D&D General Weapons should break left and right

[Lanefan]

Or use 5e Warlock chasis. You get fixed number or slots per rest which grow in power, but not in number, as you level up. That's your big bang, heavy guns. Utility- those go straight to rituals. If you have them, cast them from spellbook, no slots needed. Those are for out of combat use or pre combat (like summoning and animating, but nerf it a bit). Cantrips are always available stuff, make more of them and give abilities that modify or augment them, like invocations that modify Eldricht blast.

Other option is what you suggest, just have slots. Or better yet, mana pool. So you can fire more weaker spells or burn all of it for couple of strong ones.

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. That's why I went to wild-card (i.e. no pre-mem.) slots for my current campaign. Homebrew system and a work in progress, it still needs work at high levels and was just fine at low.

I really don't want any sort of always-on casting a la rituals or cantrips; I prefer fewer bigger-bang spells (no concentration required, decent duration or damage), while the martials are the go-all-day types.

One other element we've all overlooked so far is that wizards get access to all sorts of magic items - most notably, wands - that can replicate spells and thus keep them feeling magical long after their slots are exhausted.

@Lanefan

D&D was wargame ages ago. With each edition, it goes further and further from that.

A very sad but true observation. I live in hope that the pendulum will start swinging back someday.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Somewhat, yes, as each homebrewer is going to fix it to suit their own tastes and table. I want the underlying framework to be well designed and rock solid, however, with enough discrete modular mostly-independent subsystems to allow me-as-homebrewer to mess with one element while not affecting much, if anything, else.

This is inherently impossible.

Your foundation decides what the game is about and who is it for. There is only as far as you can homebrew to modify the foundation before you would be better off picking another game altogether. And, quite frankly, the foundation you and Micah describe is such blatantly aimed for one specific niche, that in itself weirdly blends two styles that do not mesh well to begin with, that you are effectively telling everyone else to ef off. A game as blatantly good only at dungeoncrawling, that challenges players while treating characters as disposable, and has bunch of weird, annoying mechanics attached for sake of simulationism...to turn such game into a collaborative storytelling one is so much work it is a time better spent learning other systems. Your dream is a pipe one and will isntead jsut lead to gatekeeping.

Game mechanics in Risk (and thousands of other games) tell you you can't play at all any more once your forces get wiped out or you've otherwise met the game's loss condition.

So once I run out of spells it means I lost the game, should get off the table, pack and leave, yes?

Also, even if we take this ridiculous assumption D&D is a game, it is NOT Risk or Chess or Poker or Talisman. Those are competetive games with winners and losers, while D&D would qualify as collaborative game, where entire group works together for one goal. See games like Mansions of Madness, Arkham Horror, or Battlestar Galactica/Unfanthomable.

With an empty-tank wizard you can still play sub-optimally; and sub-optimal play is always better than not playing at all.

Except I am also incentivised to play sub-optimal at ALL TIMEs in order to avoid being empty tank to begin with. Playing wizard with your stipulations amounts to...not playing wizard.

Good, as I'm not after a collaborative storytelling game. There's loads of other "indie" games for that sort of thing; were collaborative storytelling my aim I'd pick up one of those and give it a run out.

I don't know if the mocking and dismissive way with which this paragraph came off was your intention, but I do nto care much for tinily-veiled insults to other games like this.

And as D&D is at its heart a wargame, you're in the right place for that.

Not really. it may have grew from a wargame but, let's be honest, it is a BAD wargame, just as it is a BAD dungeon crawler, people only stick to claiming the game does these things good out of pre-perceived image. But these are argurably the worst parts of the game, regardless of edition.

Just because I have a story I want to tell with a character doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to get to tell it. I hold no such entitlement.

Again, if I take big chunk of my limited leisure time, likely after hard workday, to go and play my character, I am expecting to be able to play my character. I can accept if my own decisions or the dice get in the way of telling the story I want to tell, but if the game puts arbitrary restrictions on my ability to play character I want to play, then I am better off finding another game because this one should never offer an option to play this type of character to begin with. if your ideal way of playing the wizard incentivises player to NOT play the wizard, maybe wizard shouldn't be playable to begin with?

 

[Maxperson]

Agreed, I've never liked pre-memorization.

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.

Meanwhile once the fighting stops the martials and other non-casters can just take a seat 'cause the wizard can solve everything through casting rituals all day? Sorry, that's not gonna fly.

I actually want to see ritual casting given a greater seat at the table. The limiter would be cost. Make ritual casting more expensive, so that the caster won't make the non-casters take a back seat, but can come through with flying colors sometimes.

 

[Lanefan]

This is inherently impossible.

Your foundation decides what the game is about and who is it for. There is only as far as you can homebrew to modify the foundation before you would be better off picking another game altogether. And, quite frankly, the foundation you and Micah describe is such blatantly aimed for one specific niche, that in itself weirdly blends two styles that do not mesh well to begin with,

Those styles being wargame and simulation, if I recall an earlier post? I see no reason why those can't blend quite well. Ditto dungeoncrawling and simulation; wilderness survival and simulation, etc.

What doesn't blend well - and I'll freely admit this all day long - is simulation and small-g gamism, or playability. While not quite zero-sum, additions to one of these very often come at the expense of the other.

So once I run out of spells it means I lost the game, should get off the table, pack and leave, yes?

Not at all. You just have to find other ways to contribute, similar to an archer who's run out of arrows.

Also, even if we take this ridiculous assumption D&D is a game, it is NOT Risk or Chess or Poker or Talisman.

All RPGs are games - that's what the 'G' stands for.

Those are competetive games with winners and losers, while D&D would qualify as collaborative game, where entire group works together for one goal. See games like Mansions of Madness, Arkham Horror, or Battlestar Galactica/Unfanthomable.

I see D&D as being kind of competitive and collaborative at the same time. It has win and loss conditions, though not as hard-line or permanent as many other games, and you're competing against the challenges the DM has set and - depending on the table - might also be competing against each other as PCs.

I don't know if the mocking and dismissive way with which this paragraph came off was your intention, but I do nto care much for tinily-veiled insults to other games like this.

Wasn't intended as either mocking or dismissive and IMO reading it as such is a bit uncharitable.

Not really. it may have grew from a wargame but, let's be honest, it is a BAD wargame, just as it is a BAD dungeon crawler, people only stick to claiming the game does these things good out of pre-perceived image. But these are argurably the worst parts of the game, regardless of edition.

That D&D is a bad dungeoncrawler has come up before (not sure if from you or someone else); and while this may be somewhat true in the recent editions I find it hard to fathom how a system like BX or 1e is a bad dungeoncrawler.

Again, if I take big chunk of my limited leisure time, likely after hard workday, to go and play my character, I am expecting to be able to play my character. I can accept if my own decisions or the dice get in the way of telling the story I want to tell, but if the game puts arbitrary restrictions on my ability to play character I want to play, then I am better off finding another game because this one should never offer an option to play this type of character to begin with. if your ideal way of playing the wizard incentivises player to NOT play the wizard, maybe wizard shouldn't be playable to begin with?

Or the player simply has to accept that the class - like all classes, ideally - comes with some baked-in limitations*, and then play within those limitations. If I'm playing a Thief I can't expect to be doing Thief-y things all the time and also have to accept that I'm not as good a warrior as the warrior types. If I'm playing a Fighter I have to accept that I can't do magic and thus I have to rely on you wizard and cleric types to handle the magic stuff and non-natural healing. And so on.

Which means by the same token if I'm playing a limited-slots Wizard I have to accept that I can only do so much in an in-game day.

* - said limitations often being there purely in the pursuit of in-game balance between the classes and characters.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And yet most of time they did pull out magic it was flashy, so the difference was functionalyl nonexistent.

As I said, the issue isn't flash. It is continuous, always-available flash. Casters in Dragonlance ran out of spells (usually depicted as running out of stamina, especially in Raistlin's case). Maybe try reading what I wrote?

If this is about how wizards running out of spells and becoming glorified npc feels video-game'y, I reffer you to the following point by other user:

It isn't about that, because I don't believe that wizards who run out of spells become "glorified NPCs", nor do I see the effect as video-gamey. I'll bit on your example though.

It is pretty much the same with vancian magic - it's one thing to use it in story, where the writer controls when the character runs out of spell slots for dramatic effect, but trying to recreate that at the table doesn't work because the system just makes it the caster keeps running out of spells and being useless and it becomes an increadibly frustrating experience to the player, while clearly serving no purpose from the perspective of either realistic worldbuilding or collaborative storytelling, being purely a mechanic to remaind this is a game.

In the many times I played a magic-user during two decades of TSR D&D play, I never felt running out of spells was an incredibly frustrating experience. The magic system was part of the world, so to me that was just how magic worked. Thusly, running out of spells and having to memorize them again was part of that process.

So when you say "incredibly frustrating to the player", I assume you mean yourself, or possibly someone you played with?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Also, even if we take this ridiculous assumption D&D is a game, it is NOT Risk or Chess or Poker or Talisman. Those are competetive games with winners and losers, while D&D would qualify as collaborative game, where entire group works together for one goal. See games like Mansions of Madness, Arkham Horror, or Battlestar Galactica/Unfanthomable.

Wait a minute...the idea that D&D is a game is a "ridiculous assumption"? What do you think the G is for? What are we all doing?

 

[Hussar]

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.

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. 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.

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

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Wait a minute...the idea that D&D is a game is a "ridiculous assumption"? What do you think the G is for? What are we all doing?

All RPGs are games - that's what the 'G' stands for.

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.

As I said, the issue isn't flash. It is continuous, always-available flash. Casters in Dragonlance ran out of spells (usually depicted as running out of stamina, especially in Raistlin's case). Maybe try reading what I wrote?

That is also inaccurate, Raistlin's health is not there to reflect spell slots, it has a backstory and outside of novels, it comes from trying to reflect how in the original campaign his player tried to roleplay having 3 Constitution. You made up connectio nthat was never there. In fact, Raistlin has coughing fits and needs to rest even when he isn't casting spells or when he has not cast enough for character of his level (remember, Dragons of Despair is for character of minimum 4th level) to run out already.

In the many times I played a magic-user during two decades of TSR D&D play, I never felt running out of spells was an incredibly frustrating experience. The magic system was part of the world, so to me that was just how magic worked. Thusly, running out of spells and having to memorize them again was part of that process.

So when you say "incredibly frustrating to the player", I assume you mean yourself, or possibly someone you played with?

You try to dismiss an argument by using personal experience, then immediatelly try to also dismiss it as personal experience of myself? It really gives a vibe that you think yourself better and that your experiences deserve preferential treatment over others.

Those styles being wargame and simulation, if I recall an earlier post? I see no reason why those can't blend quite well. Ditto dungeoncrawling and simulation; wilderness survival and simulation, etc.

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.

Not at all. You just have to find other ways to contribute, similar to an archer who's run out of arrows.

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

And seriously, this desire to render other player's character into useless sidekick doing menial tasks starts to increasingly sound like some weird gameplay hazing thing. Like if you want the game to forcibly humilate the player for wanting to play it. "No, you don't deserve to play the wizard or archer, you get to play a loser who is there to do menial tasks nobody wants to do, while we, who picked classes without artificial limitations, get to actually enjoy the game".

I see D&D as being kind of competitive and collaborative at the same time. It has win and loss conditions, though not as hard-line or permanent as many other games, and you're competing against the challenges the DM has set and - depending on the table - might also be competing against each other as PCs.

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

That D&D is a bad dungeoncrawler has come up before (not sure if from you or someone else); and while this may be somewhat true in the recent editions I find it hard to fathom how a system like BX or 1e is a bad dungeoncrawler.

At this rate I will either write separate post somewhere about it or write my own dungeoncrawler game to prove it.

Or the player simply has to accept that the class - like all classes, ideally - comes with some baked-in limitations*, and then play within those limitations. If I'm playing a Thief I can't expect to be doing Thief-y things all the time and also have to accept that I'm not as good a warrior as the warrior types. If I'm playing a Fighter I have to accept that I can't do magic and thus I have to rely on you wizard and cleric types to handle the magic stuff and non-natural healing. And so on.

Which means by the same token if I'm playing a limited-slots Wizard I have to accept that I can only do so much in an in-game day.

* - said limitations often being there purely in the pursuit of in-game balance between the classes and characters.

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.

 

[James Gasik]

You can have games where spellcasters can cast all day long and still be balanced with non-casters. Earthdawn does this, for example, however it balances this in other ways.

*Spellcasters have a mental construct called a "spell matrix" that they place a spell into. You don't need to use one of these to cast a spell, but, doing so is incredibly dangerous and can attract the attention of eldritch entities.

*You have a limited number of spell matrices available to you. A starting character has two.

*You can swap the spells you know in and out of matrices outside of combat with a fairly simple skill roll. In combat, however, is incredibly difficult, so if you suddenly find yourself needing to change out heat food for earth darts, you need to take an action to do so, and there's a good chance you could fail, wasting your turn.

*Casting a spell requires you to make a Spellcasting test, which could fail.

*Powerful spells take more than one turn to cast. Earth darts, for example, takes two actions to cast, but is the strongest First-Circle offensive spell. You need to make two different rolls to cast it as well, a "thread weaving" test (literally plugging magical energy into it), then the actual Spellcasting test. The system eventually gives you options for making this easier, but spells that require multiple threads appear at higher circles.

*Your number of spells is limited, much like a D&D Wizard. You start with a certain amount, and must find grimoires and the like that contain others to add them to your repertoire. You may find yourself technically able to cast fifth-circle spells but not actually know any!

Meanwhile, fairly quickly, non-casting Adepts are getting multiple attacks as well as innumerable specialized attack abilities. They are able to attack every turn, which a spellcaster might not be able to do. An Archer can easily attack from longer ranges as well. Enemies have different defenses against Physical, Magical, or even Social attacks, so a given foe might be stronger or weaker against a spellcaster or a non-spellcaster, giving the system a rock/paper/scissors feel at times.

 

[Umbran]

And both often make msitakes of trying to cater too too many of these groups at once, creating things that aren't comitting in any direction.

Insert Cheesecake Factory analogy here.

It seems to me that D&D is doing pretty well, all things considered. I said that designers have to make choices - but that doesn't mean they have to double-down into one single thing we'd identify as a specific playstyle.