D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[loverdrive]

I likepre-memorization how 5e does it. You memorize your X spells, but your slots are not dedicated the way they were in 1e-3e. Having to be like Magic Missile x2, Light, Charm Person x2 was annoying. Just let me pick Magic Missile, Charm Person and Feather Fall and then use my 4 1st level slots however I choose.

I'd want at least some pre-memorization. If not tying specific slots to specific spells, then at least to magic schools.

 

[Maxperson]

I'd want at least some pre-memorization. If not tying specific slots to specific spells, then at least to magic schools.

Yeah. Like I said, I like the pre-memorization the way 5e does it. You get X spells to memorize, spread out over all of your spell levels. Those are pre-memorized and then you use your spell slots to cast them however you choose.

 

[Remathilis]

I've played in and run a mana pool (i.e. spell points) system for ages and found that while it works great at low levels it gets rather badly broken as the levels increase.

AND YET people demand psionics run on that exact system rather than slots...

 

[Deset Gled]

What is this, Mork Borg?

I have started to wonder if the "D&D General" tag on this thread has become a giant game of chicken, where everyone is challenging each other to see just how much the rules can be messed with until someone breaks and says "Yeah, but then it wouldn't be D&D."

 

[Lanefan]

As an aside, back in the 2e days, we tried an experiment. Clerics didn't choose their spells. They just had the slots per day and could cast whatever spells were on the cleric list as needed.

We've run Clerics in our 1e-style games like that since about 1983.

Funny thing was, 99% of the time, the cleric was casting pretty much exactly the same things - lots of heals and cure X spells, the odd buff, that sort of thing.

Silence and Spiritual Hammer get used quite a bit, situationally. Divinations, too - Augury and the like.

But, I did get to see Snakes to Sticks (the reverse of Sticks to Snakes) cast which was the first and only time I had ever seen that spell used. No one in their right mind would memorize that. IME, it was a great success.

I think I've seen Sticks to Snakes (either version) cast a grand total of once in the 40+ years I've been doing this, and that was just a few months ago.

Then again, this was back in the days when clerics had virtually no directly offensive spells. So, it did make a lot of sense.

And yet when you really do need a lot of curing, it's there.

 

[Hussar]

We've run Clerics in our 1e-style games like that since about 1983.

Silence and Spiritual Hammer get used quite a bit, situationally. Divinations, too - Augury and the like.

I think I've seen Sticks to Snakes (either version) cast a grand total of once in the 40+ years I've been doing this, and that was just a few months ago.

And yet when you really do need a lot of curing, it's there.

Yeah that was very much my experience too. SInce there were no actual 2nd level healing spells, and about the only "curing" spell IIRC, was something like Slow Poison, 2nd level did see a lot of somewhat more offensive spells. Like you said, spiritual hammer, zone of truth, yeah. That sort of thing.

Like I said, for clerics it seemed to work very well. Not sure it would work quite as well in 3e or later D&D, since clerics gain so many directly offensive spells compared to AD&D. Did you ever allow the same system for MU's? I'd be curious to see how it works out.

Honestly, the main reason we adopted the rules for cleric was to try to get all these situational spells to actually see the light of day. When we used the standard rules, clerics all memorized virtually the same spells every time because those were the spells you knew you were going to need. I mean, sure, detect snares and pits might be a useful spell, but, you are guaranteed to need cure light wounds LONG before you were going to need detect snares and pits.

 

[Lanefan]

I meant game in the same cathegory Risk is a game - a board game. While RPGs are games, cannot claim they are the same as Risk or Root or Ticket to Ride. A lot of friends I have who are board game geeks and refuse to touch na rpg. Trying to claim D&D is the same as Risk is ridiculous to me. These are different things to me that have completely different design principles. Hell, in the board game sphere itself there are many different categories and D&D does not fit into any of them entierly.

RPGs are different than any other category of game and yet they're still games.

Except of course where the wargaming/dungeoncrawling leads to having the Archmage forget how to use magic because he hit an arbitrary number of spell slots per day and cannot even detect magic now, becomig gloriffied commonner. Or the ridiculous image of pcs carrying dozens of weapons they are afraid to use out of fear they'll break because they break roughly 3-4 weapons per combat in a crtoonish, looney-tunes style, as both of those are implemented solely to satisfy wargaming/dungeocnrawlign need and have nothing to do with simulation.

Casting limits are gamist-first, I won't dispute that. Thing is, what other not-too-complicated mechanism can you use to make it such that the casters don't render non-casters obsolete within the first half-hour of the campaign?

As for breaking 3 to 4 weapons per combat, that's also complete overkill. Yes weapons should break now and then, but nowhere near that often. Once per half dozen sessions on average, maybe.

No, you literally said D&D is like Risk, where if you run out of units, you cannot play anymore.

Maybe read that post again. I said the opposite: that while when you run out of gas in Risk you cannot play any more, when you run out of gas in D&D you can keep playing.

Moreover, even if your character dies outright you can keep playing: just roll up another one and carry on.

I disagree, the competetivenes is toxic in this game. If players are competetive, it is always grounds for conflcit that will destroy the group,

Different strokes, I guess. For me the competitiveness is, in the right group, part of what makes it fun. It's only toxic if you allow in-character stuff to spill over to out-of-character arguments.

and if DM is competetive...what';s the point? You can just drop Tarrasque at level 1 party and bam, you win! The challenges DM gives to the party should be fair and in service of creating interesting situation in which we can together tell a good story. It should be challenging, but you should not come into it with mindset of killing the party or handing them victory.

With this bit I largely agree, other than the bolded which to me is a very minor consideration at most. I throw the challenges at 'em - sometimes they're pushovers, sometimes they're deadly, most of the time they're somewhere between that - and they handle said challenges as best they can. Any story that arises (ideally) only becomes evident in hindsight; sometimes I'll have a storyline in mind going in but they're always free to ignore it or stand it on its head if that's their preference.

1. So much for not clashing with simulaitonism.
2. There are limitations that actually make sense. In case of Thief or Fighter the limitation of doing things they do lies solely with how many opportunnities DM provides to do thievery or fighting. In case of Wizard however, the limitations are artificially enforced by mechanics purely to remind you this is a game.

Warriors, more than any other class type, are also limited by how many hit points they have, that being the resource they most often expend during the adventuring day.

 

[Lanefan]

AND YET people demand psionics run on that exact system rather than slots...

If psionics are to be something that expands in scope as you level up as do spells then yes, the same problems will likely arise.

I'm used to psionic systems where you (by random chance) get what you get if anything and that's it forever; your psionic abilities are 99% locked in. I have a hard time seeing it as the basis for a full class.

5e's fast rounds will help, but psionics to me have always felt like something that should be able to operate at the speed of thought; meaning an entire psionic vs psionic combat could be completed in less in-game time than it takes a warrior to swing a sword. This makes it difficult to fit psionics in with the other elements of in-game timing.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah that was very much my experience too. SInce there were no actual 2nd level healing spells, and about the only "curing" spell IIRC, was something like Slow Poison, 2nd level did see a lot of somewhat more offensive spells. Like you said, spiritual hammer, zone of truth, yeah. That sort of thing.

Like I said, for clerics it seemed to work very well. Not sure it would work quite as well in 3e or later D&D, since clerics gain so many directly offensive spells compared to AD&D. Did you ever allow the same system for MU's? I'd be curious to see how it works out.

I'm doing it now.

At low levels it was great - I saw loads of spells get cast that never otherwise saw the light of day. At high levels they've tended to fall back on the usual standby spells, though. Where it's really made a difference is that where a high-ish level MU with 33 spell points can cast Magic Missile 33 times in a day, if that same caster only has 6 1st-level slots in my game that's 6 MM's per day, tops (you're hard-locked to that number, you can't use a higher-level slot to cast a lower-level spell or vice-versa) and then has to look for spells of other levels. In other words, it forces them to pay more attention to all their levels worth of spells.

By high level they do build up a few more slots than I'd like, but that's an easy enough fix for the next campaign (whenever that is).

Honestly, the main reason we adopted the rules for cleric was to try to get all these situational spells to actually see the light of day. When we used the standard rules, clerics all memorized virtually the same spells every time because those were the spells you knew you were going to need. I mean, sure, detect snares and pits might be a useful spell, but, you are guaranteed to need cure light wounds LONG before you were going to need detect snares and pits.

Same here, I think - that change to Clerics was made around the time I first started playing.

 

[GobHag]

First, thanks for answering my question. Please allow me to lob in some more.

So, less (or even no?) emphasis on exploration and-or downtime? OK.

Being able to do "cool naughty word" right out of the gate is fine but then how would long-term advancement work? Or would this be specifically designed toward short quick-hitting campaigns?

And thus the player would choose two classes, one from a list of combat classes and one from a list of social classes - am I reading that right?

If yes, interesting idea; but what would the social classes look like? Right now, other than maybe Bard, I can't think of any classes that aren't either combat-first or exploration-first; almost the whole list of social classes would have to be invented from scratch.

I've at times held the same sentiment in the past, until I realize I'd have no idea how to usefully replace it. Vancian is clunky as hell but it does serve one function well: by limiting what casters can do over x-amount of time it keeps non-casters viable to play. Taking those limits off means that to preserve even the vaguest hint of character balance either everyone would have to play a caster or nobody would, and I'm not sure how far that would fly.

One way to de-clunkify Vancian somewhat without completely breaking the game is to do away with any form of pre-memorization or spell preparation. Just have per-level slots, and if a spell's on your list or in your spellbook for that level and you've got a slot remaining of that level you can freely cast it. To rein it in a bit, the idea of upcasting or downcasting has to go away - you can only use 3rd-level slots on a 3rd-level spell, period - and spell effects would have to scale with level more, as they did in 3e and prior.

With this, all the player has to track is their slots remaining by level; they don't have to go through any sort of preparation or spell load-out each in-game day in play.

I'm imagining the social classes would be something like 'Zealot' where it's all about standing and spreading your beliefs, or a 'Noble' class where it's about ingratiating yourself and using the social structure of society, or a 'Meek' where it's all about spying and eavesdropping by being easily looked over and ignored. I'm someone that's more than willing to play a mechanized social system, I fell in love with Exalted 3e for this exact reason--warts and all

The metaphor for Vancian is that it's like a game where you have an unlimited ammo pistol and a per-level limited rocket launcher but you only gain more rocket launchers as the game progresses. I can imagine this design for some an advanced class but as the basis for more than half the classes in the game? ridiculous. I would prefer being able to have a limited selection of unlimited fire spells and then can cast a super powerful fire spell once or twice per day.