Vancian Spellcasting's Real Problem - CoDzilla

[hanez]

I dont get why D&D has to look for justification from other fantasy genres? It has been around long enough, and has a big enough fan base to not need to be like any other type of fantasy. Who cares if Vancian isn't like Jack Vances novels? Who cares if druids work differently in other mythology? I want D&D to be like D&D.

 

[FireLance]

I want D&D to be like D&D.

Except that I don't think we have any kind of agreement on what is D&D. To borrow an example from another thread: Which is D&D - LG-only paladins or paladins of all alignments?

 

[GreyLord]

Maybe it's as simple as making all Clerics and Druid spells Rituals that take 10 minutes to cast?

Or even just one minute, but if they are interupted the ritual doesn't happen.

 

[tlantl]

This CoDzilla thing is a phenomenon created by 3e. Take all of the stuff that was added to these classes away and return them to their original states and the problem goes away.

All of the things that restricted spell casters in the past were discarded as unnecessary when they were designing 3e. The classes all got boosts of power. The problem was these boosts did little good for the non casters and opened the flood gates of abuses aplenty for the spell casters.

I think the more potentially more powerful classes need to be reigned in more by making them harder and less desirable to play. Who wants to play a wizard with only 10 spells? Who would want to try to be the mage if they had the real chance of failing to learn the really good spells? Who wants to play a character who is likely to lose half of their castings in an encounter to minor damage? Let them go nova, then make them continue the adventure using mundane equipment like everyone else.

Clerics can fight and wear armor why give them damaging attack spells too. Clerics were regarded as the class of least desirable because all they could really do is heal. Lets go back to that. take all of the overpowering buffs and metamagic feats and dump them into the trash.

I also think the competition between players at the table and the seeming envy of casters by those playing non casters might be an issue too. D&D is a team sport play as a team.

 

[Yora]

It really becomes a problem when spells become more effective than weapons and armor. Spellcasters are not more vulnerable to attacks than warriors, when they wear no armor. Instead, they are even much better protected.

 

[Balesir]

I also think the competition between players at the table and the seeming envy of casters by those playing non casters might be an issue too. D&D is a team sport play as a team.

It's probably not the way you were thinking of it, but I have been replaying the old "Pool of Radiance" PC game recently and that brought to mind "team play". I find that, if I play the whole team of 6 AD&D characters, I get enough crunchy decisions to make for an interesting game. My memories of playing AD&D tabletop, though, feel like flying a 'plane where I get control of the left rudder pedal. The other players get the other controls, but the DM has an override on the weather, other aircraft and the design parameters of the 'plane we're flying...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This CoDzilla thing is a phenomenon created by 3e. Take all of the stuff that was added to these classes away and return them to their original states and the problem goes away.

No it doesn't.

All of the things that restricted spell casters in the past were discarded as unnecessary when they were designing 3e. The classes all got boosts of power. The problem was these boosts did little good for the non casters and opened the flood gates of abuses aplenty for the spell casters.

It made it a lot easier and simpler, and created an even more huge gap, but the gap itself was always there.

I think the more potentially more powerful classes need to be reigned in more by making them harder and less desirable to play. Who wants to play a wizard with only 10 spells? Who would want to try to be the mage if they had the real chance of failing to learn the really good spells? Who wants to play a character who is likely to lose half of their castings in an encounter to minor damage? Let them go nova, then make them continue the adventure using mundane equipment like everyone else.

Except it rarely, if ever, worked that way. Nor is it even a desirable way for it to work. If you're either awesome or you suck then you'll suck when it doesn't matter and be awesome when it does. If you suck always, then the class just sucks. If you can get around the suckage, then you will, which is exactly what happened in AD&D. I can count on one hand the number of times one of my wizards lost a spell to an attack in 20 years of playing AD&D. It just wasn't an issue. Sure, NO character is 100% capable every second, but casters were vastly more capable than non-casters, even in OD&D.

Clerics can fight and wear armor why give them damaging attack spells too. Clerics were regarded as the class of least desirable because all they could really do is heal. Lets go back to that. take all of the overpowering buffs and metamagic feats and dump them into the trash.

Well, I'm not saying those spells shouldn't exist, but clerics IMHO were boring because the party REQUIRED them to cast nothing but heals. The rules were structured that way, you couldn't really avoid it. They had many other potentially interesting spells, but it was always a bad idea to take them. We'd just be right back to the "nobody wants to play it" AD&D cleric. That's not where I want to be.

I also think the competition between players at the table and the seeming envy of casters by those playing non casters might be an issue too. D&D is a team sport play as a team.

Yes, it is a team game. So why would you want some members of the team to vastly outperform others? It isn't about 'competition', it is about some of the people at the table feeling like their characters are useless most of the time over a large percentage of the game, or that they're at best secondarily useful and their team would be better off with another caster. It makes no sense to me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I dont get why D&D has to look for justification from other fantasy genres? It has been around long enough, and has a big enough fan base to not need to be like any other type of fantasy. Who cares if Vancian isn't like Jack Vances novels? Who cares if druids work differently in other mythology? I want D&D to be like D&D.

Why does D&D have to be totally different from other fantasy genres in ways that are inflexible and can't be adjusted? I just want to have choices. Its fine if you want to play according to the genre conventions that you're used to. After 30 years of playing by them I'm BORED OF THEM. Heck, I was bored of them in 1989 when 2e came out. I didn't even BOTHER with 3.x, more of the same. I want to be able to expand the reach of what I can do with D&D, which 4e actually did pretty nicely in some ways. 5e can do even better. Often I DO want to be able to use conventions that refer back to other things besides older versions of D&D. Why does this game HAVE to be stuck immutably in 1974? It ain't 1974 anymore.

 

[tlantl]

No it doesn't.

I'm glad you agree.

Believe me this issue was never a problem before 3e came along.


The very nature of the classes is that there are going to be times when your character is going to sit around not being the star. If you need to be a star all the time take up acting.

If these issues crop up at your table then It's something you and your group need to deal with. It's unfortunate that the guys who make these games can't get them right. Maybe eventually this will change.

 

[Balesir]

Believe me this issue was never a problem before 3e came along.

Yes, it was.

I was there. So was Abdul.

It might not have been a problem for you - but the problem most assuredly existed.