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General Tabletop Discussion
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Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals
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<blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7760869" data-attributes="member: 37579"><p>Most of them existed in 1e and 2e as well. It's not that there were more buffs, it's that characters effectively got more low level spell slots. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes.</p><p>Because <em>greater invisibility</em> and <em>fly</em> would still be a thing, as both are fairly important to narratives.</p><p>And, again, buffing is also only half of concentration. Because the other aspect is action denial and continual damage spells. Being able to cancel those without a <em>dispel magic</em> is super useful.</p><p></p><p>Removing them is problematic: most of the buff spells are iconic. They've been in the game since 1st Edition, if not older. It's hard to get rid of stuff like <em>bless</em>.</p><p></p><p>Plus, playing the "buffer" and a support character is a desired character archetype. Some people just want to enable others and be the helper. Even in 4e where every character was designed to be active in ever round of combat you had people building princess warlords that just sat back and made everyone else better. </p><p>(And 4e got rid of traditional "buff" spells and prevented stacking without concentration, and that aspect wasn't exactly universally loved. 5e very deliberately returned to classic buff spells for a reason.)</p><p></p><p></p><p>I've accepted that with 5e anyway. Because the solution was less about ditching buffs and more about accepting that "balanced encounters" were never a thing. There's too many variables. </p><p>3e/PF/4e liked to pretend they were a thing, and that the game could balance what was a "hard" or "easy" encounter, an "effective level 5 encounter" and such. 5e only kinda-sorta does that, but doesn't bother with that in adventures. There are just encounters.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jester David, post: 7760869, member: 37579"] Most of them existed in 1e and 2e as well. It's not that there were more buffs, it's that characters effectively got more low level spell slots. Yes. Because [i]greater invisibility[/i] and [i]fly[/i] would still be a thing, as both are fairly important to narratives. And, again, buffing is also only half of concentration. Because the other aspect is action denial and continual damage spells. Being able to cancel those without a [i]dispel magic[/i] is super useful. Removing them is problematic: most of the buff spells are iconic. They've been in the game since 1st Edition, if not older. It's hard to get rid of stuff like [i]bless[/i]. Plus, playing the "buffer" and a support character is a desired character archetype. Some people just want to enable others and be the helper. Even in 4e where every character was designed to be active in ever round of combat you had people building princess warlords that just sat back and made everyone else better. (And 4e got rid of traditional "buff" spells and prevented stacking without concentration, and that aspect wasn't exactly universally loved. 5e very deliberately returned to classic buff spells for a reason.) I've accepted that with 5e anyway. Because the solution was less about ditching buffs and more about accepting that "balanced encounters" were never a thing. There's too many variables. 3e/PF/4e liked to pretend they were a thing, and that the game could balance what was a "hard" or "easy" encounter, an "effective level 5 encounter" and such. 5e only kinda-sorta does that, but doesn't bother with that in adventures. There are just encounters. [/QUOTE]
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