D&D General Reification versus ludification in 5E/6E

[Maxperson]

Reread what I wrote.

The first non-human or demihuman. Elves, dwarves and halflings are demihumans. As are drow.

Just to be perfectly clear.

Before I6, there were no npcs with class who were not either human or Demi-human. Vampires are not Demi humans. Niches are not Demi humans. Ki-rin are not Demi humans. They did have spell casting baked in but were not actual class holding.

Yeah. It could be read either way and I misread it. My bad.

 

[Hussar]

The spell doesn’t do much of what it did before. So your second statement is completely false outside your own personal table, at most.

And again, the goal of avoiding players flipping through the books for the perfect monster and rounds slowing down could have been accomplished without needing the utility completely out of the spell.

We are not going to agree on this. To me, the spell is doing pretty much exactly what it did before - dealt damage. And it does so without grinding the game to a halt by giving one player eight extra turns (or however many animals are summoned) per round.

Plus it manages to reduce caster power by not allowing spells to replace player actions through “creative” spellcasting.

To me, this is nothing but win. Anything that reduces caster power is good.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

We are not going to agree on this. To me, the spell is doing pretty much exactly what it did before - dealt damage. And it does so without grinding the game to a halt by giving one player eight extra turns (or however many animals are summoned) per round.

Plus it manages to reduce caster power by not allowing spells to replace player actions through “creative” spellcasting.

To me, this is nothing but win. Anything that reduces caster power is good.

Oh good grief

Yeah, definitely not going to ever be on anything like the same page.

The spell did vastly more than deal damage, and casters aren’t so powerful that they need every possible nerf regardless of what is being nerfed.

 

[Hussar]

Oh good grief

Yeah, definitely not going to ever be on anything like the same page.

The spell did vastly more than deal damage, and casters aren’t so powerful that they need every possible nerf regardless of what is being nerfed.

Again, we're not going to agree here. I believe that every single nerf to casters is justified and more. But, really, the fact that the spell as written was such a massive PITA at the table, grinding the game to a halt plus gift wrapping a big smelly present to every optimizer out there, it desperately needed the rewrite.

The fact that, as you say, the spell did "vastly more than deal damage" is the deal breaker for me. Sorry casters, you get spells that deal damage OR get ONE effect. Not spells that let you do ten thousand different things.

 

[Lanefan]

I'd say it was more fair to say that Monsters don't use PC rules- but unless the 2024 Monster Manual changes it's definition of "monster" to not include basically everything, we're right back where we started.

So maybe we should say "NPC's generally don't use PC rules"?

And that's just it: NPCs should use PC rules* to the extent that an NPC should fall within the bounds of what is possible for a PC while Monsters can be or do whatever.

* - before someone starts with the 72-point typeface again, I don't care what the rules currently say about it.

 

[Lanefan]

Again, we're not going to agree here. I believe that every single nerf to casters is justified and more. But, really, the fact that the spell as written was such a massive PITA at the table, grinding the game to a halt plus gift wrapping a big smelly present to every optimizer out there, it desperately needed the rewrite.

If you're still on about [whatever Monster Summoning is called these days], the easiest and fastest fix is to take away the player-side choice over what is summoned and make it random from a list of appropriate-level/HD/CR creatures. 1e got this bang-on right.

The fact that, as you say, the spell did "vastly more than deal damage" is the deal breaker for me. Sorry casters, you get spells that deal damage OR get ONE effect. Not spells that let you do ten thousand different things.

The bolded sounds mighty boring from here.

One of the joys of playing is to find new-creative-unexpected uses for spells. Another is to play a character who does have spells that can do ten thousand different things (or at least should be able to), namely an Illusionist.

 

[James Gasik]

And that's just it: NPCs should use PC rules* to the extent that an NPC should fall within the bounds of what is possible for a PC while Monsters can be or do whatever.

* - before someone starts with the 72-point typeface again, I don't care what the rules currently say about it.

I've been playing D&D for a long while, and I've often seen NPC writeups that do things regular PC's can't. I understand that you feel that this shouldn't be the case, but it's never really been all that important historically. For example:

 

[Hussar]

And that's just it: NPCs should use PC rules* to the extent that an NPC should fall within the bounds of what is possible for a PC while Monsters can be or do whatever.

* - before someone starts with the 72-point typeface again, I don't care what the rules currently say about it.

Should? But, never, ever, in the history of the game, has it been true. NPC's, right from the very earliest days of D&D, have never fallen in within the bounds of what is possible for a PC.

And, I'm assuming by NPC here you mean humanoids of some form. Just want to be clear.

The bolded sounds mighty boring from here.

One of the joys of playing is to find new-creative-unexpected uses for spells. Another is to play a character who does have spells that can do ten thousand different things (or at least should be able to), namely an Illusionist.

That is not one of the joys of playing. That is one of the hells of playing which has caused no end of arguments and problems at the table where the mismatch between what the DM thinks is possible with the spell and what the player thinks is possible. Illusionists are the perfect example here. Most tables won't even consider using them because it's too much of a gamble. Every single time you try to do something, you wind up playing Mother May I with the DM. It's endlessly frustrating and leads to all sorts of play break down.

I FAR prefer spells to be clearly written and do specific things. Note, this is my preference So, I'm going to see any nerf to spells to limit "creativity" as a good thing. Specifying what a Command spell can do is fantastic. Specifying summoning spells so they work as an area damage spell is fantastic. My preferred D&D would strip out about 9/10ths of the spells in the game. Now, I realize that's a fight I lost long ago, but, I'm very much going to approve of any revision which pins down spells into doing EXACTLY what the spell is supposed to do.

 

[pawsplay]

That is not one of the joys of playing. That is one of the hells of playing which has caused no end of arguments and problems at the table where the mismatch between what the DM thinks is possible with the spell and what the player thinks is possible.

That's not going to be much of an argument... the DM is right.

 

[TwoSix]

That's not going to be much of an argument... the DM is right.

"Who's right" is far less important than the fact that the ambiguity caused a dispute in the first place.