The extreme proliferation of magic in D&D

[Geoff Watson]

Save that in D&D, the 'pefect shot' doesn't matter unless it's alsoi a crit. Unless it's a bow built for strength and you're darn strong, no arrow can kill a deer with one shot unless it crits (assuming a deer has a normal max of like 10hp) - the mage doesn't even have that option since he's using a crossbow, which can't be built for strength. It'll never kill a moose even if it is a crit. So he has a +20 to his roll and hits; so what? He can only do it once per time he has the spell prepared. Bob the hunter can do it again and again at his normal, higher chance to hit. Then he can go hunt another creature and another.

So mages can't shoot unless they cast true strike first?
Without it, he's only 5% worse than the archer.

Geoff.

 

[FireLance]

What's the difference, anyway, between a well crafted sword that is completely non-magical, but is +1 to hit and damage and a +1 magic sword.

I have asked this question before but I've never received a satisfactory answer.

And, the wealth per level tables don't dictate the amount of magic required to keep up with the game. They dictate how effective a character needs to be in order to overcome the challenges he is expected to face, but his effectiveness doesn't have to come from magic.

Take the example of the 6th-level fighter with 13,000 gp mentioned previously. Let's say he has about 1,000 gp of mundane equipment. This leaves him with 12,000 gp of "magic".

A "standard" 6th-level fighter might have: a +1 weapon (approx. 2,000 gp), a +2 suit of armor (approx 4,000 gp), a +2 cloak of protection (approx. 4,000 gp) and a +1 ring of deflection (approx 2,000 gp).

Give your "non-magic" 6th-level fighter a +1 enhancement bonus to hit and damage with any weapon he wields and a +2 enhancement bonus to AC with any armor he uses (maybe require him to spend a day practising with the weapon and armor first), give him a +1 dodge bonus to AC and a +2 resistance bonus to saves (call these level-dependant bonuses or whatever).

In fact, you can just work off the Vow of Poverty benefits from the Book of Exalted Deeds to create a "low-magic" character that is about as effective as his "properly-equipped" counterpart.

 

[der_kluge]

it doesn't have to though. It is written to make this the easiest and it also might be what is expected but by the RAW you don't have to go this way.

I'm not quite certain how one should go about playing D&D if one doesn't go the obvious route. The only way to get XP is to fight more and more monsters, and by design, if you fight hordes of piss-ant little creatures, you get no XP, so you have to fight increasingly powerful monsters. These monsters are more and more likely to have damage reduction, and spell resistance, so wizards need more feats to harm them, and fighters need magic arms and armor to injure them. And then some creatures have different types of DR, so you have to have the golf-bag of different kinds of swords to pull out the ones that are specifically designed to injure them "This one looks like a 5 iron, old chap; that is, the dr 5/cold iron". Sure, you could play D&D as a role-playing game, with a focus on social interaction, but only those classes with the social skills as class skills, because D&D tends to place too much emphasis on rolling a dice, rather than resolving it via your mouth. It seems to be common in D&D that someone could come up with a good idea, but because the dice roll doesn't support it, it doesn't happen.

One could fight just other people, and while that would make for a more realistic style game (meaning: no monsters), that's a ton of work, due to the amount of time it takes to stat out high level NPCs, for little to no return on investment. That's why monsters are more convenient because they come "pre-packaged" with level adjustments worked right in. It can take 30 minutes to an hour or more to create high level PCs with different feats and levels, and maybe prestige classes, all so that it can get killed in about 5 minutes of play-time. That hardly seems worth it to me.

Its the maximize that is the key word there and that is a player thing. The rules do not set it up to force players to maximize thioer characters. In fact the rules don't even show one how to do it. Maximizing is a player thing and the blame has to be laid there.

So, player's should pick worthless feats every level? Even the newest players will figure out very quickly how to maximize their skills and feats. Furthermore, the game prohibits flexibility and creativity in character design because it penalizes things like cross-class skills. So, if I had a concept of a fighter who likes to track his prey, and uses stealth, but a rogue isn't what I want, I'm going to get penalized for having a creative thought. So, you have to focus your character (i.e., maximize) into a very specific frame of reference. To create a bard that *isn't* an enchanting, manipulating specialist is to create something other than the class is designed to be, and he'll suffer in the long run by not playing on his advantages. That's maximizing.

It has a style of least resistance but the game, like any game, can support all styles.

I assume you're referring to d20, and not D&D, cause last I checked, D&D didn't support horror, or the wild, wild West very well. It's suitable really only for high fantasy, and anything more deviates from the strict definition of what D&D is.

 

[Merlion]

Sure, you could play D&D as a role-playing game, with a focus on social interaction, but only those classes with the social skills as class skills, because D&D tends to place too much emphasis on rolling a dice, rather than resolving it via your mouth. It seems to be common in D&D that someone could come up with a good idea, but because the dice roll doesn't support it, it doesn't happen.

D&D is in fact a roleplaying game. The mechanics are mainly focused on combat, because that is mostly where they are needed.

I think formatting the combat/social focus of D&D isnt really terribly hard as long as the DM and the gaming group are willing to try and accomadate and give something for everyone


However I do see what your saying, and will address it further along with the rest..

Furthermore, the game prohibits flexibility and creativity in character design because it penalizes things like cross-class skills. So, if I had a concept of a fighter who likes to track his prey, and uses stealth, but a rogue isn't what I want, I'm going to get penalized for having a creative thought. So, you have to focus your character (i.e., maximize) into a very specific frame of reference. To create a bard that *isn't* an enchanting, manipulating specialist is to create something other than the class is designed to be, and he'll suffer in the long run by not playing on his advantages. That's maximizing.

This kind of thing is more where my problem comes in. As you say, each class has certain specific makeups that are mechanically useful or on par, and generally if you deviate to far from any one of those, your going to find your character isnt very effective.

I dont have a problem with focus and specialization, but I agree with you that there should be less penalization for going outside the box, on a number of levels.

It is possible to do it for yourself, but that is one of the areas where D&D is lacking. It claims to be able to be molded to many different types of play and ideas. And it can be, to a pretty deccent extent, but for a long time it never bothered to tell you how to go about that. Theres slowly begining to be more of it, but its still usualy pretty specific, rather than broad guidlines.

Added to that is the fact that, in my experience, most DMs are quite uninterested in/unwilling to change anything about the game for one reason or another. Or if they do, its all about creating their vision and their idea...rarely are they willing to let a player make changes to fit their vision, since they seem to assume its an attempt at "powergaming"

I assume you're referring to d20, and not D&D, cause last I checked, D&D didn't support horror, or the wild, wild West very well. It's suitable really only for high fantasy, and anything more deviates from the strict definition of what D&D is.

Well I think maybe when he said styles what he was really getting at more was "magic levels" (the main issue of this thread). But even that isnt that easy. The level of magic, especially magic items, is built into the mechanics of the game.

It can certainly be changed, but once again D&D says that these things are all optional and that they can be changed to suite a campaign, but little is said about how to do that and maintain balance.


I dont even neccesarily need the system to be changed. I'd just like a little more information on how to change it myself, rather than being told I'm free to do so but given little to go on.

 

[genshou]

D&D is in fact a roleplaying game. The mechanics are mainly focused on combat, because that is mostly where they are needed.

Another bit of truth that cannot be ignored; thus, it is now in my signature. And as usual, the thread wasn't even really about what this sentence by itself asserts.

 

[LostSoul]

D&D as written is not really a game I have any interest in playing anymore. It starts out harmless enough, but the higher the levels go, the more out of hand it becomes. Eventually, the party is fighting through swathes of Slaad and pits full of demons, and it becomes rather out of control. That's RAW.

I gotta agree. I see D&D as less of a Fantasy game (which I'm interested in playing) and more of a Super-Hero game (which I'm not).

An elite cadre of ultra-powerful friends wanders around the world doing (possiblly good) deeds that are so far out of the scope of the common villager that only these super-friends can handle them; fighting the foes that only they have the skills and the raw power to take, and performing the super-human feats that only they can do: this is D&D, as I see it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

D&D doesn't have to have a lot of magic.

It DOES probably have to have a lot of power-ups. In the game today, mostly, these are called "magic items."

I don't care if you get your +5 sword from shiny sparkly magic or your +5 sword from paying the best swordsmith in the land or your +5 sword from making sweet love to a family of dire badgers. As long as you have your +5 sword when you need to hit things that need a +5 sword to hit, it doesn't matter.

FFZ is, in part, an idea of a more simple, better-flowing D&D, trying to move away from complex bookkeeping. I could fairly call it "low magic." There are fewer spells and not very many magic items. But that's really a misnomer. FFZ has a lot of mages, and supports high-level spellcasting rather well. Heck, magicians are more common in the society than they are in typical D&D worlds.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Sure, you don't have to have magical items, so long as you have the equivalent in power, I can go along with that! For example, I gave the ranger IMC the ability to turn any weapon she wields into a holy weapon or an energy weapon. The barbarian can haste himself. This means -1 magical weapon (or more) and -1 boots of speed. As innate abilities, they're slightly more potent than one that's in an item they carry around, but I don't care. I also gave the entire party +2 Wisdom, so lets say -1 periapt of wisdom (honestly doesn't help everyone equally). I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting.

That's what? 22k gp roundabout. Do that a few more times and you're good to go.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

D&D doesn't have to have a lot of magic.

It DOES probably have to have a lot of power-ups. In the game today, mostly, these are called "magic items."

Yes, exactly. However, even if the powerups come from somewhere else, the math of the situation is such that you have to deal with the fact that a 10th level person could likely defeat hundreds of 1st level people almost without trying. In a standard game it's fairly easy to say that your sword bounces off the overlapping "force fields" created by a ring of protection, bracers of armor, and amulet of natural armor. It's much harder to say "You seem to fail to hit the 10th level wizard because...well, he's high level."

 

[Merlion]

Just as a small note, incorporating the Class Defense Bonus and/or Armor as Damage Reduction variants from Unearthed Arcana seems to help this is a bit in some ways and to some extent.