isn't the ultimate spell that players think it should be.

 

[FrozenNorth]

My comment about mimicking the mundane was not about power, it was about narrative control, and how most spells don’t offer more narrative control than the party already creates.

Having wall of stone would not have given the seven samurai more narrative control. They still would have erected defenses to protect the village and then manned them. Wall of stone would just have made them more substantial.

How much narrative control do I have the bandits will arrive in 10 minutes and it takes me and 10 villagers 3 hours to build a stone wall?

If things were different... isn’t narrative control. It’s the illusion of narrative control. Just like saying “your fighter can hit the ghoul with a lighted torch” when that does substantially less damage than hitting him with your sword, or saying “you can pull a curtain over the creature’s head” where that is less effective than stabbing it twice.

 

[tetrasodium]

And yet a 1st level wizard can jump down a 50' cliff float down using feather fall and move on his merry way.

While a 200HP barbarian jumping down that same cliff (and willing to take the relatively measly 5d6 to do so) will (at many tables) trigger an hour long discussion on "good faith gaming" and how the player's character shouldn't "know" that he can easily survive the fall. There was a (long) thread on this very board where posters were arguing that a player who has his character jump down that cliff "for the wrong reasons.." Should just have the HP mechanic bypassed and be instantly killed.

My point is: the first is set, the second is dependent on table and DM.

Based on phb48 a barbarian starts with an explorer's pack, which includes.... 50 feet of rope. That barbarian could use the 50 feet of rope to trivially climb down that same cliff and use the same rope to climb back up out of the cliff bottom later and not need a long rest to recover their rope

 

[TheSword]

Really, There are plenty of DMs who take great pride in designing their adventures with expressly NOT taking specific characters and abilities into account. Plenty of threads on this board on this very thing recently.

Regardless, the very fact that the DM has to design around the specific spell proves the point in and of itself!


Exactly!

Teleport defines games! Once it comes into play, the DM must account for it in some way (even if that way is to DM Fiat ban it).

Plenty of other spells that the DM also must account for - from low level onward. And that's the point magic can shape the play loop, it's not just a short cut.

Absolutely not. The spell is irrelevant. Unless an artificial time restriction forced into the game it doesn’t matter how the party get to their destination.

...You teleport to Waterdeep

... Your ship takes six days to reach Waterdeep

... After two weeks of carriage travel staying at wayside inns you reach Waterdeep.

... You arrive at Waterdeep, saddle sore but looking forward to a hot bath in the finest inn in the city.

All of these options are perfectly valid and have no impact on the adventure... unless the DM forces it to have an impact... in which case it’s the DM that has narrative control not the player with Teleport.

 

[TheSword]

How much narrative control do I have the bandits will arrive in 10 minutes and it takes me and 10 villagers 3 hours to build a stone wall?

If things were different... isn’t narrative control. It’s the illusion of narrative control. Just like saying “your fighter can hit the ghoul with a lighted torch” when that does substantially less damage than hitting him with your sword, or saying “you can pull a curtain over the creature’s head” where that is less effective than stabbing it twice.

The DM has set the arrival time of the bandits, they have the narrative control.

Though whether the players overturn wagons and tables in the street, or start building the wall it doesn’t actually matter. The bandits are still getting into the village and casting wall of stone once isn't stopping that happening.

The effectiveness is gonna depend on how reasonable your DM is. A lot of people would see using the curtain to make the ghoul use it’s attack to rip through that curtain and escape as a fair use of an attack/interact with object. If your DM is being stingy, give them that feedback.

 

[Mort]

Based on phb48 a barbarian starts with an explorer's pack, which includes.... 50 feet of rope. That barbarian could use the 50 feet of rope to trivially climb down that same cliff and use the same rope to climb back up out of the cliff bottom later and not need a long rest to recover their rope

That's avoiding the issue.

What if the Barbarian wants to jump down - the reason why shouldn't matter.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Do we really want WOC to make these interactions class abilities thus restricting them for other classes? Or try and proscribe everything that can or can’t be done and what the outcome would be?

A 4-person 9th level party is walking through the desert. They feel a rumble below them and suddenly, a CR 15 purple worm erupts from the ground before them. Roll initiative.

The wizard casts polymorph, DC 17. The Purple Worm, with Wis 8 and prof if Wis saves, needs a 13 or better to succeed. The wizard has a 60% chance to end the encounter against a severely overleveled foe with 1 spell.

The only optimization the wizard has engaged in is to increase their Int to 20 and learn a useful spell that is available to all wizards regardless of subclass. Since this is a 4th level spell, he can do this another 4 times before taking a long rest.

The Worm has 18 AC and 247 hp. What could a fighter do in one round that could have a comparable effect? How about a fighter at the same level of optimization (not a Sharpshooter Battlemaster taking Precise Shot)?

 

[Oofta]

can you define your preference?

While D&D is not particularly realistic, I want the option to play an action movie hero. Much like John McClane or John Wick, they can survive far more than a normal person should be able to survive. But it's never because they rely on explicitly supernatural abilities.

To use a fantasy movie example, I want to play Aragorn, Gimli or Legolas. Yes, Gimli chops down orcs left and right but he's just really good with that axe. Yes Legolas is stupidly good with his bow and sliding down a rail on a shield should fail but it is just barely possible. Other than walking on top of the snow (which, honestly, I thought was kind of dumb) what the fighter types achieved was sometimes extremely unlikely but still conceivably possible.

With 4E, most fighters did things that only work in anime, superhero comic books or video games. If I want to play a game where every PC has superpowers, I'll play a different game. Meanwhile there are plenty of options to play a PC that wades into combat swinging a weapon (or using their fists for monks) that rely on supernatural abilities or spells.

I should clarify that I don't think 4E choices were bad per se, the way the game worked did have some advantages. It just wasn't the game for me in the long run. For D&D I'm always going to want an option to play Gimli, even if that means I have to ask Aragorn to throw me to get across a gap.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Sure but the wizard gets down automatically, no questions asked. The fighter, depending on situation, is going to have to roll to get down.

The counterpoint, of course, is that the wizard expended a fungible resource so should get a benefit. But the fighter doesn't even get a choice.



It kind of does though -it allows the player to bypass the barrier on his terms as opposed to having to interact with the DMs set encounter. Is the climb down easy (DC 5) or because of conditions really hard (DC 20). Is there a hidden trap of some kind that cuts the rope as the character descends? Wizard doesn't care - he's bypassed the challenge - that's narrative control.

But, there are other more clear cut examples. The McGuffin the PCs need ASAP is 1,000 miles away. a 13th level group with a wizard researched the location and boom they're there (even with a bad mishap they'll still get there relatively quickly) - unless the DM uses DM fiat to not allow it. The group without a caster able to cast teleport? They have to either mother may I the DM into finding a way to teleport (or otherwise get there quickly) or resign themselves to a very different trek then the prior group. Because casters can set the pace of play.

Hell, Leomund’s Tiny Hut practically eliminates an entire class of encounters and doesn’t even cost a resource.