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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9753688" data-attributes="member: 18">Oh there is though.And this is something I've seen reliably across virtually every DM I've ever played D&D with, and the same occurs in actual plays I read/watch/listen to as well. D&D DMs reliably treat spells far better than skills in practice - simply because the utility ones don't involve rolls for the most part (a rare exception being Disguise Self).You're saying "hard nerfs" like it's a conscious decision, but it isn't, it's an unconscious behaviour, where some DMs just ask for really high numbers of rolls, sometimes not really following guidance, often acting more like this was 3E (which had some very bad guidance and ideas on rolls, it seems like the designers didn't understand that compound rolls were more likely to result in failure than a single roll, even with a penalty - Take 10 and Take 20 mitigated some of that but acted more to hide a fundamental problem), often asking for multiple rolls to achieve one single thing. You literally can't do that with utility spells.Sure some of the same DMs might get into discussions about the limits of spells, but they're usually pretty well outlined by the rules, and the DMs tend to abide by those. If a spell has a 10 minute duration, the DM isn't going to suddenly insist it has a 1 minute one. But he may well call for six rolls where one would have done, and not even consider whether he was doing something wrong. And perhaps even be upset in some way if it was suggested he maybe should have called for fewer rolls.For sure I don't see anything as extreme as "making every other class obsolete". But what I have seen is a lot of times where it was the case that it was simply better to use a spell in some dramatic and important situation, because the spell just short-circuited the problem. It's weirdly interesting to me that Shadowrun, of all damn games, managed to balance this - perhaps because of the modern technology involved, but I think in large part because spells have a cost which isn't just a slot, and can go wrong (most require a roll to cast IIRC), and "enemy casters" have like an entire suite of abilities there and are expected to be around, where that's never quite been the case in D&D. You can have a Mage there who is dedicated to doing sort of "breaking and entering" role, but you do need to dedicate yourself to it and you won't be flatly better, just situationally.Yeah I think that's often true. Time or risk - like if you're going to cause a massive alert if you nearly get caught (Rogues usually pretty good at getting away, one of the few classes that is), then it's often spell time.Yes! I love Knock because of that. That's good design! There's a real trade-off. It's not "just better". It causes a huge damn problem! It's interesting to work around!</blockquote>

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