D&D General What Should Magic Be Able To Do, From a Gameplay Design Standpoint?

[EzekielRaiden]

Only if the dm lets them do it.

...yes. That was literally the point. Use classic psychological manipulation techniques in order to make that happen more often. That's...literally what I'm claiming.

How is that different than melee killing the king and claiming the kingdom.

Because you have to actually hit the attack rolls. And you have to get the guards to decide that you should be able. And you have to convince the nobility. And, and, and, and, and.

It's never one single moment, and it's emphatically NOT vulnerable to psychological manipulation techniques that make power creep seem reasonable. The Wizard? They only need one moment: casting the spell and psychologically manipulating the DM into accepting something. Just one act. Not dozens.

If DM lets hijinxes insue then no rule is going to limit them or make it better magic or no magic. You are arguing rules to stop a game style.

No. What I'm arguing is that you're baking in "psychologically manipulate your DM until they give you as much of what you want as you can squeeze out of them" is a bad rule, because it's an official rule that empowers only one archetype to do this thing, while forbidding any other archetype from doing so.

Giving one archetype official, explicit, mechanical support for psychological manipulation as a pathway to greater power, while confining every other archetype to "you can only use the mechanics that already exist, and you'll have to jump through that hoop over and over", directly fosters not just unfair advantage, but problematic player behaviors and DM-player arms races that very specifically push both sides to behave in mutually antagonistic ways.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Almost like a controller sort of thing…

Wait.

Okay. Wasn't sure if this was someone accidentally stumbling into this, or someone knowingly doing so without using the word.

 

[James Gasik]

Somebody must have played 100th level 1e characters!

 

[pemerton]

Somebody must have played 100th level 1e characters!

I don't think many people played this module in a genuinely serious way.

 

[Hussar]

I mentioned this before, but, I think it got lost in the scrum.

Imagine a simple fix. In order to learn a higher level spell of a given school, you needed to learn two spells from that school, but, one level lower. So, 2 1st level spells would let you learn a 2nd level spell from that school. Considering most casters only gain 2 spells known per level, that would sort out the arcane casters pretty well.

You could go broad - learning lots of lower level spells, or you could go deep - focusing your learned spells into a single school or two.

Would this not massively sort casters out?

 

[Corinnguard]

You could go broad - learning lots of lower level spells, or you could go deep - focusing your learned spells into a single school or two.

I think I would go deep with this method in an attempt to create a caster who focused on a particular set of spells. If I wanted to be a Dwarven Geomancer Wizard, for instance, I would pick spells that involve Earth or could be reskinned to have an earthy feel about them.

Would this not massively sort casters out?

Yes. It could lead to the creation of more caster subclasses.

 

[pemerton]

Would this not massively sort casters out?

Unless I've misunderstood, don't the exponential implications of this tend to rule out having high level spells?

256 1st, for 128 2nd, for 64 3rd, for 32 4th, for 16 5th, for 8 6th, for 4 7th, for 2 8th, for 1 9th.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Unless I've misunderstood, don't the exponential implications of this tend to rule out having high level spells?

256 1st, for 128 2nd, for 64 3rd, for 32 4th, for 16 5th, for 8 6th, for 4 7th, for 2 8th, for 1 9th.

i don't think you need a second two spells of a previous level to keep learning more for the next level, so you'd end up with something closer to 9, 5, 4, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, though i might be wrong in @Hussar intentions

1st: Conjuration, Conjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Divination, Abjuration, Abjuration, Transmutation, Enchantment.
2nd: Conjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Divination, Abjuration, Abjuration,
3rd: Conjuration, Divination, Divination, Abjuration.
4th: Divination, Divination.
5th: Divination, Divination.
Ect...

 

[kigmatzomat]

Keep in mind that there weren't that many 1e games that went much beyond 9th level, as the game kinda soft-capped at that "name level" point and the whole system started to wobble rather badly a few levels hence.

Anecdotal but my lived experience differs. I have to believe that for every Master box sold that at least 4 people played at 26+. There were two recessions in the 80s plus an almost-recession; we spent the money on the black box, we were by gosh going to play it!

Back in the days where I could play in multiple campaigns per week, I was in at least 5 ad&d 1e games that played to ~20th. In college I ran a 2e game from 3rd to 20+. I had 6 players that were there for the whole campaign and another 5 that weere present for the last 5 levels. And I have no idea how many one-shots were played in the dorms at higher levels, but it was a lot. I remember one guy that ran nothing but high level 1e ad&d at 2 little regional college cons , so he accounts for a couple dozen high level casters on his own.

Heck, after Primal Order by Wizards of the Coast hit stores in 1993 I was in a 2e campaign that started at 20th level.

By "caster paralysis" are you referring to the time spent studying/praying for spells each day? If not, what are you getting at?

No, I mean the "should I actually cast a spell" paralysis.

More anecdotal but outside of convention one-shots many casters would just....throw darts. There was this risk/reward logic process where casters would decide if right now was a good enough situation to use one of their precious, precious spells that they might not get back until after the adventure was complete.

This was a well known stereotype of casters. If you ever read the Knights of the Dinner Table comic, the character Brian was the stereotypical optimizer who runs numeric simulations on his characters to figure out the statistical values of any action in advance, and if the math said the long-term outcome was better to hold action and wait for more targets, he by golly would hold action and the rogue was on their own against that troll.

If you look at a lot of "old school" gaming, the whole notion of "getting rest" during an adventure is disliked by a non-trivial swath of GMs. I mean, Level Up/A5e doesn't even allow a Magnificent Mansion (an extradimensional space with an invisible, locked door that can't be picked, magic servants, plush furniture and tons of food & drink) to qualify as "Shelter" for a rest. The casters had legitimate reasons to be miserly with spells. New players who wanted to cast spells were often advised to wait until "it was worth it."

They might not have had the Eye of Sauron to contend with, but most casters were waiting for a Balrog to appear before they unlimbered spells.

I am glad that casters now cast their spells.

 

[Hussar]

Unless I've misunderstood, don't the exponential implications of this tend to rule out having high level spells?

256 1st, for 128 2nd, for 64 3rd, for 32 4th, for 16 5th, for 8 6th, for 4 7th, for 2 8th, for 1 9th.

Yes, you misunderstood. You don't need two spells for each new spell. Just two spells at a lower level. So, 2 1st level evocations would let you take unlimited 2nd level evocations. So on and so forth. Once you have "Opened" a new level, it stays open.