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

[DND_Reborn]

Concentration is a massive check on magic in 5e. Many of the spells require it. It allows for disruption. I do miss the flavor and consequences of magic pre-3.5, but concentration does a really good job of balancing it in the game.

Concentration is not really a big deal IME. Most casters easily get by with a single concentration spell and it hardly ever gets broken due to the lowish DC (except on critical hits maybe). Also, IIRC less than half (about 45%) of the spells require concentration.

 

[Lanefan]

I think that should be a base Fighter ability. They can just LOOK at a guy and say 'Yeah I can take him' or 'Oh snap we better not mess with that dude!'. An the number of things you can ask the DM should be equal to your Prof. bonus so you get better at it with time.

I wouldn't want the results to always be 100% accurate i.e. I'd like there to be the possibility of failure and-or outright error, but the underlying idea has merit.

The only thing I'd take out would be ability to judge class levels in any classes that don't primarily involve fighting. I'm a Fighter, I know fighting. I don't know Cleric-ing, or Thieving, thus I shouldn't be able to look at a Cleric or a Thief and tell what level they are. I should, however, be able to get an idea whether each is any good at combat; meaning I might be able to tell a Thief apart from an Assassin just by combat cues, but that's it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

5e absolutely supports low magic. The GM can approve any spell, feat, subclass or item used.

These two statements are orthogonal--or even opposed.

"X supports Y" implies you can use X to do Y without heavy lifting. "The GM can [ed: or, rather, has to] approve any spell, feat, subclass or item used" emphatically is not that. Instead, it's saying that the GM must do a comprehensive review of the entire game and filter out that stuff. That's...not support. If anything, it is closer to the opposite of support.

4e, meanwhile, perfectly supported games with no magic whatsoever. Your allowed classes are Fighter, Ranger (excluding Utility powers from the Essentials versions), Rogue, and Warlord--a perfectly cromulent four-person party. The Inherent Bonuses rules, originally published in Dark Sun but quite trivial to apply, make it so you never need magic items of any kind. The only feats I can think of that you'd need to forbid would be multiclass feats for forbidden classes and Ritual Caster.

And if you want to tweak it up from there, it's quite easy to do so. Everything from Dark Sun sword-and-sandal to Eberron universal-magic to "the ancient days of yore when Elven High Magic reshaped the world" and anything in-between.

 

[Garthanos]

Allowing simultaneous initiatives, or characters to delay such that their initiatives become simultaneous, is all it takes.

It may just be I want it more efficient. If you want to broadcast to your enemies by shouting out loud lets focus on the caster in the back row and telling them exactly your plans (maybe some times that will NOT make a difference) "and on the count of two go" ... are you discussing it? or have you developed a synchronicity between your characters learned by protracted team work or do you have telepathy ... But I think coordinating in a way that is hard for enemies to predict and react to themselves (no opportunity attacks from anywhere or reduced opportunity attacks to one -- in 5e its always only one) is a higher order effect and doing it efficiently and picking an opening in the action (ie without spending movement or other benefits) to do it within the chaos of melee, might take a specialist .
For 5e whether anyone is going on the same initiative or not you never trigger more than one from a single enemy... why bother?

 

[Voadam]

Do you consider 3PP house rules?

Of course you can adjudicate almost anything with the rules and guidelines provided, but it relies on the DM more than what you are looking for I am guessing.

For example, the basilisk's Pertifying Gaze says: ... On a failure, the creature is petrified until freed by the greater restoration spell or other magic.

IMO, as DM, it is within the rules and guidelines of the game to allow an arcana or nature check to allow the PCs to learn that washing a petrified victim with 2 pints of fresh basilisk blood within 24 hrs of petrification reverses the effect. From the DMG I would assign the following DCs*:

• Blood reverses petrification: DC 10 arcana, DC 15 nature
• 2 pints of blood are required: DC 15 arcana, DC 20 Nature
• 24 hr limit of effectiveness: DC 15 arcana, DC 20 Nature

*These values might change based on the type of campaign I am running.

That is all without house rules IMO. It is just adjudicating actions.

Are you interpreting washing in fresh basilisk blood as "other magic"?

I would generally say that making up new stuff is within the DM's purview, but I would also generally say that changing something from requiring magic to not requiring magic is a house rule.

If you decide that basilisks blood is magical and when fresh can break petrification and a PC asks if they know of a remedy or are researching one, that seems just a RAW application of adjudicating their declared action under the knowledge skill rules of 5e.

Without that first step it seems a house rule however.

 

[Belen]

4e, meanwhile, perfectly supported games with no magic whatsoever. Your allowed classes are Fighter, Ranger (excluding Utility powers from the Essentials versions), Rogue, and Warlord--a perfectly cromulent four-person party. The Inherent Bonuses rules, originally published in Dark Sun but quite trivial to apply, make it so you never need magic items of any kind. The only feats I can think of that you'd need to forbid would be multiclass feats for forbidden classes and Ritual Caster.

Everyone was a caster in 4e. The classes worked identically. They all had "powers." The system was designed to be uniform.

 

[Lanefan]

What qualifies as a "style of play"?

A great big wide variety of things. Ideally, a big-tent system like D&D should be able to seamlessly handle as much of this variety as possible.

AND how much DM work do you think is acceptable to achieve it?

As much as it takes.

That said, the work required can be mitigated by starting with a system that's already closer to your end goal. For some, 4e is closer to that end goal, while for others it isn't; and in any case you still either have to accept a system's RAW or be ready and willing to do the work to kitbash that system into what you want it to be.

There are a ton that I consider a style of play which I cannot do well in 5e without ummm hacking the game to pieces and rebuilding.

In comparison to 4e and 3e (according to 3e fans on here), Just achieving tactical play in 5e let alone strategic requires what feels like a ton of adjustments to the game starting with monster rewrites and many many rules tweaks. CR is extremely unreliable when compared to the 4e methodologies... so predictable encounter difficulties useful for both game oriented play and narrative does not seem well supported.

And even small elements like fully supported story driven number of encounters / short rests in your play fights against what passes for class balance of 5e. I do not see that as supporting narrative gaming.

I do not see 5e actually supporting a lot of styles its more of an advertisement than a reality. And the DM tools for adding in alternative rules are more of a head nod at it, lacking any sort of indicator about the implications of how the rules changes might interact.

3e, 4e, and 5e each pushed toward some styles of play and away from others. In ve-e-ery broad strokes:

3e pushed toward a rule-for-everything small-s simulationist style, and pushed away from fast-and-loose wing-it play
4e pushed toward a fast-paced small-g gamist style, and pushed away from granularity in play
5e pushed toward a lower-threat combat-as-sport style, and pushed away from gritty survivalist play.

And it's very debatable whether any of those three truly delivered on what they were trying to push for. The only thing 5e has going for it over the previous two is that, with careful use of options and a great big DM banhammer, it's a bit more malleable and easier to kitbash into what it's not trying to do. From what I've seen/heard of 5.5e so far, I'm not sure that degree of malleability will remain.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Everyone was a caster in 4e. The classes worked identically. They all had "powers." The system was designed to be uniform.

no only arcane powers were spells

 

[dave2008]

dave, what is the point of this? I am saying I want WotC to support a diffrent style of play, one I have spelled out. are 3pp house rules, not but they also are not WotC

I guess I am trying to understand what you want. I honestly do not understand what you want or I missed where you spelled it out. You have given examples of what you don't what, but not what you want as far as I can tell.

 

[Undrave]

I wouldn't want the results to always be 100% accurate i.e. I'd like there to be the possibility of failure and-or outright error, but the underlying idea has merit.

The only thing I'd take out would be ability to judge class levels in any classes that don't primarily involve fighting. I'm a Fighter, I know fighting. I don't know Cleric-ing, or Thieving, thus I shouldn't be able to look at a Cleric or a Thief and tell what level they are. I should, however, be able to get an idea whether each is any good at combat; meaning I might be able to tell a Thief apart from an Assassin just by combat cues, but that's it.

Yeah I'd probably tweak the info you can get a little... I'd probably base it on a dice roll (Insight??) so as not to put that in the hands of the DM. Specifically calling for a HIDDEN dice roll because I wouldn't want the player to know they might be wrong if they roll low.

I'd put it fairly early too in the level progression compared to the 7th level of the Battlemaster, I feel it would help set FIGHTERS apart from random NPCs who 'happen to fight' like a city guard or militia footman.

if the Fighter is the Best at Fighting, I can totally see it warping the way they perceive the world. Always doing threat assessment and thinking on how to not be taken by surprise. They should probably get Alert later in levels too.