The Mysterious Mage vs. Pew Pew

[D'karr]

You can certainly do that, but then you don't have any real difference between magic-users and fighters. I like different classes being different.

I have heard this a lot over the years, and to this day have never seen this in actual play. I've seen a party full of rogues (3 in a party) with each one being quite different from the other. I've seen parties where the players chose characters with similar roles - defender (warden, paladin, fighter) and they all played differently.

With each role being different I've never seen a wizard play the same as a fighter.

This mythical "sameness" is only in the reading, in actual play this "sameness" never manifests.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

I think that classes can be the "same" in one way but different in another. I don't see a reason why we couldn't have fighters with smaller attacks and a few "boffo" ones, or mages who had more stable, reliable magic.

The fluff has to match, though, for me. It should be immediately obvious why it is the case and how that works...and it needs to feel "fightery/nonmagical" and "magical/nonmundane" respectively for it to work.

I was fine with warlocks in 3e. I also liked how they managed some of Book of Nine Swords.

Honestly, I don't think it's frequency of use in the day that makes mages seem less mysterious. I think it's description and world assumptions (how many mages are there in the world? Do the commoners run in fear when you cast color spray?)


The other question I'd raise is: do we really want ANY player class where there is an "OMG he's gonna do it!" moment on a daily basis?



Maybe, if we really want to make magic more rare, a mechanic like this:

Give mages the same hp as fighters. Casting spells is a "magic points" or "mana" system for variable spell power. However, the points used are hp, and are hp that can't be restored by magic until the mage has rested.

I'd work it something like this: at lvl 1, you can cast lvl 1 spells for 1 hp cost. If you want to cast lvl 2 spells, you can if you know any. They cost 4hp (2 hp for lvl 2 times 2 hp because you are that many levels from being able to "normally" cast them in 3e). You know a lvl 3 spell? GREAT! Go ahead and cast it! It costs 12 hp (3 hp for the lvl of the spell times 4 hp for the level difference you are from "normally" casting it). You're level 1, you just cast fireball, and you also are unconscious for the rest of the day.

With such a system mages are less squishy if they're not using magic willy nilly, but if they are, they become even more squishy...and can pull of some really powerful stuff if they're willing to pay some serious costs.

(Of course, these are just theory numbers, if this were done for real, the maths would need to be tightened up and improved). Actually, I think there's a mechanic somewhat like this in Midnight by Fantasy Flight Games.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Personally, I don't see why fighters have to be pigeonholed into making constant medium strength attacks, and wizards into making mostly weak attacks with a few knockout punches. Give me those options, but also let me make a fighter that can trade off weaker attacks for a few (possibly literal) knockout punches and a spellcaster (like the 3e style warlock) that can channel at-will medium strength magical attacks.

You've got that in 4E

At-Will - Basic weak attacks
Encounter - Medium Damage Attacks
Dailies - Knock Out Blows

All the 4E classes prior to Essentials are structured this way.

 

[Mallus]

The thing that strips D&D magic of "mystery" is it's role as a reliable tool for solving in-game problems (be they pesky orcs who need fireballing or pesky stone walls which need disintegrating or being turned to mud).

In other words, the way virtually every player wants to use magic during actual play (this being a game after all).

Barring, of course, the minority who want game magic to provide some mystical and essentially aesthetic experience, kinda like reading Castenada for the first time.

We can argue about how thick the layer of decorative, mystical paint we slap onto these tools should be, or how quickly a magic-using character acquires new and better tools, but there is no getting around the primary function of player-controlled magic in D&D (hint: it's a tool).

Now I've seen plenty of creative players whose characters did more than just problem-solving with magic, but always in addition to using it to further their basic adventuring goals --survive, get rich, charm or incinerate enemies-- and never a replacement for them.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Whenever the trend started towards "more magic", it was well before Harry Potter. My guess is that the trend started from the first year D&D was widely available. It is merely that different groups (and systems) had different answers to the problem of how to have more magic without making the wizard dominant. An early answer was often to put all kinds of nasty side effects and other failure possibilities on magic. A few others then and since:

• Runequest - magic is primarily supplemental, and everyone can do a little of it. Only much later does every specialists (magic or not) become dominant in their niche.
• Ars Magica - wizards are dominant from the beginning. So everyone plays one.
• GURPS/Fantasy Hero - you can tweak magic to be more or less dominant, fast/slow, dangerous/reliable, etc.
• Dragon Quest - everyone that does magic is a specialist in a college, and if your stats and focus don't stay there, you'll only amount to a dabbler.

Those solutions and more have been replicated in various games many times since.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

(I'm not 100% convinced of this line of thought, but perhaps it contains a seed of truth.)

One argument is that Harry Potter happened. The first book in the series was released in 1997, possibly just around the time that 3E was being developed. And the series continued gaining in popularity, possibly at it's apex right when 4E came out.

Unlike Gandalf, the previous archetypical wizard, wizards in Harry Potter are steeped in magic. They use magic constantly, to the point where normal things befuddle them. A game which allows wizards to play more like Harry Potter needs to allow wizards to cast lots and lots of magic.

I would point to Harry Potter as the moment the zeitgeist of wizards changed from scarce powerful magic to plentiful magic. Post-Harry wizards like Butcher's Dresden tend to act more like Harry and less like Gandalf and Sparrowhawk.

Why is this more plausible than WotC said "you know, there are a lot of players who don't play wizards because they don't want to stand around all evening, missing with a dagger, while waiting for their moment to shine?"

 

[D'karr]

Why is this more plausible than WotC said "you know, there are a lot of players who don't play wizards because they don't want to stand around all evening, missing with a dagger, while waiting for their moment to shine?"

Which is pretty much what WotC said when they started designing in that direction. It would be nice if when WotC stated a design goal, people would just take it at face value. Rather than usual internet reaction of "it must be a cryptic message from beyond with its own associated hidden agenda."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think a major point that's missed here is how XP is awarded. In 1st Edition, XP was awarded for gaining wealth, not defeating enemies in combat. How you awarded XP changed in almost every edition, each time shifting more towards XP for defeating monsters through physical prowess. You can't overstate how profound this change is. How you reward play in your game heavily influences that play.

I played 1E back when it was just "AD&D." And the game was played mostly the way it is today -- TSR's modules (and Judges Guild, for that matter) were almost entirely about "go to this place, stick a sword in these people, go through their pockets." Yeah, there was a bit more of stealing everything that wasn't nailed down (unless the nails looked valuable, in which case, we took those too). The Secret of Bone Hill turned out to be that robbing the town was as productive as fighting the monsters -- the same went for the Village of Hommlett.

But playing a magic-user back then still primarily meant "I cower in the back while the fighter does all the work."

I played magic-users back then, and it mostly sucked, and most people I knew didn't do it more than once, because "I cower" is a really unsatisfying thing to announce each turn. None of my friends read Jack Vance. They certainly didn't go into AD&D thinking, "whoa, I hope I can cower and indulge in clever wordplay instead of actually fighting!"

Yeah, the XP system did encourage a lot of us to make thieves and rob NPCs blind, but most adventures were still about combat, and until magic-users took over the game around the time they got fireball, no one wanted to play them.

Furthermore, in 1st edition all the classes were not combat specialist. Indeed, the only combat specialist was the Fighter. Wizards, Theives, and Clerics all shined, but they shined in different ways. Fighters were brought along in case the other three classes failed and you needed some meat to throw in front of the ogre.

I killed Lolth in Q1 with my cleric. They were pretty damned potent.

You shouldn't bear the mark of Cain because of this (but you should check out Mage and World of Darkness for alternate magic systems).

Mark Rein*Hagen's voice hadn't changed at the time people were originally playing AD&D. There was no other game in town for people who wanted to be more wizardly.

And "hey, if you're not having fun, it's your fault" is a pretty lame attitude, and one that smart game designers don't indulge in. Given the amount of playtesting 3E went through, I suspect they heard from a lot of people that announcing "I cower again" sucked and changed 3E wizards as a result.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

*Shuffle.* I, umm, I had fun with the crossbow. There were adventures where I killed more critters with the crossbow than the fighter did in combat.

I am not saying that you are wrong, just that particular wizard just liked the crossbow. (In a game where guns were common then he would have liked guns, too.)

Ralph Bakshi (and Murlynd) would have approved.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The thing that strips D&D magic of "mystery" is it's role as a reliable tool for solving in-game problems (be they pesky orcs who need fireballing or pesky stone walls which need disintegrating or being turned to mud).

In other words, the way virtually every player wants to use magic during actual play (this being a game after all).

Knock goes back at least as far as 1E. I believe it was in BD&D and OD&D as well.

There was never any mystery to D&D magic. If you want mystery, you need to not know what spells a caster is capable of casting. Either you want something like Ars Magica/MtA, where spells are created on the fly, or the DM creates custom spells for every character. (Which isn't hard -- even just reskinning the usual spells makes them a lot more mysterious: That spray of snakes coming from the caster's fingertips might just be magic missile, but you won't know until you've fought him.)