D&D 5E The Decrease in Desire for Magic in D&D

[gorice]

Tell that to a bard or paladin player.

Those are the last people you should ask!

In my years of experience running and playing 5e, I've noticed that some classes/builds are much better at solving problems and generally being the centre of attention, while others are good at dealing damage, or taking damage. Full spellcasters tend to do the first two well. Classes that can combine lots of magic with additional special tricks (bards, druids, paladins) can become outright obnoxious, because they have a tool for every situation and don't really have any weaknesses.

Obviously, everyone's experience will vary. Anyway, this was a tangent on a tangent, so I'll let it go.

 

[Lanefan]

There is a frequent insistence by a vocal percentage of the fanbase that wants magic to be !!magic!! and non-magic to be bound to what people on Earth can do in their fantasy roleplaying game.

Yes. That's what magic is, it's the explanation for the things in the fiction that can't be done in our own world.

And if for no other reason than pure game-play purposes, there needs to be a clear and obvious distinction between the two so as to allow dispelling or nulling effects to work as intended.

Where I would prefer an approach like Earthdawn, where everyone is a little magical,

Thing is, if everyone is a little magical what then happens to these people in a null-magic zone?

And yes, I've already given this a great deal of thought over the years. In my own settings all "fantastic" creatures (i.e. anything that doesn't exist on Earth now or in the past) are to some extent magic-based and reliant on the presence of magic in the setting for their survival, and if stuck in a null-magic area will weaken and die. For very magical creatures such as Elves or Dragons this process starts immediately and kills within a few hours; for less-magical creatures it can take a few weeks or even months, but weakness followed by death is inevitable.

My players even came up with a term for this: "magic-sick".

I don't get it, but if this is what pays the bills over at WotC, I don't think we'll ever see a low magic version of D&D. We'll just see powerful magic users and their sidekicks.

OK, so if that's a given then go the other way: make magic powerful but add in lots of risks to using it or carrying it, and clamp down on how often it can be used. Magic items can break and maybe go 'boom' when they do. Spells can be easily interrupted and if so, they can surge wild-magic to who knows what effect(s). No more at-wills, no more non-slot rituals. Etc.

It can be done, if anyone has the cojones to do it.

 

[Lanefan]

You keep repeating this but places like Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds routinely report that about 40% of their games played are not DnD 5e. Which means there are thousands and thousands of tables right there to play pretty much any game you like.

It’s not actually that hard to not play DnD.

I would posit that it's far easier to find non-D&D games online than it is in person; but for those of us to whom online play is a borderline-unacceptable substitute for the real thing, finding non-D&D games is and remains more of a challenge.

 

[Lanefan]

Lets see:

View attachment 261899

Didn't realize Call of Cthulhu was that popular!

Would have thought Pathfinder would have a higher share.

Just under 60% D&D (counting Pathfinder).

So right, about 40% not "D&D." Though finding a specific game that's not D&D (or apparently Call of Cthulhu) might prove challenging.

Well, maybe. That 15% or so that's listed as "uncategorized" could include all sorts of things, including D&D or variants where the DM hasn't tied the game to any one system or is using a highly-customized variant (I suspect the online games I play in are like this).

 

[Zubatcarteira]

Maybe Anti-Magic fields should just cease to be a thing, they seem to cause more trouble than they're worth, definitely one of the worst spells in 5e in regards to what it even applies to.

 

[Maxperson]

Let’s try looking at this in a different way… At level 11, paladins get improved divine smite. Each of their attacks does an additional 1d8 radiant damage. One interpretation is that they are so holy, they are leaking holiness out of every orifice.

This isn’t magic. Improved divine smite works in an anti-magic field. It can’t be dispelled or counterspelled. It is part of the paladin’s nature.

It both is and isn't magic. It IS magic in the sense that it's clearly supernatural like dragonflight and the medusa gaze attack. Whether that's subject to an anti-magic field is up to the DM. Anti-magic fields stop "Spells and other magical effects..." It's up to the DM to determine whether channeling divine energy into a weapon attack is a magical effect since those are not defined anywhere.

What it's not, though, is a mundane ability.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Harry Potter is a good example here in a few ways. Yes the magic is IMO mostly too fast-paced for D&D, but in the heat of combat they still have to aim their spells and can (and often do) miss; and D&D could do with a lot more of this. There also seems to be no real limit on how many spells a caster can do - or try - in a day, which while balanced when everyone works that way isn't at all balanced in a level-based system that's also trying to make and keep martials playable.

But Potter is not a good blueprint to follow for setting design in one very big other way: it's papered over in the books/movies but when looked at the least bit closely the power gap between muggles and even the most hopeless witches-wizards is simply far too great to be sustainable in a realistic setting.

I don't know..one of my favorite interpretations of magic vs. "muggles" was in the Fables series, where the battle against the "dark lord" involved a bunch of fairy tale creatures learning to use modern military hardware.

The sniper bullet you don't hear coming from a mile away is a hell of a thing; smart bombs, c4, and machine guns do quite a lot to narrow the power gap.

1 on 1 at wand range, sure forget it. Outside that, for the HP tech seen in the movies at least, I'd say advantage muggles.

 

[Minigiant]

Let’s try looking at this in a different way… At level 11, paladins get improved divine smite. Each of their attacks does an additional 1d8 radiant damage. One interpretation is that they are so holy, they are leaking holiness out of every orifice.

This isn’t magic. Improved divine smite works in an anti-magic field. It can’t be dispelled or counterspelled. It is part of the paladin’s nature.

Smites can work in the same manner. Particularly since the basic smite doesn’t even need to be “cast” the way other smites are

I said it once and I'll keep saying.

There is an empty space in D&D for a empowered humanoid warrior class similar to Warhammer's Space Marines, Chaos Warriors, and Grail Knights where the PC is turned into a 7 foot hulking mass of muscle with x-ray eyes, steel skin, and 3 hearts because some god fancies them, they ate a dragon heart, or they drank a bunch of options at once and didn't keel over.

Everyone steals from D&D, time to steal back.

Just don't use Ultramarines as the base template.

 

[gorice]

Maybe Anti-Magic fields should just cease to be a thing, they seem to cause more trouble than they're worth, definitely one of the worst spells in 5e in regards to what it even applies to.

Anti-magic fields are the only thing standing between a cabal of spellcasters and galactic domination. Or, slightly more seriously: between magic in 5e and it's worldbuilding implications.

I said it once and I'll keep saying.

There is an empty space in D&D for a empowered humanoid warrior class similar to Warhammer's Space Marines, Chaos Warriors, and Grail Knights where the PC is turned into a 7 foot hulking mass of muscle with x-ray eyes, steel skin, and 3 hearts because some god fancies them, they ate a dragon heart, or they drank a bunch of options at once and didn't keel over.

Everyone steals from D&D, time to steal back.

Just don't use Ultramarines as the base template.

Too late, monkey's paw has already closed. Blue-armoured Ultraman Fighters will be coming to D&Done.

 

[Cadence]

Too late, monkey's paw has already closed. Blue-armoured Ultraman Fighters will be coming to D&Done.

I mean, Warhammer is in MtG now, so same building...