The Mysterious Mage vs. Pew Pew

[prosfilaes]

We do not "wait" for anything anymore...nor do we want to and many get upset at the prospect of "waiting." I.e. "You've exhausted your spells for the day and there are five hours left in the day before you possibly will make camp/rest for the eight hours you need to recoup." does not sit well with anyone, significantly less so than it did before everyone had the interweb, quite literally, in their pockets.

Really? Because I'm thinking that troops in Vietnam and previous wars who ran out of ammo retreated. They didn't say, "Oh, let's push on while there's still light." If there is no need for speed, then the rational thing to do in the world of D&D 3 is to pull out the big weapons every major battle and rest afterwords ... which matches a lot of real-life battles.

Dr Strange can use magic all day long. But (at least to me) Dr Strange's magic seems nothing like plinking away with a crossbow. nd it seems more mysterious, rare and coveted than does the magic of a classic D&D wizard.

I think comparing a story where the details can be behind the window and even not exist with a RPG is unfair. The real question to me is how mysterious, rare and coveted does the magic of Dr. Strange seem in the various Marvel Superhero games?

 

[steeldragons]

Really? Because I'm thinking that troops in Vietnam and previous wars who ran out of ammo retreated. They didn't say, "Oh, let's push on while there's still light." If there is no need for speed, then the rational thing to do in the world of D&D 3 is to pull out the big weapons every major battle and rest afterwords ... which matches a lot of real-life battles.

Uhhhhh...Huh? I think my point was somehow missed by juuuust a titch.

Who said "not to retreat?" Did I say anything about D&D 3e? Perhaps most importantly, how'd we end up in Vietnam with no ammo!?!

Thanks for quoting me, though.
Carry on.
--SD

 

[prosfilaes]

Uhhhhh...Huh? I think my point was somehow missed by juuuust a titch.

Who said "not to retreat?" Did I say anything about D&D 3e? Perhaps most importantly, how'd we end up in Vietnam with no ammo!?!

If you don't understand, why do you think your point was missed? You've exhausted your spells for the day=being out of ammo. Making camp for the day=Retreating to where ammo is available.

 

[pemerton]

I think comparing a story where the details can be behind the window and even not exist with a RPG is unfair. The real question to me is how mysterious, rare and coveted does the magic of Dr. Strange seem in the various Marvel Superhero games?

Your reply is a reasonable one, although I think that my own post was equally reasonable in its context. That is, given that Dr Strange has magic on tap at will, and yet he and his magic are mysterious, I just don't accept the claim that magic at will reduces mystery.

I think that you correctly adduce the real cause of a lack of mystery around magic in RPGs - namely, the transparency of the mechanics. But I don't think that this problem is solved by rationing magic. (And I get the impression from your other comments in this thread that you might agree with that.)

 

[pemerton]

In general I like wizard at-wills. They can be problematic out of combat though, eg I ran Forge of Fury converted to 4e, there was some kind of deadly mould, so the wizard just cast an area fire attack at it until it was all incinerated. I'm not sure area-effect attacks should be at-will.

One way of handling this would related to the "telescoping" of the combat round that we talked about recently in another thread. Or by applying "Let it Ride". Or some combo of both.

That is, you could treat a finite number of the wizard's attacks (perhaps 1, or more if you're running it as a disarm-the-trap style skill challenge) as exhausting the effect of his/her magical fire on the mould. If, after those attacks, there is still mould left, then some other means of dealing with it has to be brought to bear.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think there's room for both. It's essentially about resource management: do I want to have one big gun that solves all the problems, or an array of little things I can do to contribute?

This, in turn, is affected by the caster's role in the adventure vs. their role in the encounter. If the adventure is the primary structure, one big effect that solves one single problem is just fine. If the encounter is, though, one big effect is overpowered, and lots of little effects would be more ideal.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I think it's almost entirely a connection to fun and enjoying the game.

The great and powerful wizard who casts one powerful spell when it's needed and basically just offers sage advise the rest of the time makes for a great story element. However, it's just not fun for most people to play. Those wizards are not PCs, they're plot devices.

The wizard with cool "I win the encounter" powers who spend most of the night's encounters plinking away fairly uselessly with their crossbow? That's not really fun to play because it does not feel "wizardly" or "cool".

I like that wizards are given a low level spell they can use all day long. Mechanically, it's not much different than plinking away with the crossbow, but it feels a heck of a lot more like you're playing someone magical and not just a placeholder.

*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.)

The Auld Grump, high int, high dex, low str....

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I definitely prefer the old model. You have a choice, you can play a fighter with medium strength attacks every round or a magic user with weak attacks but a few knockout punches. Variety and choice make the game more interesting. While the specifics of classes still vary, this type of large-scale differentiation is gone. I'm not a big fan of class homogenization.

 

[FireLance]

I definitely prefer the old model. You have a choice, you can play a fighter with medium strength attacks every round or a magic user with weak attacks but a few knockout punches. Variety and choice make the game more interesting. While the specifics of classes still vary, this type of large-scale differentiation is gone. I'm not a big fan of class homogenization.

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.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

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