D&D 5E Q&A February 14th: Lines, Finding Spells & Fighter Identity

[Garthanos]

Zero level adventure 101. So we follow CuCulaine as he travels about seeking out the mentors which taught him his martial maneuvers/feats.

I can dig up a list of the move names as well as those who he learned them from its definitely not some artificial parallel being drawn its actually treating martial abilities as something with a measure of sophistication and learning involved in them.

 

[Evenglare]

May I suggest a skill based system. HERO or GURPS for the kind of mechanics you want.

 

[Garthanos]

May I suggest a skill based system. HERO or GURPS for the kind of mechanics you want.

Meaning to be rude much....

 

[Evenglare]

huh? Its just a suggestion. Why shoehorn in a completely different system into a game when other games do exactly what you want and are built for it?

 

[Blackwarder]

I've been saying this for along time, having wizards or even other magic using classes that can't read magic or detect magic makes no sense.

Make perfect sense to me, no wizard will just leave his spell book in away that any rival could read, in my games you either need to cast Read Magic and roll to know what the hell the book talks about or study each spell for extra week and roll for it.

Mind you I mainly use it for spell scrolls since the wizard player can use extra time between adventures.

My point is that in a game where magic is secretive and usually scarce wizards take great care to make sure that no one can read their books.

Warder

 

[Klaus]

Make perfect sense to me, no wizard will just leave his spell book in away that any rival could read, in my games you either need to cast Read Magic and roll to know what the hell the book talks about or study each spell for extra week and roll for it.

Mind you I mainly use it for spell scrolls since the wizard player can use extra time between adventures.

My point is that in a game where magic is secretive and usually scarce wizards take great care to make sure that no one can read their books.

Warder

That's the whole point of spells like Secret Page, Sepia Snake Sigil and Glyph of Warding.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Rule of 3 February 14

Well, there goes any interest I had left in D&D Next.

Think about how the warrior character in your favorite fantasy story behaves even outside of combat and you can probably see those characteristics shine through. Now look at the fighter class; it’s built with the tools it needs to exercise all of those principles on the battlefield.

Translation: Fighters show who they are all the time but we only care about whether fighters can fight.

Outside of the battlefield, the warrior expresses these principles through attitude and decisions, two things that fall firmly into the camp of roleplaying and background.

Translation: The fighters get nothing.

We’re taking a lot of steps in the game to make sure that everyone has access to all of the major pillars of the game in some capacity; for example, we’ve standardized the number of skills most people get, and, though some classes give out bonus skills, even that is something we’re constantly evaluating.

Translation: Out of combat it's Spellcasters Uber Alles and we're even thinking of nerfing the rogue so they only get as many skills as the wizard or cleric, but the wizard or cleric can use spells as well as skills.

Please tell me I'm missing something?

 

[RangerWickett]

You're missing something. And that something is, "It is ****ing impossible to a) allow magic and b) have the non-magical people be as versatile as the magical ones."

You can balance them in combat, but even super-strong Hercules - if he were transported to the modern day - would have to stand aside to let his hacker friend 'perform magic' by gathering information, destroying people's finances, and deploying 'summoned creatures' in the form of cops reporting to falsified radio chatter.

I kinda DON'T think spellcasters should be as strong as warriors in combat. Warriors should win in a fight. Experts should win when time is tight but fighting is untenable. And Mages should win when there's plenty of time and fighting is untenable. Magic might be balanced if most spells took minutes to cast. But hey, that's not D&D. You can either nerf magic, or give mundane folks nigh-supernatural abilities. And that's going to piss some people off either way.

 

[RangerWickett]

Oh, and also, he's talking about the Fighter class. Fighter PCs can still take other specialties and backgrounds so they have access to stuff that will be useful out of combat.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

You're missing something. And that something is, "It is ****ing impossible to a) allow magic and b) have the non-magical people be as versatile as the magical ones."

This is one of the main reasons I really liked Earthdawn. Every class used magic, they just focused it for different purposes.

Also, I like where you're going with when spellcasters should shine. The problem, at times, is that they can do what every other class can do (in a general sense) and sometimes even do it better, plus do things that no one else can do. I'd love to see martial-types rule combat. 'Experts' rule the world of skills. And spellcasters provide utility to their allies in both.