Why is it so important?

[Vigilance]

Yet, it seems closer to the other systems Raven mentioned, in play effect, than what we've been told about 4e. At least, IMHO.

If there is a spectrum, where Conan wizards are (say) 3, and Vancian wizards are (say) 10, then going to 20 doesn't seem to make things better to me.


RC

Again, I can see not liking the new magic rules in 4e.

I'm reserving judgement till I see them in play myself.

Having limited power does not equal "I made a deal with a demon, got knowledge man was not meant to know, risked my soul and sanity to cast that spell-which took me years to get ready for, and the spell would only work on the winter solstice, then went into hybernation for a year to recover".

That's much closer to Conan magic. It resembles D&D magic not even a little. D&D mages have a limited selection of spells that always work and impose very little penalties on the caster. Sure, you might lose some XP, or have to pay some money, but in Conan the penalty would more likely be permanent ability damage, sanity loss a la Cthulhu, and other nasty side effects.

And btw, Call of Cthulhu. THERE is a magic system that does a fair job of emuting Hyborian magic.

Sooooo... if 4e was adopting that, you'd be fine right?

I doubt it. And of course, in emulating Hyborian magic, you're not emulating Tolkien magic even a little.

I'm just confused as to why people feel the need to try and place their preferences on a higher plane than others because they've appealed to some authority, whether it be realism or genre emulation.

You CAN just say "I don't like what I've heard of these rules".

No really, you can.

The problem I have is people who try to make their preference seem more authoritative by saying Vancian magic has more reality emulation than other magic systems, or that Vancian magic somehow offers better genre emulation for fantasy novels than other systems.

You're stating your preference for magic to work the way it always has. But instead of leaving it at that, you then turn around and make totally specious appeals to authority.

Vancian magic is wholly unrealistic. Just like D&D combat is wholly unrealistic.

Vancian magic also doesn't represent any type of fantasy novel well except those written by Jack Vance.

Both of these are ok.

Neither invalidates or validates anyone's opinion.

You can have a legitimate opinion without a false appeal to authority.

 

[Grog]

How about just recapping my first few sentenses when I laid out my thesis (#160).

Well, if all you're saying is that 4E won't stop metagamers from doing their thing, all I can say in response to that is "Well, duh!" No rules change can stop metagaming - only the DM and the players can do that. I would have thought that was obvious.

 

[FickleGM]

It is important to me, because it allows me to continue throwing enemies at the party, that are fully "powered up," without having the players question why their enemies always have the full alotment of spells.

Either way, I will continue to not worry about NPC resource management, but with per-encounter abilities/spells, the party is playing on a more level playing field.

 

[gizmo33]

Just a side note, but www.thesaurus.com is a wonderful resource. Color, credibility, genuineness, likeliness, likeness, plausibility, realism, resemblance, semblance, show, similarity are synonyms for verisimilitude. I think that poor word has been worn out in these forums....

We need a word that means "realism" in such a way that people don't respond with "well, dragons aren't 'real' so that means my fighter should be able to eat nails for breakfast". A word that means something like "realism appropriate for a fantasy adventure game." I use versimilitude until thesaurus.com would like to suggest one better.

 

[gizmo33]

Of course, the fix to this is to just ditch the per-day abilities.

Exactly - when we're to the point that ditching them is the only possible alternative, then I have a few posts with what I disaster I think that would be. As it stands, the logic in this thread can be a little slippery so it's easier to just deal with one issue at a time. At this point I hope you can at least get a sense of what I think the problems are with the mixed "daily/encounter" design.

 

[Vigilance]

We need a word that means "realism" in such a way that people don't respond with "well, dragons aren't 'real' so that means my fighter should be able to eat nails for breakfast". A word that means something like "realism appropriate for a fantasy adventure game." I use versimilitude until thesaurus.com would like to suggest one better.

But again, of the two scenarios you suggest, "dragons being real" and "eating nails for breakfast", since neither has the slightest thing to do with verisimilitude, why use the word at all?

Why not just say "fighters eating nails for breakfast doesn't appeal to me"?

 

[gizmo33]

Having limited power does not equal "I made a deal with a demon, got knowledge man was not meant to know, risked my soul and sanity to cast that spell-which took me years to get ready for, and the spell would only work on the winter solstice, then went into hybernation for a year to recover".

That's much closer to Conan magic. It resembles D&D magic not even a little.

That's debateable and a difficult thing to assess IMO and I would have thought you'd be a little more qualified in your statements (but then the internet is not a place for nuance).

"There are creatures," said Pelias, "not alone of earth and sea, but of air and the far reaches of the sky as well, dwelling apart, unguessed of men. Yet to him who holds the Master-words and Signs and the Knowledge underlying all, they are not malignant nor inaccessible. Watch and fear not."

At which point Pelias summons a beast for Conan to ride on, with apparently no risk to soul or sanity (well, Pelias' anyway, Conan is a little creeped out by it).

Now isn't it possible that the "Master-words and Signs" this is just REH speak for "hey, when you're a 5th level wizard you can cast Summon Monster III. Check this out..." ? In any case there's nothing in Pelias' speech that indicates that there are such soul-destroying consequences to the spell casting. But perhaps he's glossing it over. There are other examples, such as hypnotism in "People of the Black Circle" where there appear to be no negative consequences to having learned or used the magic. Maybe you can find examples to fit your case, but I think mine are sufficient to establish that it's a mixed, and perhaps inconsistent, picture.

So maybe REH is inconsistent in the way he represents magic? Why not? He's not writing about wizards in the main, he's writing about Conan. As I said before, the weight that I give Vance over REH in this area is that Vance is actually telling you a story from a wizard's perspective, and so there has to be a higher level of versimilitude regarding magic use, and as such, I think it makes Vance a better source for a game about magic than REH.

 

[gizmo33]

But again, of the two scenarios you suggest, "dragons being real" and "eating nails for breakfast", since neither has the slightest thing to do with verisimilitude, why use the word at all?

Why not just say "fighters eating nails for breakfast doesn't appeal to me"?

Because that's not what it's about. And it DOES have the slightest thing to do with the definition of the word - why am I always into these "A is like B, A is not like B" arguments with people that don't apparently grasp that as the "extremeness" of their statements goes up, the likelihood of them being true goes down.

And here's how that works in this situation: Plausibility is a close cousin of versimilitude (as in "slightest thing", you know). Now plausibility is something that needs to be judged in context. In this case "valid or exceptable" needs to be considered in light of the fact that we're talking about a fantasy adventure game. A dragon, therefore, is plausible. Calling something a "human" and then having it act (ie. eating nails) in ways that goes against the understood definition of that word, it not as plausible. It is a matter of degree, which perhaps is to ambitious for me to establish on the internet. But if you grant me that, then it's not a matter of me not liking the example about fighters. It's about me not liking it and, importantly, me not finding it a comfortable fit for the understood definitions and themes. Granted, there's some room for interpretation/opinion here, but I don't think it's as much of a free-for-all as you're implying.

 

[Tyrion]

Personally, I prefer most of my strategic decision-making to occur in the battle, and not before the battle. That means smaller prep times and more opportunities for clever, on-the-fly improvisation.

 

[hong]

I think it's clearly a consequence of the reasoning that Celebrim has outlined. IF all you have are "per day", "per encounter", and "at will" abilities, then what does a challenging encounter look like in DnD? It doesn't look like an encounter that requires nothing but "at will" abilities because those are of no consequence to use. Think of those encounters in 3E right now that require only "at will" abilities from characters and have no effect on daily resources. Those encounters are insignificant.

(3E encounter without power attrition -> boring 3E encounter) !-> (4E encounter without power attrition -> boring 4E encounter)