D&D 5E reducing dominance of ranged: cantrips

[flametitan]

You can, you just suffer the consequences after. In using wish, you don't have to have it simulate true polymorph, you just simply wish yourself to be a gold dragon. There is no worrying about concentration.

The DM has way too much latitude for that to be a reliable strategy (including going so far as to be allowed to say "no" and fizzling your spell.) And if it does work, you're now stuck as a dragon. Without your class features. While being a dragon is interesting, you're going to have a hard time fitting in with your party again.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm not sure why people try to compare classes fighting each other. This isn't a PVP game and it doesn't need to be balanced like it is.

5e's certainly not intentionally balanced for PvP (not even to the extent it's balanced for, say 6-8 encounter days) - neither was 3e (at least, not intentionally... at least, I don't recall anyone from WotC ever admitting it), but you could certainly play it that way if you wanted to, and some people reported doing so on-line, to the extent of having on-line PvP arenas....

...and, heck, 5e /is/ meant to be trying to support the full range of playstyles. PvP's a playstyle.

If that's your concern, go back to 4E, because that's what that was about.

4e was pretty worthless for PvP. Classes were designed and balanced for cooperative play against monsters.

...well, you could've PvP'd Strikers, I suppose. Or teams, though it'd've likely been grueling.

 

[Argyle King]

Honest intro: I didn't read anything beyond page 1.


I think 4 slots is a little bit too limiting.

If you didn't mind a little more book keeping, I could see slots being equal to 4+Proficiency Bonus.
I might also allow casters to attempt to cast a cantrip when out of slots, but doing so would require a Con check. Failure would give a level of exhaustion. Critical failure would give two levels of exhaustion and inflict 1 point of damage.

 

[Saeviomagy]

One is continously delivering 1d10 damage EVERY ROUND. Enough to kill a grown man (a commoner) in 12 seconds on average.

So.. substantially less than a punch by a strong individual which will always kill a commoner in some fraction of 6 seconds.

Again - I think you've got this idea that fire bolts are a welding torch or something and therefore can burn through anything given time. They're not. Low level D&D hit points and damage are screwy. It's fairly futile to try to imagine "what sort of fire can kill a man in 12 seconds in the real world" and then assume that's what fire bolts must be. It doesn't work for any of the mundane damage sources (ie - a commoner dies from a 10 foot drop 1/3rd of the time) so don't model the fantastic damage sources based on it.

A hundred whacks with an axe can't magically make a corpse disappear or go up in flames. And if applied to objects, it doesn't do diddly squat.

I think you'll find that if you hit a corpse a hundred times with an axe, it's pretty unrecognizable. And lumberjack competitions have felling trees down to 12-16 swings. In 3 rounds.

 

[Alatar]

1% for all grades is just what I had as well.
Teachers are rare for the overall percentage of the population, but are still one of the more common professions. In some states, "teacher" is the most common profession. Think about it, everyone has met a teacher in their life.
Even if being a wizard is the least common grade (likely 12 given the ability to have larger class sizes and drop-outs) there'd still be a LOT of them.

Wizards should be about as common as astronomers. There are roughly 1 million astronomers in a world population of 7 billion, so about one in a million. That's about right.

In a different vein, which was discussed earlier in the thread, I have to say that I find the two or three level dip into warlock to be ridiculous. Making a binding contract with an otherworldy power, whose motives and desires are beyond your ken, is not something to be undertaken lightly, say for an incremental boost to your damage output.

And there should be a price. That otherworldy power is going to want you to do something, something that you would not otherwise do, something that you or your companions may not want to do. And it's also likely to be an ongoing issue. Those warlock powers are awfully open ended. No nearby expiration date. So what have you done for that inscrutable otherworldy power lately? How is this not a problem? Or at least a serious consideration that weighs heavily on one's decision making process?

I'm generally not a pearl clutching roleplayer, but this business of a casual "dip" into warlock just strikes me as absurd.

 

[Jester David]

Wizards should be about as common as astronomers. There are roughly 1 million astronomers in a world population of 7 billion, so about one in a million. That's about right.

I like comparing adventures to professional athletes personally. About 0.005%. Or five in a million. You know who the big names are and they're recognizable and famous, but there are hundreds who are lesser known. Local boys done well.

 

[Alatar]

I like comparing adventures to professional athletes personally. About 0.005%. Or five in a million. You know who the big names are and they're recognizable and famous, but there are hundreds who are lesser known. Local boys done well.

As an astronomer might say, sure, same order of magnitude. Or as a professional athlete might opine, wuh?

Though I'd really prefer magic users to be really rare, as in you have never met one and you probably don't know anyone who has met one. Not Gandalf rare, not 5 total. But very few, very far between. That's what I'd prefer, but it is hard to square that with an adventuring party of five that has two spellcasters. And my thematic preference might also put a real crimp in the party wizard's effort to find new spells. That's probably less problematic than the first objection. Even if wizard's are vanishingly rare and therefore spellbooks are vanishingly rare, the ratio between the two would be about the same, or at least the same order of magnitude.

One in a million or five in a million seems like a good compromise position. Most people never meet them, but the local king may have met several.

 

[Caliban]

As an astronomer might say, sure, same order of magnitude. Or as a professional athlete might opine, wuh?

Though I'd really prefer magic users to be really rare, as in you have never met one and you probably don't know anyone who has met one. Not Gandalf rare, not 5 total. But very few, very far between. That's what I'd prefer, but it is hard to square that with an adventuring party of five that has two spellcasters. And my thematic preference might also put a real crimp in the party wizard's effort to find new spells. That's probably less problematic than the first objection. Even if wizard's are vanishingly rare and therefore spellbooks are vanishingly rare, the ratio between the two would be about the same, or at least the same order of magnitude.

One in a million or five in a million seems like a good compromise position. Most people never meet them, but the local king may have met several.

Of course, if you are an Olympic level athlete, or at least one who competes regularly, you tend to run into other athletes far more often than the regular population does. You just run in those circles, and go to places where they gather. Same thing goes with adventurers, unless they are supposed to be incredibly rare in that world. (The "only one adventuring group in the world" setting.)

Some DM's prefer a campaign world that assumes there are very few "adventurers" and whatever adventures the PC's have will achieve legendary status because almost no one else is doing things like that.

Personally, when I DM my own campaign world I presume that there are hundreds or thousands of "adventurers" out there. Enough to have adventuring guilds, enough that taverns have bounty and job boards for adventurers. And I assume that a lot of them are low level mages. Brutal barbarians, fearsome fighters, mendacious monks, brazen bards, rapscallion rogues, sinister sorcerers, cloistered clerics, wicked wizards, willful warlocks, and wondrous wizards all abound. It's just part of the world.

 

[Alatar]

Personally, when I DM my own campaign world I presume that there are hundreds or thousands of "adventurers" out there. Enough to have adventuring guilds, enough that taverns have bounty and job boards for adventurers. And I assume that a lot of them are low level mages. Brutal barbarians, fearsome fighters, mendacious monks, brazen bards, rapscallion rogues, sinister sorcerers, cloistered clerics, wicked wizards, willful warlocks, and wondrous wizards all abound. It's just part of the world.

Sure, I've played in similar campaigns. It's also going to vary with the overall setting. High medieval will have large cities grown past their walls, great kingdoms with regular, established trade between them, trade guilds, universities, and a wordwide population of about 300 million. Whereas, an "age of heroes" type setting, something with more of a Conan flavor, will have isolated city states, large tracks of lawless wilderness, foreign lands being the stuff of myths and legends, and a worldwide population of perhaps 30 million. Both types of setting can be compelling.

This is an interesting video that marries the level of human civilization to the size of the population:

The History of the World: Every Year

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

And there should be a price. That otherworldy power is going to want you to do something, something that you would not otherwise do, something that you or your companions may not want to do. And it's also likely to be an ongoing issue. Those warlock powers are awfully open ended. No nearby expiration date. So what have you done for that inscrutable otherworldy power lately? How is this not a problem? Or at least a serious consideration that weighs heavily on one's decision making process?

I'm generally not a pearl clutching roleplayer, but this business of a casual "dip" into warlock just strikes me as absurd.

To me however it seems exactly right. Nobody execpt a Comic book villain goes "I will sell my soul to the devil for ULTIMATE POWER, muahahaha!" No, it's "I just need a little bit more Power to achieve my goals. I'll make a deal for a few magical tricks in exchange for some favors. If the Dark Power wants me to do some unsavory stuff I'll just hold my nose while doing it, how bad can it be?"

Now in fiction, the devil would be tempting the "dipping" warlock With increasing amounts of Power as he slides further into depravity, but in D&D 5E the Warlock class past Level 2-3 isn't particularly tempting for anyone seeking Power. The devil needs to improve his offer if he wants to fill his quota for fallen souls.