How many of you truly believe that only spell casters are worth playing?

[lylsyly]

Just exactly what the thread title says!

Personally, I am going to sit back and watch.

EDIT: I am Sorry, I forgot to post the reason I am asking.

Do you honestly believe you can't contribute without spell casting or is it that you can't conceive of way to contribute without being able to cast spells?

I am working up a campaign world of my very own and REALLY thinking about limiting spell casting (magic in general).

I would really like to hear your opinions.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Would you... care to rephrase your question in a less confrontational and condescending way? Because it sure sounds like you're trying to pick a fight with us "dirty optimizers."

Speaking personally, when I play RPGs I like to use powers creatively. I like building strong characters, and then figuring out how to apply their strengths to the situation. Because of that, I tend to enjoy characters with a wide range of mechanical options-- which, in D&D, tends to mean some sort of magic system.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Not only spellcasters, but i like my characters to have some versatility. So mostly spellcasters, psionics, skillmonkeys and martial adepts (well, Swordsage) for me.
I've enjoyed Wizard, Cleric and Druid as much as Bard and Psychic Rogue, so it's not purely a consideration of power. Swordsage worked well enough too, as did a Warlock.
I also played a Binder once and it wasn't too bad, but i still felt rather limited sometimes. That one was pretty close to my... "simplicity limit", if you will.

I like having at least a somewhat applicable solution to problems the party encounters. I can't imagine being the guy who only has "Power Attack for X" and maybe trip on 2 skill points/level with a crappy list.

Not that standard beatsticks don't have their uses, but you can generally do comparable damage with a build that also does spellcasting or skills.
Still, if someone wants to play a Barbarian 20 i'm not going to give them grief over it. To each their own. I'll just play something with a buffing focus if they don't measure up otherwise.

[Beheld]

1) Limiting magic is a terrible idea that makes the game worse for mundanes as well in every implementation.

2) You can theoretically build anything to "contribute" even if it's a boring terrible way like uber charging.

3) Some other classes can contribute in interesting and level appropriate ways, like Rogues who maximize attacks and try to get SA.

4) Spellcasters are certainly the only fun classes to play (aside from occasionally rogues) in combat, because you make actual decisions that actually matter, instead of having your actions be so predictable that you could leave the room and everyone else could run your character exactly as you would have after playing with you for a couple sessions.

5) Spellcasters are certainly the only fun classes to play in the part of the game where you problem solve with your abilities, because they are the ones with abilities.

6) Any class or no class can be fun in the RP part of the game.

7) Most non spellcasters can't keep up with CR, and most spellcasters can, so it's easier and more fun for the DM if the party is spellcasters.

So yeah, you should probably play a spellcaster to maximize your own enjoyment and the enjoyment of others. Or make extensive modifications to something (my preference is to the non caster classes) to fix the problems.

[Crake]

I don't think I've ever actually met anyone who's only played spellcasters in their gaming career. Most of us, however, tend to play at least tier 4 and above. Barbarians, rogues, and rangers have all had their place at our table, as have martial adepts of all kinds. Fighters only come in dips, and anyone trying to play a monk-like character just defaults to swordsage instead. But yeah, some concepts just can't really be accurately portrayed by spellcasters.

[Zombulian]

1) Limiting magic is a terrible idea that makes the game worse for mundanes as well in every implementation.

2) You can theoretically build anything to "contribute" even if it's a boring terrible way like uber charging.

3) Some other classes can contribute in interesting and level appropriate ways, like Rogues who maximize attacks and try to get SA.

4) Spellcasters are certainly the only fun classes to play (aside from occasionally rogues) in combat, because you make actual decisions that actually matter, instead of having your actions be so predictable that you could leave the room and everyone else could run your character exactly as you would have after playing with you for a couple sessions.

5) Spellcasters are certainly the only fun classes to play in the part of the game where you problem solve with your abilities, because they are the ones with abilities.

6) Any class or no class can be fun in the RP part of the game.

7) Most non spellcasters can't keep up with CR, and most spellcasters can, so it's easier and more fun for the DM if the party is spellcasters.

So yeah, you should probably play a spellcaster to maximize your own enjoyment and the enjoyment of others. Or make extensive modifications to something (my preference is to the non caster classes) to fix the problems.

Agree with most of these points, I don't think caster are exlusively the most fun though, but classes with variable abilities (like Factotums and Initiators) fit in with the general idea.

[logic_error]

1) Limiting magic is a terrible idea that makes the game worse for mundanes as well in every implementation.

2) You can theoretically build anything to "contribute" even if it's a boring terrible way like uber charging.

3) Some other classes can contribute in interesting and level appropriate ways, like Rogues who maximize attacks and try to get SA.

4) Spellcasters are certainly the only fun classes to play (aside from occasionally rogues) in combat, because you make actual decisions that actually matter, instead of having your actions be so predictable that you could leave the room and everyone else could run your character exactly as you would have after playing with you for a couple sessions.

5) Spellcasters are certainly the only fun classes to play in the part of the game where you problem solve with your abilities, because they are the ones with abilities.

6) Any class or no class can be fun in the RP part of the game.

7) Most non spellcasters can't keep up with CR, and most spellcasters can, so it's easier and more fun for the DM if the party is spellcasters.

So yeah, you should probably play a spellcaster to maximize your own enjoyment and the enjoyment of others. Or make extensive modifications to something (my preference is to the non-caster classes) to fix the problems.

This is so true that it hurts. Indeed spellcasters end up being the most *nuanced* characters who's decisions feel real due to the plethora of options they have.

D&D is a GAME, which means you are supposed to win it in most cases. Which means that DM is supposed to help you win. In D&D the job of the DM is to make life difficult for you, but just so difficult so that you can beat the game and still feel challenged. That means knowing what you can do and then setting you against what you just might achieve with proper preparation. A wizard fits in with this idea so well that he automatically starts setting the tone of the game. Spellcasting classes that prepare their spells have this ability more so than non-spellcasters or spontaneous casters because they can prepare their spells to suit the scenario. It is is a common misunderstanding that Wizards are OP. They definitely are not. They can not solve all situations without proper preparations and supposed pre-optimizers like Batman are really paper tigers to a really good DM. The real beauty of their existence is that they can pull off the game-concept of D&D better than others. i.e. Given enough info about how to win from the DM they can play D&D like its supposed to.

[Beheld]

Agree with most of these points, I don't think caster are exlusively the most fun though, but classes with variable abilities (like Factotums and Initiators) fit in with the general idea.

Different things matter in different areas. If a class provides choices during combat, then it's a lot more fun to play in combat, even if it isn't "viable" in terms of power.

Obviously, it's still a huge problem for the DM if you have choices between a bunch of weak things, because they have to do a lot more work balancing encounters.

And then of course, it doesn't matter how varied or powerful you are in combat, if it gets to the part where you need to figure out who the villain is and why they are doing it and where they are and then get to where they are, if you aren't a caster, and you are past level 9, it's time for you to just wait for someone else to solve the problems while you passively observe.

It's not necessarily true that same classes would be the most powerful, the most interesting in combat, and the most interesting out of combat, and some other class would be the least of all of that, but it is the case in 3e D&D.

[Pleh]

D&D is a GAME, which means you are supposed to win it in most cases.

For me, it's more about the story than the game. I actually like playing a lower tier because I don't want to rely on RAW to win. It's not even about winning, but playing well.

Even a vanilla monk can make a good story, especially if your DM doesn't require that you kill every monster you come across to get XP.

Casters are often less fun to me because they often have less complicated personalities and story arcs.

[logic_error]

Casters are often less fun to me because they often have less complicated personalities and story arcs.


Lol no. This has nothing to do with class type. It has more to do with the player creativity. A good player builds a believable and interesting motivation. A bad player shallow and boring one.

[Deeds]

Personally, I like classes with options: one trick ponies get old fast. I do tend to play a lot of wizard but I'm famous (infamous) at my table for playing cleric.

My favorite character & build I've ever played was a rogue/monk that prestiged into assassin. Given enough ACFs and skills and I'll enjoy most class builds. :P

[Manyasone]

Lol no. This has nothing to do with class type. It has more to do with the player creativity. A good player builds a believable and interesting motivation. A bad player shallow and boring one.
While I agree with this statement it is however so that in most heroic fantasy literature or epics (ancient Greece) that the martial classes are the true heroes of the story. I like playing casters, but I find that martials are more interesting. Note however that martials for me are at least initiators or psionic martials

[Zombulian]

For me, it's more about the story than the game. I actually like playing a lower tier because I don't want to rely on RAW to win. It's not even about winning, but playing well.

Even a vanilla monk can make a good story, especially if your DM doesn't require that you kill every monster you come across to get XP.

Casters are often less fun to me because they often have less complicated personalities and story arcs.

This post makes very little sense to me. What about a caster's variable abilities (and thus increased ability to push the story forward) makes them less complicated or compelling? It sounds to me that you more just have a preference for less book keeping and happen to be a good roleplayer.


While I agree with this statement it is however so that in most heroic fantasy literature or epics (ancient Greece) that the martial classes are the true heroes of the story. I like playing casters, but I find that martials are more interesting. Note however that martials for me are at least initiators or psionic martials

We're not talking about martials really, because as you suggest, you can make gishes that function well as variably-abled beatsticks. The real issue is pure mundanes who don't have much to do besides say "I attack him with my swoooooord."

[Deeds]

Casters are often less fun to me because they often have less complicated personalities and story arcs.
I can sympathize with this opinion. Caster backstories require a reason as to why they can cast spells. Wizards study hard to learn spells. Sorcerers often learn of their powers and then hone them through traveling. Clerics use piety to find the gift of spells through the gods or their ideals. Druids shun deodorant until a riding dog appears and they learn Entangle.

There's always an exception to the rule of course but my first conversation usually include, "how did you learn to abra-kadabra?"

[Zombulian]

Caster backstories require a reason as to why they can cast spells. Wizards study hard to learn spells. Sorcerers often learn of their powers and then hone them through traveling. Clerics use piety to find the gift of spells through the gods or their ideals. Druids shun deodorant until a riding dog appears and they learn Entangle.

This made me snort involuntarily. Mind if I sig?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I can sympathize with this opinion. Caster backstories require a reason as to why they can cast spells. Wizards study hard to learn spells. Sorcerers often learn of their powers and then hone them through traveling. Clerics use piety to find the gift of spells through the gods or their ideals. Druids shun deodorant until a riding dog appears and they learn Entangle.

There's always an exception to the rule of course but my first conversation usually include, "how did you learn to abra-kadabra?"
And a Fighter's backstory needs to explain where they learned their sword skills, and a Rogue's why they learned how to sneak around. What's your point?

[Deeds]

This made me snort involuntarily. Mind if I sig?
Of course you may :P


And a Fighter's backstory needs to explain where they learned their sword skills, and a Rogue's why they learned how to sneak around. What's your point?
I often feel like I'm typecasting my character when I make certain characters: namely spellcasters. Classes with generic abilities like Fighter won't always need a reason as to why they're decent with a greatsword. Perhaps a simple farmer wishes for a new lifestyle and picks up the sword he found after a skirmish near his turnip farm. He heads directly into town and goes to a bar seeking adventure. That's a bit more believable than a librarian who picked up a novice conjurer's notebook and started casting spells the morning he read the book.

Martials can suffer from being typecasted too. Samurais and Paladins live by some kind of code unless you're planning to be an ex-samurai/paladin.

[Keral]

I do. But it's not about power or optimization, it's about magic. I like it and so I only play something with at least a bit of magic.
If I were to play a game where the only magic user option is someone who can cast only a simple spell I'd choose that.

[the_david]

Most of my experience comes from Pathfinder. I find that I really prefer to have options when I play Pathfinder, though I find prepared casters to be too much of a hassle. I also don't think that one character should be able to solve every problem, while the others are forced to be melee, trapspotter and healer. (If you need a character specifically to heal the party there's probably something wrong with your playstyle.)

A fighter gets 21 feats divided over 20 levels. (With another one if you're human. I didn't count proficiencies.)
A wizard gets 15 feats divided over 20 levels, and a whole bunch of spell slots.
Now sure, the Fighter would have more defense, a good chance to hit and he deals a nice amount of damage. The Wizard has versatility though, can solve problems in and out of combat and if he doesn't have the right spells prepared he can try it again next day.

Would a "spontaneous casters only" rule be a better option? I'm playing around with Spheres of Power and that it gives your characters a little bit more flavor, while it also limits them in versatility.

[charcoalninja]

Of course you may :P


I often feel like I'm typecasting my character when I make certain characters: namely spellcasters. Classes with generic abilities like Fighter won't always need a reason as to why they're decent with a greatsword. Perhaps a simple farmer wishes for a new lifestyle and picks up the sword he found after a skirmish near his turnip farm. He heads directly into town and goes to a bar seeking adventure. That's a bit more believable than a librarian who picked up a novice conjurer's notebook and started casting spells the morning he read the book.

Martials can suffer from being typecasted too. Samurais and Paladins live by some kind of code unless you're planning to be an ex-samurai/paladin.

That farmer backstory doesn't fit because you haven't explained why your turnip farmer with his salvaged greatsword is skilled in the use of full plate mail, the glaive guisarm and the Longbow, martial implements that take years of dedicated training to use effectively. Since wizard is so highly defined by their spells if you replace greatsword with spellbook in your example it actually works better since there's fewer loose ends.

[Dagroth]

I have a friend who doesn't like playing spellcasters because they require too much bookkeeping.

I have another friend who only plays "gish" classes like Ranger & Duskblade, because they give him just enough options in combat.

I have another friend who only plays Sorcerer/Rogues because he likes playing the sneaky blaster type.

I usually end up playing the Cleric-Gish-Buffer because the party needs one.

Of us all, only the "gish" player ever plays a single-class character. For me especially, D&D 3.5 is about nigh-unlimited character options. I lament over the fact that there are so many Feats that nobody gets.

There's no need to be "Wizard 20" (or the equivalent) to enjoy D&D... or even to "compete" at high levels.

A good DM can make the campaign suit the characters... not require the characters to suit the campaign.

[martixy]

Fun, in general comes from the ability to act meaningfully. Spellcasters in general offer the most options to do so.
They're far from the only way to do it, just the most obvious, easiest.

[logic_error]

I have a friend who doesn't like playing spellcasters because they require too much bookkeeping.

I have another friend who only plays "gish" classes like Ranger & Duskblade, because they give him just enough options in combat.

I have another friend who only plays Sorcerer/Rogues because he likes playing the sneaky blaster type.

I usually end up playing the Cleric-Gish-Buffer because the party needs one.

Of us all, only the "gish" player ever plays a single-class character. For me especially, D&D 3.5 is about nigh-unlimited character options. I lament over the fact that there are so many Feats that nobody gets.

There's no need to be "Wizard 20" (or the equivalent) to enjoy D&D... or even to "compete" at high levels.

A good DM can make the campaign suit the characters... not require the characters to suit the campaign.


Duksblade is an amazingly well-made class, so is the Psychic warrior, the former the more so. Both of them actually give you the experience of being a caster and achieve a lot of tactical results. Sadly, this only lasts till level 8 or so. From level 9 AoE effects from primary casters are SO damn effective that the single enemy damage does not scale despite being impressive. My multiple playthrough's convinced me of that. And, finally these classes pigeonhole you into becoming a one trick pony, something you yourself can get tired of very fast. Spellcasters are always doing something new. Especially, Wizards because as opposed to Clerics/Druids they can handle a LOT more variety due to the design of their spelllist.

Finally, the comment "A good DM can make the campaign suit the characters" is actually quite true. There is always a spotlight moment that can be engineered, whether through magic items, social interactions and tailored encounters. But simply building an optimal character just makes that job all the more easy for the DM.

[VoxRationis]

I for one do not. In the group I'm in now, the fighter and the rogue are the driving force in our battles, and the cleric is mostly good for getting us into trouble.

[Pleh]

Lol no. This has nothing to do with class type. It has more to do with the player creativity. A good player builds a believable and interesting motivation. A bad player shallow and boring one.

That's not been my experience. Character, in a narrative sense, is derived from conflict: the dichotomy of ideals. Having more power and versatility decreases the tension the character experiences. Character tension from striving through adversity is kind of the reason I play. There's little reason to roleplay a solution when just casting a spell trivializes the situation.

When I play full caster, it's usually a support role, such as cleric as a mostly healbot. There the conflict comes in largely assigning the party as the task. Playing a caster becomes a glorified escort mission. It's cool, but not my main thing.

People talk about being able to do more things, but I could just play as a deity or write a novel and do whatever I want (dawn of worlds, anyone?). It's not challenging or exciting to have a character who can do things. It's exciting to see a hero who by all rights shouldn't even try, but works up the courage to give their whole self to finding a way, rather than just getting phenomenal cosmic power from the start.

The one exception is the Warlock arc, performed well by Rumplestiltskin in Once Upon A Time. The idea of the caster who, in the desperate pursuit of that heroic goal, goes too far and is constantly plagued with the terrible price their dark arts incur. Of course, I've never seen someone willingly play that arc.

[logic_error]

That's not been my experience.

There. I identified the reason behind this confusion. Let's drop it now.

[AnachroNinja]

I feel like the people in the "Casters are no fun because there's no adversity" camp either are crappy DMs or have only had crappy DMs. It's ridiculous to claim you can't have a nuanced and complicated story full of struggle just because you have more options then *Stick him with the pointy end*.

That said, I personally prefer spell casters and some of the more option prone melee builds like wild shape ranger into MoMF or Gishes. It's nice to not have to take a back seat whenever something other then combat happens.

[Cosi]

Jumping in quickly to say a couple of things:

It's not that I think casters are better than martials in abstract terms. There are plenty of cool heroes who use swords, but there are certain categories of abilities that I think are important for a good experience in cooperative story telling, and in D&D they show up on casters with a disturbing level of exclusivity.

If you think you can't tell a compelling story about casters, you need to expand your reading list. The various Dragaera novels are about a setting where most people walk in with the ability to teleport, and they work fine. Similarly with Mistborn, Lord of Light, or The Chronicles of Amber. Almost all the complaints I see being voiced about casters sound to me like they come from a place of lacking initiative of imagination.

[Knaight]

Do you honestly believe you can't contribute without spell casting or is it that you can't conceive of way to contribute without being able to cast spells?

The title and the question here are two different questions. Are martial characters overshadowed to the point where casters are just better? Yes. Are they totally unable to contribute? No. Are they worth playing? It depends on what you value. I don't like D&D's magic system, favor fantasy that is borderline historical fiction, and am generally in a position to contribute with a worse character in any group I'm likely to be in. Noncasters are fine by me and I play them pretty close to exclusively.

[Mehangel]

1) Limiting magic is a terrible idea that makes the game worse for mundanes as well in every implementation.

2) You can theoretically build anything to "contribute" even if it's a boring terrible way like uber charging.

3) Some other classes can contribute in interesting and level appropriate ways, like Rogues who maximize attacks and try to get SA.

4) Spellcasters are certainly the only fun classes to play (aside from occasionally rogues) in combat, because you make actual decisions that actually matter, instead of having your actions be so predictable that you could leave the room and everyone else could run your character exactly as you would have after playing with you for a couple sessions.

5) Spellcasters are certainly the only fun classes to play in the part of the game where you problem solve with your abilities, because they are the ones with abilities.

6) Any class or no class can be fun in the RP part of the game.

7) Most non spellcasters can't keep up with CR, and most spellcasters can, so it's easier and more fun for the DM if the party is spellcasters.

So yeah, you should probably play a spellcaster to maximize your own enjoyment and the enjoyment of others. Or make extensive modifications to something (my preference is to the non caster classes) to fix the problems.

I just wanted to say that I mostly agree with the points listed here, though I exclusively use the Spheres of Power (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) magic system to help reduce the martial/caster disparity.

[Psyren]

Character, in a narrative sense, is derived from conflict: the dichotomy of ideals. Having more power and versatility decreases the tension the character experiences. Character tension from striving through adversity is kind of the reason I play. There's little reason to roleplay a solution when just casting a spell trivializes the situation.

I think it's more accurate to say that more power and versatility just changes the scale of conflict the character is capable of experiencing. Elminster, Cadderly and Raistlin don't lead tension-free lives after all; they're just the ones who'd be more likely asked to do something incredibly dangerous like solo a Circle of Hell or something.



The one exception is the Warlock arc, performed well by Rumplestiltskin in Once Upon A Time. The idea of the caster who, in the desperate pursuit of that heroic goal, goes too far and is constantly plagued with the terrible price their dark arts incur. Of course, I've never seen someone willingly play that arc.

The difficulty there is that the game is largely a power fantasy. A character whose powers ultimately prove more burden than help is great television, but generally makes for a lousy game. Which is not to say you can't roleplay something like that, but usually "the bill coming due" is reserved for when the adventure is over and done with.


The title and the question here are two different questions. Are martial characters overshadowed to the point where casters are just better? Yes. Are they totally unable to contribute? No. Are they worth playing? It depends on what you value. I don't like D&D's magic system, favor fantasy that is borderline historical fiction, and am generally in a position to contribute with a worse character in any group I'm likely to be in. Noncasters are fine by me and I play them pretty close to exclusively.

This post is probably closest to my own views on the topic. (I don't play noncasters exclusively, but I do tend to gravitate towards lower-tier classes as a way of helping my less rules-savvy friends shine.)

[eggynack]

I feel like this thread's question gets asked a lot, and I have no idea why. I can't recall ever being said, except perhaps specifically in the context of, "I wouldn't want to play a non-caster cause I like the options a caster has," which is fundamentally distinct from the purpose implied by this sort of question. Has there ever been a person that said that people playing non-casters were wrong somehow? I certainly can't recall one. Not saying they don't exist, but they seem like a massive minority if they do exist. This whole line of questioning, the implication that optimizers run around telling folks that playing non-casters is wrong, seems like some pretty heavy strawmanning to me.

[Zanos]

My ego is like a full balloon, both huge and delicate, so I like to be the most powerful character in the party, and casters are often that. Although the peasants don't need to know I'm the most powerful, necessarily.

The question is obviously loaded. What does "worth playing" actually mean? In all seriousness I do like to play powerful characters, but any class that someone can have fun with is worth playing for them and that's all that really matters.

[Mechalich]

In 3.X/PF D&D, without massive rules changes such as Spheres of Power, once you pass a very low optimization threshold and a very low level threshold, the capabilities of a single Tier I caster are such that any problem capable of legitimately challenging that character will utterly annihilate a character of Tier IV or less. At that point, having such a character in the party is actually a liability unless the GM coddles that character the way comic book writers coddle Hawkeye in the Avengers or Batman in the Justice League.

As a result, if the game involves Tier I classes and players who know what they're doing, then yes, only a spell-caster is worth playing.

The big caveat here is that high-optimization Tier I full casters are crushingly over-powered compared to the type of fantasy storytelling D&D tries to present - which is why high-level casters in actual D&D fiction (and in most canned adventures) tend to be so un-optimized it hurts.

[gooddragon1]

I don't like playing full spellcasters. Too much preparation and too squishy without thinking things out. If I want to play chess I'll just play chess. Druids don't require as much and are tougher, but I never liked nature and wouldn't play something that did. What I prefer is something that has the tools to handle a variety of situations, has a bit of spellcasting ability, and can heal/help the party. I don't like how long the core cleric takes to achieve this sort of thing, so I make my own homebrew classes.

[Firechanter]

My favourite role is "Martial with some options", which is exactly what Initiators deliver.
However, I had to realize it's not really worth it if there is a not-gimped Full Caster in the party.

In one game, we started with the agreement that every Full Caster should sacrifice a few caster levels, and nobody optimize too much. I contributed fine with my Warblade even though I wasn't allowed to be a Charger or a Mage Slayer.
Then, one player decided to ignore that agreement and rolled a single-classed Psionic. The DM had gotten tired of bargaining with him. From that point on, he could as well have soloed the campaign. My contribution was reduced to occupational therapy. When directly addressed, the player in question flat out refused to acknowledge he was dominating the game, regardless how obvious it was.

So, long story short... Depends on the party setup and players' mindsets.

[rel]

I haven't played a character without spellcasting, psionics or some other source of non-mundane power in years.

Fully mundane characters like fighter or barbarian are boring to play. They get no unique ways to contribute to the game and playing one optimally tends to get boring or repetitive very quickly.

In default D&D I'd play such a character only at very low levels (1-3) for oneshots or short campaigns (less than 100 hours total run time).

[weckar]

Different things matter in different areas. If a class provides choices during combat, then it's a lot more fun to play in combat, even if it isn't "viable" in terms of power.

At least to me, options =/= fun.

[Zombulian]

At least to me, options =/= fun.

Well sure but does lack of options = fun?

[weckar]

Not at all. The amount of options a character has (in or out of combat) has little to no correlation to the fun factor they provide.

[death390]

I will Freely admit a few things,
1 i am a munchkin i enjoy power bulding,
2 i do not use my munchkin characters to play dnd (unless campaing is AS POWERFULL as POSSIBLE)
3 i will play just about any character class
4 the only 2 classes that i really WILL NEVER PLAY IF I HAVE AN OPTION are Bard (i end up as the familiar/ animal companion/ cohort with the bard as my cohort) or the PHB Sorcerer (i hate him so much it hurts, i would rather play the Generic Spellcaster 9/10 times from unearthed arcana)
5 things like skills matter more to me than spells. i can get by away from spells if i have access to UMD and magic mart.
6 spellcasters to me are just so much more fun.
7 i am a mechanical builder who prefers to structure fluff around what i want the character to do.

so Tiny Tim the one armed pixie barbarian child soldier who is smaller than normal wielding a 15 ft bladed whip is fun even though not a caster why? Stupid idea great execution. "im not small im serious!" He is Fine Sized.

or the Coniferous Treant Cristopher Moss Tree who is a shadow dancer and hides in plain sight, wearing crystal armor and equipment looks like christmass decorations.

Or the Awakened Toy soldier animimated object (awakened by a Efreeti granting a wish to a small child)

the possibilities are endless with DND and my favorite thing is to build a standard-just under optimized build into a great character.

[logic_error]

I can propose some very easy fixes for primary caster vs the rest power balance. A lot of this came from my DM so the real credit is to him I guess. Give out spells randomly. Don't let casters choose what they get. Give them the option to learn new spells by the research of course, but you can imagine that powerful spells are not easily made available. There I fixed it.

[Pleh]

There. I identified the reason behind this confusion. Let's drop it now.

Only if we can't discuss it in a civil manner. If we can be civil, we can explore our confusion further and possibly learn something from one another.

I get that you can create conflict and dramatic tension with any character. Gandalf was not only a powerful wizard, but also an influential political figure and basically an incarnate angel. He certainly had his fair share of tension and drama (though a lot of it came from that "glorified escort mission" I described earlier").

I find it interesting when a hero is faced with an impossible task. Magic, by definition, makes all things possible, so the only thing that's impossible is defeating bigger magic (and even that is questionable).

When "I hit it with my stick" is all the hero was equipped to solve problems with, they have to think more creatively to resolve the no-win scenario.

And Psyren, you're right that the warlock arc often doesn't play well (I think someone mentioned similar ailments of crappy DM work). While the devil's due might be an end of the campaign cost, something a lot of tables overlook is how such characters are often ostracized from society and villified for their immoral practices.

[logic_error]

Only if we can't discuss it in a civil manner. If we can be civil, we can explore our confusion further and possibly learn something from one another.



Sure. Let's do this.




I get that you can create conflict and dramatic tension with any character. Gandalf was not only a powerful wizard but also an influential political figure and basically an incarnate angel. He certainly had his fair share of tension and drama (though a lot of it came from that "glorified escort mission" I described earlier").

I find it interesting when a hero is faced with an impossible task. Magic, by definition, makes all things possible, so the only thing that's impossible is defeating bigger magic (and even that is questionable).

When "I hit it with my stick" is all the hero was equipped to solve problems with, they have to think more creatively to resolve the no-win scenario.

And Psyren, you're right that the warlock arc often doesn't play well (I think someone mentioned similar ailments of crappy DM work). While the devil's due might be an end of the campaign cost, something a lot of tables overlook is how such characters are often ostracized from society and villified for their immoral practices.


I am not agreeable to the idea that seems to be at the core of this reasoning, that the conflict in the path of the spellcaster is less. It is simply a *different* kind of a conflict, a mental one and thus a more nuanced one, whether or not most people might agree to that. Wizards in D&D are of course more powerful compared to fighters, hence in *that* context they seem to have an easy life. But as soon as the context is changed from a mixed fighter/spellcaster group to a spellcaster/dusk blade/PsyWar group, you have wizards operating on a similar footing to that of fighters. *Now* the DM can escalate the conflict to the level where it actually starts affecting the wizard/spellcaster. This is the real problem! The level of the conflict is tied to power level of the GROUP, not the individual.

[DarkEternal]

Casters are often less fun to me because they often have less complicated personalities and story arcs.

I would like to disagree with this one on the matter of less complicated storylines and story arcs when it comes to the characters. Mages, sorcerers, clerics and everyone else in that category has a wide pool to sink in and find a great storyline and how to participate.

However

From an experience standpoint, of being a DM for the last eight years or so to various parties, I have to agree that, again from my experience, people that played casters were the least involved in actually building their characters in terms of personality, story input and evolving as a character and placed more interest in being stronger, mechanically crunching things and just being there for the fighting bit or taking the violent route (seriously, for high intelligence-wisdom characters, most were psychopaths in that regard where might made right).

[Beheld]

I can propose some very easy fixes for primary caster vs the rest power balance. A lot of this came from my DM so the real credit is to him I guess. Give out spells randomly. Don't let casters choose what they get. Give them the option to learn new spells by the research of course, but you can imagine that powerful spells are not easily made available. There I fixed it.

The solution to the problem "Only one set of classes is interesting and fun to play" is not "make it so that none of them are" and this either has no effect at all on Druids and Clerics, or completely bones the entire party like all these changes always do the first time you get a negative level, or ability damage, or a disease, or whatever. (And also renders clerics basically unplayable.)

[Mechalich]

From an experience standpoint, of being a DM for the last eight years or so to various parties, I have to agree that, again from my experience, people that played casters were the least involved in actually building their characters in terms of personality, story input and evolving as a character and placed more interest in being stronger, mechanically crunching things and just being there for the fighting bit or taking the violent route (seriously, for high intelligence-wisdom characters, most were psychopaths in that regard where might made right).

The way 3.X/PF is structured, MOAR MAGIC! is a viable solution to any possible problem. This is roughly analogous to 'moar grinding' as the solution to any tough boss fight in your average JRPG. Sure you could run twenty tries and work out a perfect tactical solution, but you could also just grind out a bunch of levels and flatten the boss instead. Since the overwhelming majority of tabletop gamers are well schooled in video game logic by this point, it should be expected that this route is taken a lot. It's not even wrong, really. The metagaming approach to true ultimate power is to gradually level up to 20 while only fighting opponents just threatening enough that you still gain experience over and over again while also ruthlessly targeting and murdering creatures too weak to harm you but offering strong treasure totals (like dragons with half your CR) then create a personal demiplane and leverage your path to godhood, immortality, or whatever.

This is roughly analogous to, in Skyrim, totally ignoring the main quest until you're maximized all the important skills and produced god-gear so that your ultimately drop Alduin in like three hits and he deals no damage to you. Who's done that? I'll raise my hand.

The difference between D&D and Skyrim is that in D&D this meta-path to ultimate power is only open to casters. Leaving the BBEG to stew and sidequesting for a couple levels might marginally benefit the Fighter, but he's still going to need effective tactical planning and solid execution to win even with an extra feat or two and a +2 bonus here or there. By contrast, a wizard who goes from unleashing fourth level spells to fifth level spells has very likely reduced the encounter to something laughable.

[logic_error]

The solution to the problem "Only one set of classes is interesting and fun to play" is not "make it so that none of them are" and this either has no effect at all on Druids and Clerics, or completely bones the entire party like all these changes always do the first time you get a negative level, or ability damage, or a disease, or whatever. (And also renders clerics basically unplayable.)

How does this make spellcaster any less interesting to play? Also, this also affects clerics and druids. No one gets to choose their spells, not even clerics and Druids, who already have some flexibility due to spontaneous casting (and domains!). Of course, you can make an exception for ONE spell per focus school/level for wizards because they are specialized.

[tadkins]

Honestly, yes. I like having access to all the neat tricks that spellcasters have. I just feel naked without 'em.

There's also the fact that I'm a person who hates the spotlight. Mundanes tend to stand out the most, diving into the thick of battle, being bold and loud and whatnot. I prefer standing in the back, subtly manipulating things from that dark corner over there. Buffers/controllers are my forte. Casters are best for that sort of thing.

[Pugwampy]

A good DM can make the campaign suit the characters... not require the characters to suit the campaign.

A DM , good or otherwise is not obligated to do that .

Buttkicking and Spellchucking are two extremes dependent on the game level and game style .

Warriors are RUBBISH in high level games . Wizards are RUBBISH in low level games. No class is better than the other .



I DM starting at level 1 . I usually double all monster HP . I enjoy combat encounters using semi optimized warriors and casters. I enjoy arena combat , I like castle defense that can take 20 plus rounds . Forest fights and forest camping along with dungeon bumming
I tell players they wont have fun playing a wizard in my game sessions but i wont stop them .

[Beheld]

How does this make spellcaster any less interesting to play? Also, this also affects clerics and druids. No one gets to choose their spells, not even clerics and Druids, who already have some flexibility due to spontaneous casting (and domains!). Of course, you can make an exception for ONE spell per focus school/level for wizards because they are specialized.

1) the vast majority of all spells are boring crap or situational weirdos that are never worth casting. If you take all the classes that are fun to play because of meaningful choice, and then take away all the meaningful choice so that no one is fun to play in combat or problem solving parts of the game that is equality, but not fun.

If you give some of them some meaningful fun choices due to random chance or specialization then that's still inequality just with even fewer people allowed to have fun.

2) clerics don't have a spellbook or limited list of known spells so what they roll randomly each day to see what they prepare? That sounds incredibly ****ty and unfun.

3) you fight a mummy, now the fighter dies from mummy for because lolrandom spells.

4) I guess the operative move is to play a beguiler so you can choose your spells yourself. Got it must suck to be a level 4 sorcerer who rolls dark way as his only and level spell.

[logic_error]

4) I guess the operative move is to play a beguiler so you can choose your spells yourself. Got it must suck to be a level 4 sorcerer who rolls dark way as his only and level spell.


yeah. That can be funny. Sorcs maybe can choose one spell for each level. Poor sods.

But as to the rest, you are off the mark. There are scrolls and items. This idea, that you can NOT choose spells will make searching for them in different forms a part of the story. You find out what the weakness of the enemy is and then search for the tool to defeat it. This way, it makes more sense. It makes fighters, rogues useful. it brings to highlight the fact that magical monsters would have your ass if you simply went there unprepared. It makes Goblins a real threat until level 10 etc. The problem is that most of us are SO pampered with the way spells are distributed that its harder for to understand what unrestrained magic does to a story and balance.

[Jormengand]

Weirdly, having fewer options can increase the number of options you have that are actually worth making. Suppose there's a room full of eight second-level guards, a chandelier that I could easily drop on a few of them, several places to hide, and I happen to know that one of them holds a grudge against one of the others and doesn't trust her. There's a few options that I have as an 8th-level rogue - I can drop the chandelier, I can try to climb up to it and start making shortbow attacks while dangling off the chandelier by my legs, I can trick one of the guards into thinking the other is doing something she shouldn't so he goes and gets into a fight with her, I can just sneak past them all, or throw myself at the nearest one for sneak attack damage and rely on my comparatively excellent AC to allow me to survive long enough to take the others out, but as an 8th-level sorcerer, the only option which matters is the one which kills all the guards with no hassle while only taking up a third-level spell slot: fireball.

Possibly there's the "Hmm, do I think that a summoned monster II would be able to take them all (probably no chance against the 8 2nd-level fighters you're facing off against), and do I want to risk it (no)?" moment, followed by the "Huh, I put points in bluff, maybe if I managed to make them stand in a nice cone which I could burning hands (but wait, they're going to have about 12 hit points each, I probably won't do enough damage)?" moment, followed by the realisation that it's probably easiest just to fireball them. I mean sure, you're an eighth-level sorcerer, you know a fourth-level spell, but it's not worth using when fireball would do. You know another third-level one, but it's not as though "Cast fly, and then fire off longbow shots with my cute elven proficiency and four points of bab while they throw improvised weapons at me" was really a better option. You'd have a more interesting time as a sorcerer if you had to pick between fly, shatter, minor image, invisibility and a few cantrips, that is, if you didn't have any "Good" options (that is, options which immdiately destroy all the guards, which is what passes for a good option as a caster). At least with fly you kinda have to be inventive with how you use it.

That's the main reason I don't really like the power level that full casters can easily reach, and don't really like playing them. Especially when that 8th-level sorcerer chose polymorph, and now, when none of his spells known trivialise an encounter involving doing X, instead decides "I polymorph into a creature which can do X". I prefer having to do the kind of creative solutions that come with, actually, not having all those options.

(Quicker way of thinking about this: "Deal 10d6 damage to a single enemy, or 7d6 to all enemies in a 10-ft area, or 5d6 to all enemies in a 20-ft area" is three options. "Deal 10d6 damage to a single enemy, or 7d6 to all enemies in a 10-ft area, or 5d6 to all enemies in a 20-ft area, or 10d6 to all enemies in a 20-ft area" looks like 4 options but is only one meaningful option. More options doesn't have to mean more meaningful options).

EDIT: On rolling for spells, the thing to do might be to:

- Make everyone who wants to cast be a sorcerer or favoured soul or bard or other spontaneous caster. Make everyone who wants to manifest... not be an erudite, basically.
- For each list, at each level, split all spells that are decent, but neither really good (polymorph, contingency, celerity) or really bad (dinosaur stampede) into groups of 6 with relatively common themes. For example, Body of the Sun, Combust, Fireburst, Furnace Within, Scorch, Scorching ray.
- Optionally, put a single great spell in groups with terrible-to-mediocre spells (For example: Abate Dracorage, Aggravate Dracorage, Attune Form, Beckon Monster, Boiling Oil, Polymorph). However, you can just ignore them if you don't want players risking bad spells in order to get a chance at the good one.
- Casters pick spell groups, and roll 1d6 to determine which spell in that group they really do learn. (For example: 1: BotS, 2: Combust, 3: Fireburst, 4: FW, 5: Scorch, 6: Scorching ray.)
- If you roll a spell you already knew, instead of re-rolling, your mastery of that type of magic has allowed you to learn a spell of your choice from that group instead. For example, Sarah is a sorcerer who knows two spells from the second-level fire spell group: Fireburst and Scorching Ray. She's just learned another 2nd-level spell, and wants to learn yet another fire spell for some reason. She rolls a 3. She can then choose whether to learn Body of the Sun, Combust, Furnace Within or Scorch. If Sarah had rolled 1, 2, 4, or 5, she would have had to abide by the result.

Though I'm not sure it's the best fix either way.

[Cosi]

The problem is that most of us are SO pampered with the way spells are distributed that its harder for to understand what unrestrained magic does to a story and balance.

Dude read some good books. Like literally anything Rodger Zelazny has ever written. If "unrestrained magic" is screwing up your stories, you are telling lazy stories. If Steven Brust can write more than a dozen different books about a setting where teleport is a thing people can do just for waking up in the morning, you can figure out a story to tell about D&D Wizards without messing with their spell selection.

[Silfazaris]

From my point of view, any character that gives you fun is worth playing. I'm playing a game with a Tiefling Cleric/Figher losing 1 level without LA buyoff or Lesser Tiefling just because the background and the personality of the character is so badass that I don't care losing 1 level+not being able to use divine feats+getting dex and int bonus which I don't need, it's fun to me and that's what matters for me (not to mention the loss of spellcasting from 1 Fighter level).

Any character can contribute to the group without spell slots. A rogue/ninja/scout for example is mandatory in this game as my DM loves to put a lot of traps that a find traps spell wouldn't cover and we don't have a Warlock with Baleful Utterance to blast all traps.
His game is also full of roleplaying, where a group without any Diplomacy skills would have a hard time.
We have a Barbarian/Fighter in our group (a 5th-level group), and his contribution to the group is by taking damage from a lot of enemies and dealing high damage while enlarged in Rage while the archer from our group is left untouched by the melee guys thus helping the Barbarian (the archer has some ninja levels which he uses to use ghostly step and deliver +2d6 sneak attack), while I use some kind of weird tactics to deliever a lot of AoOs in a round with my high AC 29 (combining combat expertise and those stuff). When the Barbarian hp drops too much I heal him.

Depending on the game, your spell slots won't cover all situations in a dungeon. You could end up spending 90% of your spell slots during a dungeon and be close to useless during the final fight or other situations. Spell slots are not unlimited and if you prepare spells not all spells are going to be the needed ones for that dungeon. I DM'ed a game once where the group fell into a chasm, it was the lair of a vampire and the casters didn't have all the spells needed prepared because they didn't know they were going to fight undeads all the day long. They had a hard time.
Of course in some games you fight one or two encounters in a day, and that makes you a beast. But some games have a lot of encounters and situations in a single day before resting where you won't be as useful as you think you would.

A melee character can deal damage with anything you give in his hand and he doesn't need to be prepared or to have spell slots. A rogue can deal high damage if the situation lets him to (sneak attack).

You want to DM a low-magic campaign setting. You could check some Ravenloft stuff and rules regarding low-magic rating domains or even worse (though I don't recommend it) using Masque of the Red Death rules of magic where a caster needs to spend a full round for each spell level he's casting, for example, casting a fireball would require 3 full rounds to be cast.

Again, in my opinion, what gives you fun is what is worth playing, but, a group needs casters to overcome challenges just like they need a frontline man and a skill-monkey (maybe not in hack and slash games though).

[logic_error]

Dude read some good books. Like literally anything Rodger Zelazny has ever written. If "unrestrained magic" is screwing up your stories, you are telling lazy stories. If Steven Brust can write more than a dozen different books about a setting where teleport is a thing people can do just for waking up in the morning, you can figure out a story to tell about D&D Wizards without messing with their spell selection.


You do realise what you are justifying, right? Good Stories with bad logical consistency do not justify the construction of the setting. Next you will be saying how time travel is okay because harry Potter uses it so well.

[legomaster00156]

The game is designed on the assumption that a party will have both mundanes and spellcasters. This makes both worth playing, but a given party will have a much harder time without spellcasters than without mundanes.

[Cosi]

You do realise what you are justifying, right? Good Stories with bad logical consistency do not justify the construction of the setting. Next you will be saying how time travel is okay because harry Potter uses it so well.

You've made a really compelling argument here, except for the part where you've linked neither your overarching point nor your slippery slope to any of the things I've said. So wait, actually, you've just made a really sloppy argument that doesn't mean anything.

[AnachroNinja]

You do realise what you are justifying, right? Good Stories with bad logical consistency do not justify the construction of the setting. Next you will be saying how time travel is okay because harry Potter uses it so well.

Or the setting is fine and you just tell bad stories. Man it's fun when we use completely unsupported arguments that are easily reversed. Why don't you show me on the doll where the bad man in the robes and pointy hat touched you.

Everyone has a different preference in how they play, how they run games, and what settings they enjoy. That's part of how people work. Pretending that your preferences man there is something wrong with other people's is the height of arrogance however.

Drizzt is just as crappy of a character as Elminster despite not being a caster. Reflect on this.

[logic_error]

You've made a really compelling argument here, except for the part where you've linked neither your overarching point nor your slippery slope to any of the things I've said. So wait, actually, you've just made a really sloppy argument that doesn't mean anything.

*shrug* I am going to try once, but I doubt you are willing participant here: It's quite simple, if you introduce a plot-breaking element in the story but pretend that it does not do so (Time turners screw up all the plot) then you are deluding yourself that it is a good idea to have it in the story. Eberron for example at least TRIES to explain how magic and technology work together. But even then you can pick easy holes through the setting. In a world where create water and food is A LEVEL ONE SPELL. I repeat, A LEVEL ONE SPELL. You have me there with the believability. Even Harry Potter which has no meaningful setting tries to avoid this one simple problem.

[Cosi]

*shrug* I am going to try once, but I doubt you are willing participant here: It's quite simple, if you introduce a plot-breaking element in the story but pretend that it does not do so (Time turners screw up all the plot) then you are deluding yourself that it is a good idea to have it in the story. Eberron for example at least TRIES to explain how magic and technology work together. But even then you can pick easy holes through the setting. In a world where create water and food is A LEVEL ONE SPELL. I repeat, A LEVEL ONE SPELL. You have me there with the believability. Even Harry Potter which has no meaningful setting tries to avoid this one simple problem.

Sure, if you put things in your setting without thinking about what they do, they can break your setting. But why does that imply that we shouldn't put interesting things in our setting, instead of implying that we should write settings that account for the abilities in our rules?

[logic_error]

Sure, if you put things in your setting without thinking about what they do, they can break your setting. But why does that imply that we shouldn't put interesting things in our setting, instead of implying that we should write settings that account for the abilities in our rules?

At this point, you are either being ingenious or stupid. I implore you to read my original post 20 more times.

[Cosi]

At this point, you are either being ingenious or stupid. I implore you to read my original post 20 more times.

Which one?

The post I first replied to just asserted that unrestrained magic breaks things, without considering the possibility that it only breaks fragile things.

The post that replied to me consisted of a general principle with no reason to apply it to the specific arguments I made and a specific argument wholly untethered from the things I talked about.

What subtlety am I missing here?

[CasualViking]

Not at all. The amount of options a character has (in or out of combat) has little to no correlation to the fun factor they provide.

That statement is so completely alien to me, I find myself unable to take it at face value. Are you sure you're not over-committed to the conclusion and making nonsense arguments on the way?

[logic_error]

By breaks *things* I meant believability. Not real things. Well, it does breaks chairs not made of adamantium too for that matter. Real life as we know it, can not exist in a setting like Faerun. Economies would topple, human motivations will change and it would literally be an alien setting. Add to that stuff like Hells and Gods in a *tangible* way makes it, even more, stranger. In that sense The Time of Troubles is really a good take on the idea of godhood.

[Cosi]

By breaks *things* I meant believability. Not real things. Well, it does breaks chairs not made of adamantium too for that matter. Real life as we know it, can not exist in a setting like Faerun. Economies would topple, human motivations will change and it would literally be an alien setting. Add to that stuff like Hells and Gods in a *tangible* way makes it, even more, stranger. In that sense The Time of Troubles is really a good take on the idea of godhood.

I should rather hope that fantasy settings would not correspond to real life. If I wanted to spend time and effort to achieve things in a world like real life, I could go out and do things in real life.

Of course, the notion that such a setting is inapproachable is rather absurd. fabricate allows the mass production of manufactured goods. You know what else allows the mass production of manufactured goods? Factories! We have factories in the real world, and it seems rather less than alien to me. Many, many utility spell simply replicate things that exist in the real world. Providing food and water to everyone with create food and water may imply substantial alteration to a fantasy setting, but its effects are much the same as those of industrialized agriculture.

[logic_error]

I should rather hope that fantasy settings would not correspond to real life. If I wanted to spend time and effort to achieve things in a world like real life, I could go out and do things in real life.

Of course, the notion that such a setting is inapproachable is rather absurd. fabricate allows the mass production of manufactured goods. You know what else allows the mass production of manufactured goods? Factories! We have factories in the real world, and it seems rather less than alien to me. Many, many utility spell simply replicate things that exist in the real world. Providing food and water to everyone with create food and water may imply substantial alteration to a fantasy setting, but its effects are much the same as those of industrialized agriculture.

If you think Fabricate = Factories I got news for you. American I guess? Right?

[Cosi]

If you think Fabricate = Factories I got news for you. American I guess? Right?

I don't mean in the concrete sense. Obviously there are differences. But if you "black box" it to look at just the inputs and outputs, the results are basically the same. You have a phenomena that takes in raw materials and rapidly produces finished ones. The Wizard is faster in terms of raw time spent, but he also works for much less of the time, is much less scalable, and is much more likely to simply leave and do his own thing rather than producing new stuff.

Is there a reason to think that the consumption of T-shirts would be dramatically different if T-shirts were produced by Wizards in towers rather than children in Asia?

[logic_error]

I don't mean in the concrete sense. Obviously there are differences. But if you "black box" it to look at just the inputs and outputs, the results are basically the same. You have a phenomenon that take in raw materials and rapidly produces finished ones. The Wizard is faster in terms of raw time spent, but he also works for much less of the time, is much less scalable, and is much more likely to simply leave and do his own thing rather than producing new stuff.

Is there a reason to think that the consumption of T-shirts would be dramatically different if T-shirts were produced by Wizards in towers rather than children in Asia?

It would be different of course! The material, time, energy cost and opportunity cost would be ridiculously different and this is just talking about the basic things, not to mention (the reduction of) human suffering that is involved. The spell level 1 Mend/Fix (whatever its called) it against laws of physics and breaks the entire supply economy. Resources would have no meaning anymore with these two spells. There would almost 99% unemployment. But create food and water and Mordekainen's magic mansion would ensure the everyone is still happy. Crime would practically disappear. The world would be destroyed the moment a crazy person gets access to level 5 spells. Everyone would be a cleric or a wizard because these classes would totally be able to pull ANYTHING off.

The idea behind D&D is thus not to recreate reality but rather PRETEND that there is magic in an unreal setting. We should acknowledge that this is made up and THEN still enjoy it as a power fantasy. it's not all that hard. It becomes hard however, when the game gives you absolutely turd options (like being a monk, truenamer, samurai etc) and screws you over when you can't pull off your fantasy because before you can even act the RP part is over because the spellcaster did it better.

[Psyren]

My ego is like a full balloon, both huge and delicate, so I like to be the most powerful character in the party, and casters are often that. Although the peasants don't need to know I'm the most powerful, necessarily.

The question is obviously loaded. What does "worth playing" actually mean? In all seriousness I do like to play powerful characters, but any class that someone can have fun with is worth playing for them and that's all that really matters.

Hear hear!



As a result, if the game involves Tier I classes and players who know what they're doing, then yes, only a spell-caster is worth playing.

I would posit that the "who know what they're doing" threshold, at least as it is meant in this context, is a lot higher at most tables (or the gentleman's agreement less onerous) than this forum likes to make it out to be. There are games every single day that run high-tier casters alongside low-tier martials and don't implode.

Savvy GMs can also employ asymmetrical challenges - i.e. the kind that affect one type of class (spellcasters) more than another (martials). For instance, counterspells can be a significant hurdle for a caster to overcome, but do absolutely nothing to get in a martial PC's way. Similarly, dismissals and dimensional locks won't get in martial's way, but they can be annoying for a summon-focused caster.



I find it interesting when a hero is faced with an impossible task. Magic, by definition, makes all things possible, so the only thing that's impossible is defeating bigger magic (and even that is questionable).

I think it's more accurate that magic has the potential to make anything possible. That's not at all the same as DEFINITELY making ALL THINGS possible. If a wizard has Read Magic in every slot, they certainly "have magic", but their capabilities are going to be pretty limited. It's a hyperbolic example of course, but there is a point where player skill becomes the ceiling on what is possible even when the spell list doesn't have one. (And, as noted above, the GM's use of counters also plays a role. )

[Dagroth]

Dude read some good books. Like literally anything Rodger Zelazny has ever written. If "unrestrained magic" is screwing up your stories, you are telling lazy stories. If Steven Brust can write more than a dozen different books about a setting where teleport is a thing people can do just for waking up in the morning, you can figure out a story to tell about D&D Wizards without messing with their spell selection.

And who is the hero in the Steven Brust stories? Oh yeah, its the guy with limited magic who doesn't like teleporting (yeah, I've read those books... they're good, but the ancillary characters exist as deus-ex-machine types most of the time. There's no "group adventure" dynamic beyond the situations where the main character gets to go along and watch the bad-arse characters be bad-arse while he tries to avoid getting flattened).

As for the Zelazny books... those stories require all the main characters be extra powerful. There is no "fighter guy, cleric guy, wizard guy, rogue guy". There's "powerful magic user who can fight & powerful magic user who can heal & powerful magic user who can sneak"... and, oh yeah, there's the main character who is "powerful magic user guy who can fight and heal and sneak and fast-talk and probably solo the entire situation so he just uses everyone else as a distraction for the lesser bad-guys." (Yeah, I've read Chronicles of Amber.)

You want a book series where powerful magic exists, but isn't in the hands of the PCs... yet the PCs can still triumph over said powerful magic? Glen Cook is your man. From the Black Company series to Garrett, P.I., this is a writer who understands that you don't need a mage in the party to win.

[Cosi]

It would be different of course! The material, time, energy cost and opportunity cost would be ridiculously different

The material cost is exactly the same. fabricate doesn't make things out of nothing, it makes them out of raw materials. Whatever goes into making a T-shirt now is exactly the same as what goes into making one with fabricate.

The energy cost of production is lower, but the cost of shipping is much the same. You still produce things in a place, then move them to other places. You might be able to cut down on production costs if your Wizards happen to be local, but automation is already allowing nearshoring of production.

The opportunity cost is higher. To get a Wizard to cast fabricate for you, you have to convince someone who can, by definition, make any manufactured good he wants to work for you. That does not seem trivial, especially when compared to the alternative of just doing what we do now.


and this is just talking about the basic things, not to mention (the reduction of) human suffering that is involved.

That is real and meaningful. But does it really make the setting unbelievable?


The spell level 1 Mend/Fix (whatever its called) it against laws of physics and breaks the entire supply economy.

It's against the laws of physics, but that's only breaking believability in a fairly abstract way. I'm sure there are wide ranging implications of violating conservation laws, but I don't think most people could name them. You're going to have to run that whole "breaks the entire supply economy" thing by me.


There would almost 99% unemployment.

Why? You'd still need pretty much the entire service economy even if you lived in a post resource scarcity world.


The world would be destroyed the moment a crazy person gets access to level 5 spells.

This is a real problem. But I think "periodically the world blows up and civilization goes away" is something you want if you are filling your setting with hundreds of intelligent species and want ancient ruins everywhere.

[Cosi]

And who is the hero in the Steven Brust stories? Oh yeah, its the guy with limited magic who doesn't like teleporting

He's got teleport, telepathic sendings, a familiar, witchcraft which does various things, a magic chain that hits anything it touches with CL Yes greater dispel magic, and a criminal empire. That last is not strictly magic, but the effect of "I can hire a CR 10 Assassin" and "I can summon a CR 10 Assassin Demon" is much the same. And that's just stuff I remember from the first four books!


As for the Zelazny books... those stories require all the main characters be extra powerful.

That sounds like exactly my point.

[logic_error]

Why? You'd still need pretty much the entire service economy even if you lived in a post resource scarcity world.




I am going to ignore your other comments because of reasons. but this one is also solved by a level one spell called unseen servant. Then there is horde or unseen servants etc. Please. Just quite trying to make magic mundane. It's called magic for a good reason.

[Cosi]

I am going to ignore your other comments because of reasons. but this one is also solved by a level one spell called unseen servant. Then there is horde or unseen servants etc. Please. Just quite trying to make magic mundane. It's called magic for a good reason.

And that creates teachers and lawyers because? That does menial tasks, not complex ones like entertainment. Also, it's a force multiplier at best. You still need a guy directing the servants.

[logic_error]

And that creates teachers and lawyers because? That does menial tasks, not complex ones like entertainment. Also, it's a force multiplier at best. You still need a guy directing the servants.

Have you heard of this thing called voluntary teachers? Some people love to do stuff. Also, a world where psionics and divination exists, learning should be the least problematic thing.

[Dagroth]

And yet, not everyone (in fact, not most players in my experience) wants to play the "super-powerful magic guy".

But... once Op-fu master gets his Wizard to level 7, the game starts to wildly shift. By the time level 11 rolls around, anyone who isn't "super-powerful magic guy" is either so far behind the curve that they're struggling to even pretend like they're making a difference... or they're maybe getting a single action in before "super-powerful magic guy" solves everything... again.

And yet, if Op-fu master were playing a Dread Necromancer, mildly-op Warlock or bog-standard Beguiler then the game doesn't shift nearly as hard. The "mundanes" still matter.

[Zanos]

And yet, not everyone (in fact, not most players in my experience) wants to play the "super-powerful magic guy".

But... once Op-fu master gets his Wizard to level 7, the game starts to wildly shift. By the time level 11 rolls around, anyone who isn't "super-powerful magic guy" is either so far behind the curve that they're struggling to even pretend like they're making a difference... or they're maybe getting a single action in before "super-powerful magic guy" solves everything... again.

And yet, if Op-fu master were playing a Dread Necromancer, mildly-op Warlock or bog-standard Beguiler then the game doesn't shift nearly as hard. The "mundanes" still matter.
This is the case with fighters, sure, but I think ToB classes keep up just fine with wizards unless the wizard player is intentionally trying to overshadow them, which is a rarity at most tables. And to be fair, pretty much any other class with martial weapon proficiency fights better than a fighter.

People who play wizards "to capacity" tend not to last long at real tables because "I take my army of demons and beat the crap out of anyone that looks at me funny" isn't usually a game.

[Almarck]

Have you heard of this thing called voluntary teachers? Some people love to do stuff. Also, a world where psionics and divination exists, learning should be the least problematic thing.


Except in order to get to the point where you have enough wizards or psionics who can cast said spells efficiently in a self sustaining manner to replace traditional schooling and economics, a significant portion of the population must be very magically active and have the magical equivalent of having theoretical PHD's that make the Einstein look like a High School Dropout... well, a dropout who didn't achieve anything.

Even Eberron didn't get singularity or post scarcity, despite being the closest thing to a magitech setting. Why? because there's not enough high level people over there who can make such a plan viable. And they had large sections of the population employed by guilds just because they had magical marks that could be used to cast spells without any education whatsoever.


There's also the issue that making a permanent magic item for automation is really expensive and relies not on skill, but on expensive reagents that are hard to find. Unless you can solve this problem, you're not getting anywhere.

[Aetis]

Our group has been playing for a number of years now, and the players optimize their characters as best they can, whether or not they are spellcasters or not. None of the players who play non-spellcasters ever felt outshined by spellcasters. None of us believe that spellcasters are only things worth playing. It's just a matter of playing at the correct levels and having an extensive ban list.

[logic_error]

There's also the issue that making a permanent magic item for automation is really expensive and relies not on skill, but on expensive reagents that are hard to find. Unless you can solve this problem, you're not getting anywhere.

Actually, this is an important point that I was hoping someone would bring up magic is great and all but requires casting reagents. Despite that you don't really need a LOT of spellcasters. You have access to a variety of stuff that completely breaks the setting. Even mend/fix can break the game to a great extent. Eberron is a *great* attempt, but the it is based on Birthright a lot I think.

[death390]

on a side note. a great series of modern high fantasy (its based in chicago) would be the dresden files series, from what i can tell his feats are brew potion, craft wonderous item, and martial weapon profficiency (handgun). yet he gets knocked around to all hell. heck there was a part of the series where his former master nuked a nest of vampiers by dropping a old russian satelite from space on them. Dresden files show that just because you have magic doesn't mean your all powerful.

[Zombulian]

Our group has been playing for a number of years now, and the players optimize their characters as best they can, whether or not they are spellcasters or not. None of the players who play non-spellcasters ever felt outshined by spellcasters. None of us believe that spellcasters are only things worth playing. It's just a matter of playing at the correct levels and having an extensive ban list.

Spellcasters aren't the only thing worth playing as long as you throw out the parts where they're better than everyone else.

[logic_error]

Spellcasters aren't the only thing worth playing as long as you throw out the parts where they're better than everyone else.

Although I agree with this generally, can you highlight where someone is better than a spellcaster at something?

[Zombulian]

Although I agree with this generally, can you highlight where someone is better than a spellcaster at something?

I was more pointing out the fallacy in the post. While it is indeed a prudent choice for a group considering balance to have an extensive ban list, I don't think that matches the spirit of the thread.

[logic_error]

Whoops. My bad. Sorry.

[eggynack]

Despite that you don't really need a LOT of spellcasters. You have access to a variety of stuff that completely breaks the setting. Even mend/fix can break the game to a great extent. Eberron is a *great* attempt, but the it is based on Birthright a lot I think.
I kinda doubt you could find enough casters willing to cast mending or fabricate all day every day that it'd break the game. Do you really think that a wizard studies wizarding books for years on end, training in the subtle arts of the arcane, all so they can pretend to be a craftsman a few times a day? It seems unlikely. How many casters of fabricate level even are there in a given setting? It's a fifth level spell, so I can't imagine the answer is that many. The percentage of those willing to pretend to be a mundane crafter rather than just doing normal 5th level spell things has to be vanishingly small. Mending is lower level, but commensurately way less useful. You can totally repair rips in clothing a few times a day. I doubt that'd outmode the entire object repair industry, but even if it does, oh man, I guess the entire object repair industry has been outmoded. I don't think I've ever had an article of clothing, or anything non-technological, repaired. We're obviating such a minor thing here.

[logic_error]

I kinda doubt you could find enough casters willing to cast mending or fabricate all day every day that it'd break the game. Do you really think that a wizard studies wizarding books for years on end, training in the subtle arts of the arcane, all so they can pretend to be a craftsman a few times a day? It seems unlikely. How many casters of fabricate level even are there in a given setting? It's a fifth level spell, so I can't imagine the answer is that many. The percentage of those willing to pretend to be a mundane crafter rather than just doing normal 5th level spell things has to be vanishingly small. Mending is lower level, but commensurately way less useful. You can totally repair rips in clothing a few times a day. I doubt that'd outmode the entire object repair industry, but even if it does, oh man, I guess the entire object repair industry has been outmoded. I don't think I've ever had an article of clothing, or anything non-technological, repaired. We're obviating such a minor thing here.

What exactly is mundane fifth level thing? Also, I imagined them making scrolls and wands of this stuff not really casting it with their slots. In the end, this economy has only one currency (not really if you consider time) which is XP, which in the end is not even a real thing in the game world.

[icefractal]

This question is a little vague. Only worth playing in what - any game? campaigns? long term sandbox campaigns? No to the former two for me … maybe yes for the last, assuming we’re talking about 3.x D&D.

I will say that I have somewhat of a bias for abilities with mechanical backing. “You can do X” is a lot more exciting to me than “If the GM wills it, you can do a quest that will eventually result in X”. I know a lot of people would say that’s backward, the mechanical version is just cutting out the exciting gameplay and who would want that? But IMO I’d rather have a set of solid abilities and then see what gameplay results from that. “You can ask the GM to give you something” runs into a few issues I don’t like:
* Competes with anything another player is doing, as well as whatever plot there was to begin with. Which might be fine for something that’s a big deal and will solve everything, but not so much if it was just supposed to be step one of a bigger plan and you can’t even do that until three other quests are done with.
* Sometimes the GM tossing you a result feels less ‘meaningful’ than if there was an objective way that you achieved it. Especially when there are things like world-saving McGuffins being tossed around at low level, which does sometimes happen.
* I like making plans and thinking about the game between sessions sometimes. It’s a lot harder to make any kind of plan when every step involved is “Time: ???, Difficulty: ???, Results: ???” For something you know you’re going to make a goal, you can ask the GM about each step, sure. But sometimes it’s just a thing you’re speculating about maybe doing, and it’s nice to have some idea of feasibility without needing to bug the GM about every detail.

As for magic vs other types of abilities with mechanical backing, I’m not hung up on magic. However, in practice, magic tends to be more mechanically backed, more versatile, and more open to synergistic use. Certainly it is in D&D. But in some hypothetical system where, say, technological invention was mechanically solid and magic was mechanically vague? I’d likely prefer the former.

[ross]

Why don't melee characters have even a tenth of the options or abilities that spellcasters do? What were they thinking?

[Uncle Pine]

I thought this thread would've been organised like a poll and that at the end all the votes would've been tallied to see what the giants actually think. So here's my contribution:


How many of you truly believe that only spell casters are worth playing?
I don't.


Do you honestly believe you can't contribute without spell casting or is it that you can't conceive of way to contribute without being able to cast spells?
No.


As an addendum:

I am working up a campaign world of my very own and REALLY thinking about limiting spell casting (magic in general).
This can be either a terrible or reasonable idea depending on whether you stop thinking about how limiting spellcasting is going to influence your average faux medieval fantasy setting or if you're going to limit spellcasting done by the PCs or apply the ban to everyone in the multiverse.

[eggynack]

What exactly is mundane fifth level thing?
What do you mean? Are you asking what other things a caster could do with 5th level spells? Cause I think that's pretty self explanatory.


Also, I imagined them making scrolls and wands of this stuff not really casting it with their slots. In the end, this economy has only one currency (not really if you consider time) which is XP, which in the end is not even a real thing in the game world.
That makes even less sense. Producing a scroll of fabricate is even more expensive, in terms of time and money alike, than just casting it. And producing a wand is even more expensive than that. These items have some value when someone needs them cast on a different day, or even in combat. If you need fabricate so bad, you could just as easily accept the item that fabricate would produce. And, again, gold is still a currency in fabricate world, because you need gold for the raw materials. The costs are pretty much the same as they are in normal world, because you just need time, either to craft the items by hand or to wait a day for more castings (or to craft one of these items), gold, in both cases in order to purchase the raw materials, and I guess experience is only a cost in the crafting version. The world seems to change very little by way of fabricate.

[Zombulian]

@Icefractal: I have a similar approach to the game and my own preferences are usually in the "definitely" category. Because of the way my group plays, I don't think I've ever used a divination spell. I've made plenty of builds, but in all honesty abilties that rely that much on the DM giving you what you want aren't worth it to me.

@Ross: They didn't think very much, that seems to be the takeaway. My favorite example is the fact that in the playtest group that was ostensibly to be used to understand the game, the person playing the druid never used wildshape because they thought it was too much book keeping.

[logic_error]

What do you mean? Are you asking what other things a caster could do with 5th level spells? Cause I think that's pretty self explanatory.

I am a dumbass. Explain to me what they do with daily fifth level slots. [/quote]



That makes even less sense. Producing a scroll of fabricate is even more expensive, in terms of time and money alike, than just casting it. And producing a wand is even more expensive than that. These items have some value when someone needs them cast on a different day, or even in combat. If you need fabricate so bad, you could just as easily accept the item that fabricate would produce. And, again, gold is still a currency in fabricate world, because you need gold for the raw materials. The costs are pretty much the same as they are in normal world, because you just need time, either to craft the items by hand or to wait a day for more castings (or to craft one of these items), gold, in both cases in order to purchase the raw materials, and I guess experience is only a cost in the crafting version. The world seems to change very little by way of fabricate.

What is the cost? Gold? Really? In a post scarcity world would anyone trade for gold? Also, the thing being fabricted, have you considered its cost? The labour/time/opportunity/expertise etc?

[Zombulian]

Uncle Pine reminded me that there was a final part to the OP.

Do you guys think an Adept with medium BAB and maybe 1 more good save (or maybe a better HD) would be a good way to go with a low magic medieval setting? It seems like it would be pretty Gandalfy, what with the okay fighting ability mixed with slow spell progression and low spells per day but off of a pretty solid list.

[eggynack]

I am a dumbass. Explain to me what they do with daily fifth level slots.
I dunno. Teleport? Bend creatures to your will? Bind massively powerful outsiders for awhile? Seek information about the future? Fly? Maybe various things permanent? And that's just in core. And you're having this wizard, sorry, wizards plural, to play blacksmith or tailor as a full time job. Experience in this game is gained by overcoming challenges. If you're ninth level, you therefore got that way, in all likelihood, by overcoming challenges. Thus, I'd expect this wizard to continue to use their spells for that purpose.


What is the cost? Gold? Really? In a post scarcity world would anyone trade for gold?
This is a circular argument. The world is post scarcity in part because of fabricate, and you expect the gold cost of fabricate to be irrelevant because we're post scarcity. I mean, are you assuming we're using spells that are very much not fabricate to produce massive amounts of gold? That is in fact problematic on a worldwide scale, but it's problematic fully absent fabricate. You've really picked an awful spell for this, "Spells modify civilization," argument.


Also, the thing being fabricted, have you considered its cost? The labour/time/opportunity/expertise etc?
Of course. Both modes of creation have these costs. Making it spell style requires labor, time, opportunity, and expertise. Except instead of requiring these things of low level commoners, you're now demanding it on the level of medium level wizards. If you got all the low level commoners together, and got all the 9th level wizards together, and asked both groups to start making shoes, I would fully expect the commoners to produce shoes faster, just because there are so many of them comparatively. If you cut out wizards that don't want to make shoes for a living, that comparison would tilt in favor of commoners by a ton.

[logic_error]

I dunno. Teleport? Bend creatures to your will? Bind massively powerful outsiders for awhile? Seek information about the future? Fly? Maybe various things permanent? And that's just in core. And you're having this wizard, sorry, wizards plural, to play blacksmith or tailor as a full time job. Experience in this game is gained by overcoming challenges. If you're ninth level, you therefore got that way, in all likelihood, by overcoming challenges. Thus, I'd expect this wizard to continue to use their spells for that purpose.



You mean mostly do illegal stuff. Outside of teleport that is. In a world where guidls exist to provide safe services.



This is a circular argument. The world is post scarcity in part because of fabricate, and you expect the gold cost of fabricate to be irrelevant because we're post scarcity. I mean, are you assuming we're using spells that are very much not fabricate to produce massive amounts of gold? That is in fact problematic on a worldwide scale, but it's problematic fully absent fabricate. You've really picked an awful spell for this, "Spells modify civilization," argument.


The worls is post scarcity because nothing that is created ever breaks down. Food, water shelter and clothing are literally free.



Of course. Both modes of creation have these costs. Making it spell style requires labor, time, opportunity, and expertise. Except instead of requiring these things of low level commoners, you're now demanding it on the level of medium level wizards. If you got all the low level commoners together, and got all the 9th level wizards together, and asked both groups to start making shoes, I would fully expect the commoners to produce shoes faster, just because there are so many of them comparatively. If you cut out wizards that don't want to make shoes for a living, that comparison would tilt in favor of commoners by a ton.


Just no. Once you made something that is a machine (i.e. really expensive) its never going to break. Only new invention of real cost will need fabrication. Rest everything that requires low cost goods will be made magically easily.

[icefractal]

And you're having this wizard, sorry, wizards plural, to play blacksmith or tailor as a full time job.That's overstating it quite a bit. I think spending a 5th level slot every few days to bring in thousands or tens of thousands of gold (Fabricate uncut gems to cut gems) is pretty worthwhile for most Wizards.

Now armor, clothes, etc? Not unless the gem market is flooded; that's a lot lower of a profit margin. Plus gems have the advantage that your economic shenanigans are less obvious to observers and less likely to hit a wall of reduced demand. Adventurers bring back big sacks of gems on a regular basis, so there's nothing strange about a wizard doing such. You just happen to be bringing them back from your workshop, rather than from a dragon's hoard.


As for effect on society in general, I think it's the altruistic Wizards you have to watch out for. Wizards who just want to retire in luxury can easily do that without any effect on the world as a whole. Wizards who want power are more likely to have a localized effect in one area and then go off-plane entirely. But Wizards who want to turn their home kingdom into a utopia? They can do some game-changing stuff.

Edit: Also other casters, obviously; I was just using Wizard as a short-hand. In fact, I would expect Clerics of certain deities to be the most active in world changing - after all, they can switch from dungeon-crawling spells to society-shaping ones just by waking up in the morning.

[Cosi]

You mean mostly do illegal stuff. Outside of teleport that is. In a world where guidls exist to provide safe services.

If people have the authority to blanket ban the use of spells, why do spells warp the setting.


The worls is post scarcity because nothing that is created ever breaks down. Food, water shelter and clothing are literally free.

That is not what "post scarcity" means. The percentage of my money that goes to fixing things that could be fixed with mending (i.e. stuff less than one pound) is pretty close to zero. It doesn't fix houses, cars, computers, maybe not even shoes (I don't know what shoes weigh).


Only new invention of real cost will need fabrication.

How often do you buy new stuff? How much of your income goes to "new stuff" rather than "repairing stuff"?

[logic_error]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/makeWhole.htm

And I thought my D&D fu was terrible.

Also, no, only mind rape would be illegal. Makes sense. Rest that does not hurt anyone, TP, Fabricate etc, why would that be illegal?

Also, why in a world where minor creation/clothier's cabinet etc exist need more stuff that needs payment? Govt would probably operate free stores of these things.

[eggynack]

You mean mostly do illegal stuff. Outside of teleport that is. In a world where guidls exist to provide safe services.
Only dominating normal people would have a reasonable likelihood of being illegal. Flying, binding, divination, permanency, all seem more or less on the level. Destroying the global economy, as Cosi notes, does not seem on the level.




The worls is post scarcity because nothing that is created ever breaks down. Food, water shelter and clothing are literally free.

Just no. Once you made something that is a machine (i.e. really expensive) its never going to break. Only new invention of real cost will need fabrication. Rest everything that requires low cost goods will be made magically easily.
These things all cost the time of someone relatively powerful, which means they cost money. Going to a third level cleric that can repair a few objects a day, isn't all that different from our world where we have mechanics that can repair a few objects a day.


That's overstating it quite a bit. I think spending a 5th level slot every few days to bring in thousands or tens of thousands of gold (Fabricate uncut gems to cut gems) is pretty worthwhile for most Wizards.
Sure. But that doesn't seem like what we're talking about. WBLmancy is one thing, obviating the need for low level experts through the expenditure of high level spells is very much another.


As for effect on society in general, I think it's the altruistic Wizards you have to watch out for. Wizards who just want to retire in luxury can easily do that without any effect on the world as a whole. Wizards who want power are more likely to have a localized effect in one area and then go off-plane entirely. But Wizards who want to turn their home kingdom into a utopia? They can do some game-changing stuff.
Maybe, but that again requires something a lot more reality altering than fabricate. At that point we're really looking for Tippyverse style stuff. Teleportation circles, resetting traps of whatever, shadesteel golems for defense, and so on. Wizards are massively impactful. Unless you're specifically aiming to use one of the tricks to make massive money, this stuff just isn't as reality altering as is being claimed.



Also, no, only mind rape would be illegal. Makes sense. Rest that does not hurt anyone, TP, Fabricate etc, why would that be illegal?
Same reason counterfeiting is illegal in our world. Not because the product is substantially different, but because we value not-inflation.


Also, why in a world where minor creation/clothier's cabinet etc exist need more stuff that needs payment? Govt would probably operate free stores of these things.
Because, again, there are only so many wizards, with only so much time. You think all these seventh level wizards are going to be employed by the government producing plant matter that lasts for hours?

[Cosi]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/makeWhole.htm

And I thought my D&D fu was terrible.

You remember your original quote on this topic?


The spell level 1 Mend/Fix

I'm supposed to parse that to make whole instead of mending? Sure, neither spell is 1st level, but at least mending has the word "mend" in it. Also, that doesn't really solve the problem that the things that are really expensive to fix (cars and houses) are too damn big.


Another widely used definition is that of the EPA, which classifies cars between 110 cubic feet (3.11 m3) and 119 cubic feet (3.37 m3) of interior volume as mid-size.
Source. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-size_car)

At the "10 cubic feet/level" of make whole, you're looking at a 11th level Cleric to be able to repair a mid-size car, let alone a bus, truck, plane, or boat. Forget about repairing a house. Sure, you can now repair my laptop or my shoes, but those are pretty cheap.

[logic_error]

Yep you totally got me. Must hide in shame now.

[icefractal]

Maybe, but that again requires something a lot more reality altering than fabricate.Well yeah, Fabricate mostly just affects the production of high-end goods, things like adamantine full plate where hiring a Wizard to do it in a few seconds rather than several months is a relatively small extra cost.

I figure even altruistic mages have better things to do at high level than sit around crafting all day or using all their slots on relatively minor stuff. Therefore something that one of them can do in less than a day (make a Teleportation Circle, for instance) could happen reasonably often, but something that ties them up for a long time (craft a powerful item, cast spells to maintain the city every day) would be extremely rare.

However, "make a Simulacrum" or "planar bind something" are tasks that fall in the former category, so it's possible to get magical workers that will stick around and cast Fabricate every day, if that's what you want. Even then, it's not an unlimited supply (barring infinite loops, which you should), and so it's still unlikely any kingdom would have enough to substantially replace their normal labor force.

[logic_error]

Well yeah, Fabricate mostly just affects the production of high-end goods, things like adamantine full plate where hiring a Wizard to do it in a few seconds rather than several months is a relatively small extra cost.

I figure even altruistic mages have better things to do at high level than sit around crafting all day or using all their slots on relatively minor stuff. Therefore something that one of them can do in less than a day (make a Teleportation Circle, for instance) could happen reasonably often, but something that ties them up for a long time (craft a powerful item, cast spells to maintain the city every day) would be extremely rare.

However, "make a Simulacrum" or "planar bind something" are tasks that fall in the former category, so it's possible to get magical workers that will stick around and cast Fabricate every day, if that's what you want. Even then, it's not an unlimited supply (barring infinite loops, which you should), and so it's still unlikely any kingdom would have enough to substantially replace their normal labor force.


Why cast it everyday? What could need fabricating everyday? In a world of artificers and Conjurers, machines that are powered from magical energies are probably creating stuff from mud + poop. Hell, it might happen in our world soon enough (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_assembler).

[Zombulian]

Why cast it everyday? What could need fabricating everyday? In a world of artificers and Conjurers, machines that are powered from magical energies are probably creating stuff from mud + poop. Hell, it might happen in our world soon enough (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_assembler).

This argument is slowly inching towards a Tippyverse type scenario.

[logic_error]

Which was the original point; a setting with magic like in D&D would be alien to us.

[icefractal]

Why cast it everyday? What could need fabricating everyday? In a world of artificers and Conjurers, machines that are powered from magical energies are probably creating stuff from mud + poop. Hell, it might happen in our world soon enough (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_assembler).Well then why are we talking about Fabricate at all? :smalltongue:

Those kind of devices are pretty non-trivial to produce though - permanent creation tends to be high-level magic, so you need a high-level caster willing to dedicate a long-ass time to crafting it, and then you need to guard the hell out of it because it's a prime target for theft or sabotage.

Not impossible obstacles, you could easily have a D&D setting that assumed such. But it wouldn't be implausible not to have that level of advancement either.

[Cosi]

Which was the original point; a setting with magic like in D&D would be alien to us.

But how have you proved that? If "magic" is just "stuff we soon anticipate being able to do", either you're arguing that nanotechnology is incomprehensible and alien, or you've accepted that magic isn't incomprehensible and alien.

[logic_error]

Well then why are we talking about Fabricate at all? :smalltongue:

Those kind of devices are pretty non-trivial to produce though - permanent creation tends to be high-level magic, so you need a high-level caster willing to dedicate a long-ass time to crafting it, and then you need to guard the hell out of it because it's a prime target for theft or sabotage.

Not impossible obstacles, you could easily have a D&D setting that assumed such. But it wouldn't be implausible not to have that level of advancement either.

Make whole means its almost immune to sabotage. And even if its patented, eventally someone will duplicate it.

[logic_error]

But how have you proved that? If "magic" is just "stuff we soon anticipate being able to do", either you're arguing that nanotechnology is incomprehensible and alien, or you've accepted that magic isn't incomprehensible and alien.

Because this was totally my point , right?

No. It was that the settings, even good and popular ones from D&D, are not consistent.

EDIT: And yeah. Post-scarcity world would be very alien to us no matter whether its brought about scientifically or not.

[Beheld]

Same reason counterfeiting is illegal in our world. Not because the product is substantially different, but because we value not-inflation.

UH... no. Not at all. Fabricate isn't going to be outlawed at all, and certainly not to avoid inflation. (If it mattered, fabricate would make goods cost less, that's not inflation.)

[icefractal]

Make whole means its almost immune to sabotage. And even if its patented, eventally someone will duplicate it.
Make Whole doesn't fix magic items in 3.5. Pathfinder has Greater Make Whole, although you still need to equal the CL and it won't work if it was completely disintegrated. But I would expect theft to be more common anyway; even if you make it room-sized, it's valuable enough to be worth the effort.

Also - patented? Guilds regulating teleport? How much of a unified legal system are you assuming here? Generally D&D settings tend to be more in the realm of warring kingdoms / wild west, and using magic to its fullest probably destabilizes things more than it stabilizes them.

[logic_error]

Make Whole doesn't fix magic items in 3.5. Pathfinder has Greater Make Whole, although you still need to equal the CL and it won't work if it was completely disintegrated. But I would expect theft to be more common anyway; even if you make it room-sized, it's valuable enough to be worth the effort.



I assumed the machine itself was non-magical. But sure, remake it. Secure it etc. Who cares.



Also - patented? Guilds regulating teleport? How much of a unified legal system are you assuming here? Generally D&D settings tend to be more in the realm of warring kingdoms / wild west, and using magic to its fullest probably destabilizes things more than it stabilizes them.
That was a joke.

[icefractal]

I assumed the machine itself was non-magical. But sure, remake it. Secure it etc. Who cares.So, are we talking about the impact of spells on a D&D setting, or the impact of nanotech? :smallwink:

I may have lost the thread of the conversation; I was talking about "What's the minimum effect on the world there should logically be from magic," which is a lot more than most settings take into account, but less than full-on singularity. If you're talking about the maximum effect that can logically be justified - that's a lot. Easily singularity level.

[eggynack]

UH... no. Not at all. Fabricate isn't going to be outlawed at all, and certainly not to avoid inflation. (If it mattered, fabricate would make goods cost less, that's not inflation.)
It can make goods worth less, but WBLmancy also massively floods the market with rough currency equivalents, like gems, salt, and iron, depending on method, reducing the value of those things. The mode of fabricate where you build armor for people would reduce the value of said armor. The mode of fabricate where you fabricate gems into more valuable gems would quite possibly reduce currency values, because gems and gold and such often serve to support currencies, especially before we ditched the gold standard. Even now, gold is something of a currency unto itself.

[Almarck]

Why cast it everyday? What could need fabricating everyday? In a world of artificers and Conjurers, machines that are powered from magical energies are probably creating stuff from mud + poop. Hell, it might happen in our world soon enough (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_assembler).



There's also one other flaw with your post scarcity thing.

the reason why they respond a gold cost to making magic items is because this is the cost of rare and hard to get reagents that are not found just anywhere.

in order for post scarcity to even work, the resources needed to create the setting themselves have to be not scarce, but the magical reagents to make magical items.... by definition are scarce and hard to make.

which means that your society's bottleneck is going to be the resources needed to make the magic items.....

[Aetis]

Spellcasters aren't the only thing worth playing as long as you throw out the parts where they're better than everyone else.

Well, yeah. OP wants to limit spellcasting, and I am expressing my support.

[ross]

There's also one other flaw with your post scarcity thing.

the reason why they respond a gold cost to making magic items is because this is the cost of rare and hard to get reagents that are not found just anywhere.

in order for post scarcity to even work, the resources needed to create the setting themselves have to be not scarce, but the magical reagents to make magical items.... by definition are scarce and hard to make.

which means that your society's bottleneck is going to be the resources needed to make the magic items.....

Nope, just need enough gold and xp.

[Zombulian]

Well, yeah. OP wants to limit spellcasting, and I am expressing my support.

That's fair. I was stuck in the tunnel vision of exclusively considering the title of the thread, like most people in here.

[Almarck]

Nope, just need enough gold and xp.

No, it's very specifically the supplies needed to create it.



Magic supplies for items are always half of the base price in gp and 1/25 of the base price in XP. For many items, the market price equals the base price.



http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm

On the other hand, that's another thing.... in some editions of D&D, the cost of creating magic items was often something like experience points or a permanent investment of life force, measured in Con. That puts a hard cap on magic item creation.

[ryu]

No, it's very specifically the supplies needed to create it.




http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm

On the other hand, that's another thing.... in some editions of D&D, the cost of creating magic items was often something like experience points or a permanent investment of life force, measured in Con. That puts a hard cap on magic item creation.

It does no such thing. All you need is a readily farmable supply of intelligent lifeforms. That's not hard to achieve. Hell if you're high enough level you can literally make them yourself.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Weirdly, having fewer options can increase the number of options you have that are actually worth making. Suppose there's a room full of eight second-level guards, a chandelier that I could easily drop on a few of them, several places to hide, and I happen to know that one of them holds a grudge against one of the others and doesn't trust her. There's a few options that I have as an 8th-level rogue - I can drop the chandelier, I can try to climb up to it and start making shortbow attacks while dangling off the chandelier by my legs, I can trick one of the guards into thinking the other is doing something she shouldn't so he goes and gets into a fight with her, I can just sneak past them all, or throw myself at the nearest one for sneak attack damage and rely on my comparatively excellent AC to allow me to survive long enough to take the others out, but as an 8th-level sorcerer, the only option which matters is the one which kills all the guards with no hassle while only taking up a third-level spell slot: fireball.

Possibly there's the "Hmm, do I think that a summoned monster II would be able to take them all (probably no chance against the 8 2nd-level fighters you're facing off against), and do I want to risk it (no)?" moment, followed by the "Huh, I put points in bluff, maybe if I managed to make them stand in a nice cone which I could burning hands (but wait, they're going to have about 12 hit points each, I probably won't do enough damage)?" moment, followed by the realisation that it's probably easiest just to fireball them. I mean sure, you're an eighth-level sorcerer, you know a fourth-level spell, but it's not worth using when fireball would do. You know another third-level one, but it's not as though "Cast fly, and then fire off longbow shots with my cute elven proficiency and four points of bab while they throw improvised weapons at me" was really a better option. You'd have a more interesting time as a sorcerer if you had to pick between fly, shatter, minor image, invisibility and a few cantrips, that is, if you didn't have any "Good" options (that is, options which immdiately destroy all the guards, which is what passes for a good option as a caster). At least with fly you kinda have to be inventive with how you use it.

That's the main reason I don't really like the power level that full casters can easily reach, and don't really like playing them. Especially when that 8th-level sorcerer chose polymorph, and now, when none of his spells known trivialise an encounter involving doing X, instead decides "I polymorph into a creature which can do X". I prefer having to do the kind of creative solutions that come with, actually, not having all those options.

(Quicker way of thinking about this: "Deal 10d6 damage to a single enemy, or 7d6 to all enemies in a 10-ft area, or 5d6 to all enemies in a 20-ft area" is three options. "Deal 10d6 damage to a single enemy, or 7d6 to all enemies in a 10-ft area, or 5d6 to all enemies in a 20-ft area, or 10d6 to all enemies in a 20-ft area" looks like 4 options but is only one meaningful option. More options doesn't have to mean more meaningful options).

This dude gets it.

I honestly can't explain it any better.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't dislike casters overall. They can be a lot of fun. They're a known quantity though. Whatever the situation, you're casting a spell. If there's nothing in your spells known/prepared for the situation at hand (work on your caster building :smalltongue:) then there's basically nothing you can contribute to the situation at hand and, if there is, you're casting whatever it is best fits the circumstance, end of story.

A non-caster or partial caster (or, oddly, a beguiler) has skills and/or usually decent ability scores that they may be able to apply circumstantially, depending on the details surrounding the encounter. There's fun to be had in trying to find those details and circumstances in the moment during the encounter.



Now, for the OP's question about reducing magic overall.

First and foremost, be aware that this will create some extra work for the DM. You'll have to be more careful about presenting challenges that -demand- magical responses since they will, necessarily, become more scarce. Depending on just how much magic you're cutting, things like curses and disease become -far- less trivial than they'd otherwise be so that's something to watch out for as well.

Second, when you start cutting magic, take it from the casters first. Leave magic items alone unless you're prepared to give out free bonuses to compensate for their absence or to examine foes even more carefully since CR, already an uncomfortably loose metric, becomes utterly useless.

Those points out of the way, I usually do something like this for the odd low-magic one-off.

The only vancian casters available are the adept and magewright. Paladins and rangers must select a non-casting ACF.
Items that require a spell not on either of those lists to be crafted are largely, though not entirely unavailable. Barkskin added to the adept list.
While psionics in general aren't banned, manifester classes are.

That goes a -long- way toward streamlining things. For a little extra magical oomph, if that's too far, use the prestige variants of the paladin, ranger, and bard and allow prestige classes with independent casting other than the sublime chord and nar demonbinder.


Also, I imagined them making scrolls and wands of this stuff not really casting it with their slots. In the end, this economy has only one currency (not really if you consider time) which is XP, which in the end is not even a real thing in the game world.

The underlined is categorically untrue. It might be called something else and it might be largely unknown in-universe but it's something that has tangible effects on the world, can be stored, and -must- be counted for items and effects that require the use of XP. Between these factors and how trivial it would be to quantify by some fairly simple experimentation in-universe, it's patently absurd to conclude that it's not a real thing in the game world.

[Thurbane]

Just give every non-casting class their choice of Adept, Paladin or Ranger casting in addition to all normal class features, keyed off the ability of their choice.

Now everyone is a caster, and no one feels left out.

I fixed D&D. You're welcome. ...or is that your welcome?

[ryu]

Just give every non-casting class their choice of Adept, Paladin or Ranger casting in addition to all normal class features, keyed off the ability of their choice.

Now everyone is a caster, and no one feels left out.

I fixed D&D. You're welcome. ...or is that your welcome?

Now you may have blue texted that, but pretty much most classes would be brought to at least tier 4 by that, and the game would have a lot less traps.... well same number of traps, but they suck less hard.

[Cosi]

Now don't get me wrong, I don't dislike casters overall. They can be a lot of fun. They're a known quantity though. Whatever the situation, you're casting a spell. If there's nothing in your spells known/prepared for the situation at hand (work on your caster building :smalltongue:) then there's basically nothing you can contribute to the situation at hand and, if there is, you're casting whatever it is best fits the circumstance, end of story.

... this is a joke, right? "If you reduce all spells to the single action 'cast a spell', there's only one thing casters ever do!" Because if you assume planar binding, cloudkill, teleport, unseen servant, fireball, and raise dead are all the same thing, casters only do one thing! On the other hand, non-casters have such diverse options as "make a Bluff check" and "make an Intimidate check". That's two things! Mundanes are twice as interesting as casters! Take that caster players!


A non-caster or partial caster (or, oddly, a beguiler) has skills and/or usually decent ability scores that they may be able to apply circumstantially, depending on the details surrounding the encounter. There's fun to be had in trying to find those details and circumstances in the moment during the encounter.

Yes, because there's nothing you could do to be creative with an ability like shadow conjuration, fabricate, or even unseen servant. Clearly, figuring out what to do with Climb is much more creative.

[Kelb_Panthera]

... this is a joke, right? "If you reduce all spells to the single action 'cast a spell', there's only one thing casters ever do!" Because if you assume planar binding, cloudkill, teleport, unseen servant, fireball, and raise dead are all the same thing, casters only do one thing! On the other hand, non-casters have such diverse options as "make a Bluff check" and "make an Intimidate check". That's two things! Mundanes are twice as interesting as casters! Take that caster players!

The point here is that there's no real choice when the "correct," most efficient choice is so obvious that you'd have to be a fool to do something else. It's the illusion of choice.

A DM could conceivably setup encounters such that there is no obvious spell or combination of spells to handle the situation but that's getting into 4d chess and/or guessing what the DM is thinking territory and, frankly, beyond the ability of most DM's. In either case, spontaneity is just right out the window.


Yes, because there's nothing you could do to be creative with an ability like shadow conjuration, fabricate, or even unseen servant. Clearly, figuring out what to do with Climb is much more creative.

Completely missed the point. It's not about creativity, it's about solving problems with limited resources, on the fly.

No matter how varied or broad the uses of a spell may be, they're still self-contained effects whose details are known before you get into whatever situation you might cast them in.

[Cosi]

A DM could conceivably setup encounters such that there is no obvious spell or combination of spells to handle the situation but that's getting into 4d chess and/or guessing what the DM is thinking territory and, frankly, beyond the ability of most DM's. In either case, spontaneity is just right out the window.

It seems like you have a very low opinion of most DMs. Telling compelling stories with high level magic in the is just not terribly hard for the most part. The only real problem is the whole "I have an infinite army" thing, but that's broken on first principles.


Completely missed the point. It's not about creativity, it's about solving problems with limited resources, on the fly.

You mean like the limited number of spell slots you get each day? Or perhaps the limited number of spells you know?


No matter how varied or broad the uses of a spell may be, they're still self-contained effects whose details are known before you get into whatever situation you might cast them in.

You mean, they are things which have a function that is defined by the rules, like every other thing that does or can exist in the game?

[Kelb_Panthera]

It seems like you have a very low opinion of most DMs.

Hardly. I just don't expect most of them to have a BS in D&D-ology. Believe it or not, most people don't study this stuff in excrutiating detail for years at a time.


Telling compelling stories with high level magic in the is just not terribly hard for the most part.

Telling stories is not. Setting up logic puzzles with multiple correct answers, but without so many answers as to be trivial or one really obvious one, very much is.


The only real problem is the whole "I have an infinite army" thing, but that's broken on first principles.

It's not the only one but it's certainly the biggest.


You mean like the limited number of spell slots you get each day? Or perhaps the limited number of spells you know?

You and I both know that under all but the most contrived of circumstances that even a mid-level casters will rarely have so few slots as to be meaningfully limited by that metric. Same goes for spells known on all prepared arcanists and the archivist. Skilled optimization can eliminate that concern for spontaneous casters too.

Nevermind the huge difference in scale between the dozen plus spells you basically can't lose and whatever handful of things happens to be where the encounter takes place.



You mean, they are things which have a function that is defined by the rules, like every other thing that does or can exist in the game?

No, I mean all the components of the desired result are contained in a single item. You cast the spell, the thing happens, and that's it most of the time. When you're having to use your surroundings and the items contained there in, they're not contained within the character and it can take several steps to get from idea to effect. Nevermind the gambler's rush from the chance(s) of failure that simply aren't present if you're selecting your spells effectively.

[bekeleven]

1) Limiting magic is a terrible idea that makes the game worse for mundanes as well in every implementation.

Agree with most of these points

This is so true that it hurts.

I just wanted to say that I mostly agree with the points listed here
I know this thread has moved on but I gotta ask what asinine houserules y'all have been exposed to

[atemu1234]

I, personally, am comfortable in the knowledge that I could play a caster as opposed to actually playing one. I prefer rogues, quite honestly. Not for power preferences but just because I have a proclivity towards them.

Though my current character is a very eccentric Wizard Fleshwarper, in a Pathfinder game.


I know this thread has moved on but I gotta ask what asinine houserules y'all have been exposed to

Just check the thread on houserules that mods still haven't shut down for repeated thread-necromancy. For some reason. At this point it's bordering on thread-lichdom.

[Cosi]

Hardly. I just don't expect most of them to have a BS in D&D-ology. Believe it or not, most people don't study this stuff in excrutiating detail for years at a time.

Of course, this cuts both ways. Generally, you don't see massive disparities between the DM and the players. DMs who struggle with optimized full casters generally don't have players who roll optimized full casters.


Telling stories is not. Setting up logic puzzles with multiple correct answers, but without so many answers as to be trivial or one really obvious one, very much is.

The goal should not be to create a puzzle for people to solve. It should be to create a dynamic environment in which people can pursue goals that are meaningful to both players and characters. Open ended solutions demand open ended problems.


You and I both know that under all but the most contrived of circumstances that even a mid-level casters will rarely have so few slots as to be meaningfully limited by that metric.

This does not seem universal. It's certainly possible to push casters until they run out of resources if you feel the need.


Same goes for spells known on all prepared arcanists and the archivist. Skilled optimization can eliminate that concern for spontaneous casters too.

There's a lot of space between "reasonably optimized" and "knows all the spells".


Nevermind the huge difference in scale between the dozen plus spells you basically can't lose and whatever handful of things happens to be where the encounter takes place.

Actually, this is exactly why casters are better. With a caster, you have abilities that you selected that your character uses. Your capabilities are in your hands, and your success rests on your actions. You don't have to find a convenient portal when you want to visit Hell, you can just go there. You don't need to rely on the tender mercies of the DM to bring back the dead, you can just do that. That's agency. That's the entire reason to play a cooperative storytelling game like D&D instead of a video game like Mass Effect or Skyrim.


No, I mean all the components of the desired result are contained in a single item. You cast the spell, the thing happens, and that's it most of the time. When you're having to use your surroundings and the items contained there in, they're not contained within the character and it can take several steps to get from idea to effect.

Again, claiming that silent image is less interesting than skills because its "one action" is a fundamental failure of imagination on your part.

What's more, you're assuming that any spell is going to instantly solve the problem, while non-spell actions will inevitably be woven into complex tapestries of solutions. Both of those are absurd, and obviously so.

Fundamentally, your whole tirade sounds like you trying to justify your distaste for characters that do interesting things.


Nevermind the gambler's rush from the chance(s) of failure that simply aren't present if you're selecting your spells effectively.

You really think casters never fail at anything?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Of course, this cuts both ways. Generally, you don't see massive disparities between the DM and the players. DMs who struggle with optimized full casters generally don't have players who roll optimized full casters.

You're not wrong but that's because players that can run a caster to near capacity aren't terribly common. Most DM's won't have looked into how to deal with them until they crop up for the first time. Basically the only DM's that know how to handle them are former players of such characters or those who have such a player and don't want to kick them for whatever reason.



The goal should not be to create a puzzle for people to solve. It should be to create a dynamic environment in which people can pursue goals that are meaningful to both players and characters. Open ended solutions demand open ended problems.

See, this is where we fundamentally disagree. If the problems are completely open ended, you're right back to there being obvious solutions to them. Dynamic goals and dynamic NPC's are definitely things to strive for but the actual obstacles to reahching those goals need to be crafted into something challenging or what's the point? Challenge is not measured solely in how many resources you have to pour onto a problem.


This does not seem universal. It's certainly possible to push casters until they run out of resources if you feel the need.

It's certainly possible but to do so with any consistency without straining credulity can be exceedingly difficult. Springing it on them just prior to or directly on a climactic moment is fine and dandy but it's just not something you can rely on.


There's a lot of space between "reasonably optimized" and "knows all the spells".

Of course but even the limitations of spontaneous casters' unmodified spells known are often exagerrated. The simple fact is that knowing all the spells isn't even all that useful. 8-10 per spell level can easily cover nearly any situation and isn't difficult to acquire even for spontaneous casters without even going into spells that can solve nearly any problem all by themselves, ala planar binding and shapechange.



Actually, this is exactly why casters are better. With a caster, you have abilities that you selected that your character uses. Your capabilities are in your hands, and your success rests on your actions. You don't have to find a convenient portal when you want to visit Hell, you can just go there. You don't need to rely on the tender mercies of the DM to bring back the dead, you can just do that. That's agency. That's the entire reason to play a cooperative storytelling game like D&D instead of a video game like Mass Effect or Skyrim.

Here's another fundamental disagreement. Problem solving is fun. The more difficult it is to solve a problem, the more satisfying it is to do so. Agency is a good thing but not when it reaches the point you can do whatever you want without anything getting in your way. When nothing can stand against you but something just like you the game gets a bit samey.


Again, claiming that silent image is less interesting than skills because its "one action" is a fundamental failure of imagination on your part.

It's not just because it's only one action. It's one action that you knew, going in, was something you had on hand. There's no element of surprise. There's just "I've got an app spell for that."


What's more, you're assuming that any spell is going to instantly solve the problem, while non-spell actions will inevitably be woven into complex tapestries of solutions. Both of those are absurd, and obviously so.

It's not a given but it is a trend. In most instances, one or two spells will have the situation thoroughly handled and, if your loadout is good, the dice will never even have hit the table past initiative or their doing so will have been cursory. The actions available to non-casters are inherently riskier and their limitations usually make a challenge more involved than "what's the best spell for this situation?"


Fundamentally, your whole tirade sounds like you trying to justify your distaste for characters that do interesting things.

Different people find different things interesting.


You really think casters never fail at anything?

Of course they do. It's rarely a matter of chance though. It's usually poor strategy on their part or simply better strategy from the enemy. Once in a while dumb iuck will crop up and smack them in the face but it's hardly frequent enough to really be a thrill.

[Particle_Man]

Sometimes I just want to hit things with a big weapon and not think too much.

[gooddragon1]

It's not a given but it is a trend. In most instances, one or two spells will have the situation thoroughly handled and, if your loadout is good, the dice will never even have hit the table past initiative or their doing so will have been cursory. The actions available to non-casters are inherently riskier and their limitations usually make a challenge more involved than "what's the best spell for this situation?"

Going to comment on this one.

Invisibility on you and a reanimated skeleton. 500 explosive rune stamps on the skeleton. Greater Teleport the skeleton and Quickened dispel magic at minimum caster level. Enough of them go off that if the target doesn't have the right defenses it won't matter what dice are rolled. If you maximize the runes, have a high enough caster level, they don't have evasion or spell resistance, and you assume half damage from saves... you don't even have to roll dice.

If that doesn't work, you could use summoned creature that can dimension door or greater Teleport instead.

[Mechalich]

Actually, this is exactly why casters are better. With a caster, you have abilities that you selected that your character uses. Your capabilities are in your hands, and your success rests on your actions. You don't have to find a convenient portal when you want to visit Hell, you can just go there. You don't need to rely on the tender mercies of the DM to bring back the dead, you can just do that. That's agency. That's the entire reason to play a cooperative storytelling game like D&D instead of a video game like Mass Effect or Skyrim.


You are describing the 'MOAR MAGIC' solution to all problems, which is a crippling game flaw, as a positive.

For a full caster, the answer to any possible problem is 'spell x' or 'spell combo x' as a result, all adventuring is reduced to acquiring sufficient power to utilize 'spell combo x' and render all problems irrelevant. This is, essentially, the Raistlin approach to adventuring - gain phenomenal cosmic power, become a god, render all other issues totally irrelevant. And in fact, at the end of Dragons of Spring Dawning, that's essentially what happens, Raistlin levels up enough that he solves all ongoing issues and renders the remaining choices of all surviving party members totally irrelevant by being a living deus ex machina. Deus ex machina can be satisfying for the reader in the moment, but works terribly in a cooperative storytelling game if one player does it because everyone else gets cheated.

Players should absolutely have agency, but they shouldn't have infinite agency. Unlimited player agency leads to the equivalent of Grand Theft Auto death rampages and other nonsense, no story, just a sequence of events barely chained together. I've been in a game like that - the GM ran out of ideas and the party made it a running joke that we would 'go south!' whenever we hit any decision point whatsoever. It was sooo stupid.

Also, player agency brushes up against GM agency. Plane shift is a horror for GMs. If the party decides 'hey lets go to Hell' on the spur of the moment the GM is left in the lurch because they don't necessarily have anything prepared for Hell. It is reasonable to expect a GM to prepared several storytelling pathways for any given adventure or campaign, it is not reasonable to expect endless pathways.

[logic_error]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy

For those who obviously do not understand the term.

[Mordaedil]

I don't think an economy where the wizards are the 1% and the commoners have to make due with a few silver pieces a month is by any working definition "post scarcity".

Actually, all adventurers are 1% simply by nature of having access to platinum coins.

[logic_error]

And this is another inconsistency. let's say 10 Int/Wis is average. Then 11 int has a fair chance of appearing. Thus level 1 spells (which make food, water and clothing abundant) solve 90% scarcity. This is why the setting is not consistent. Everyone who has above average WIS (so >49 % people) would invest in level 1 Cleric.

[Mordaedil]

That's not how it works, no. A cleric is technically a priest chosen by their deity to carry their will forth, it requires a exaggerated amount of time investment to qualify to become a class and most that try only become as good as an adept NPC class. That is if they even qualify by birth. Most people in this setting can't set aside the time necessary to become priests, let alone clerics, because it requires luck of draw at birth and being well enough off to feed, clothe and live off of until they graduate. It takes years, which in a medievil setting is a luxury most people do not have.

Adventurers are special.

[Beheld]

We'd be living in a post scarcity society if only every single person decided to be a genius inventor instead of working at McDonalds or Wal Mart.

[warmachine]

D&D is high power fantasy with all manner of problems to deal with and spells gives you options to solve them. Whopping great chasm? Fly. In a city during a plague? Remove Disease. Need to recover items from a shipwreck? Water Breathing. Vrock using its Mirror Image spell-like ability? Magic Missile. Unbearable desert heat? Endure Elements.

This doesn't mean some problems can't be solved by non-magical means, including just plain talking, but, in my experience, plenty of obstacles were insurmountable until the primary spell casters slept overnight to change their spell selection.

Neither does this mean only spell casters are worth playing. Some, like me, prefer tactics and puzzle solving, some prefer role playing, some prefer slaying enemies.

Now, magic can be curtailed but then you're no longer playing high power fantasy and, thus, no longer playing D&D. You need a different system.

[Deeds]

I know that the thread has been a bit derailed. I'd like to re-address OP's post.

Just exactly what the thread title says!

Do you honestly believe you can't contribute without spell casting or is it that you can't conceive of way to contribute without being able to cast spells?

I would really like to hear your opinions.
I believe that most classes are worth playing. I've played every class in the PHB and while the forum could rant on and on about how the classes arent equal, the classes can contribute in a typical game.

As an example, Manny the Monk can be a stealthy scout for the party. Willard the Wizard could cast any number of spells to replace Manny on a whim. Why bother with stealing Manny's spotlight? If anything, Willard could assist him by casting Invisibility on Manny.

[logic_error]

We'd be living in a post scarcity society if only every single person decided to be a genius inventor instead of working at McDonalds or Wal Mart.

Except by the rules of D&D to cast level 1 stuff you don't have to be genius. Just average. And level one gives you A LOT.


I know that the thread has been a bit derailed. I'd like to re-address OP's post.
I believe that most classes are worth playing. I've played every class in the PHB and while the forum could rant on and on about how the classes arent equal, the classes can contribute in a typical game.

As an example, Manny the Monk can be a stealthy scout for the party. Willard the Wizard could cast any number of spells to replace Manny on a whim. Why bother with stealing Manny's spotlight? If anything, Willard could assist him by casting Invisibility on Manny.


yeah. That is how a non-intrusive caster plays. He casts spells on others to make THEM aswome. He only comes out of the shell when needed. Glitterdust, Grease, Heroics and Wraithstrike type spells are examples of this. Make enemies suck and make your party glow.

[Beheld]

Except by the rules of D&D to cast level 1 stuff you don't have to be genius. Just average. And level one gives you A LOT.

Except the rules say that it does take dedication, a lot of time, and training, and the rules do say that Clerics make up less than 1% of the population.

Almost like "choosing to be a genius inventor" is not an option for most people and "choosing to be a cleric" is not an option for most NPCs.

[logic_error]

Except the rules say that it does take dedication, a lot of time, and training, .


You mean just like having to learn another craft? Gasp. What an investment to never ever go hungry and thirsty again and be magical at that. Why I would never!!

[Dagroth]

In addition, a Cleric is granted their spells. This could mean that the deity ends up saying "I think you've been spending too much time Mending & Creating Food & Water. This week I want you to spend time transcribing the holy books and looking for those with sin in their hearts (Detect Evil)."

[logic_error]

In addition, a Cleric is granted their spells. This could mean that the deity ends up saying "I think you've been spending too much time Mending & Creating Food & Water. This week I want you to spend time transcribing the holy books and looking for those with sin in their hearts (Detect Evil)."

That might be the case. In which case the most popular deity is going to be the one that is happy to let you tinker with stuff.

[Keral]

That's not how it works, no. A cleric is technically a priest chosen by their deity to carry their will forth, it requires a exaggerated amount of time investment to qualify to become a class and most that try only become as good as an adept NPC class. That is if they even qualify by birth. Most people in this setting can't set aside the time necessary to become priests, let alone clerics, because it requires luck of draw at birth and being well enough off to feed, clothe and live off of until they graduate. It takes years, which in a medievil setting is a luxury most people do not have.

Adventurers are special.

I really didn't want to get involved.

However, the deity bit is not necessary. If I'm not mistaken the manual says clerics can worship an ideal or something like that. Which means, I would assume, that anyone with the skill and training to become one would do so.

The second bit is true. To an extent. But you should consider the will of a civilization to better itself. If we consider int/wis 10 to be the average, it means that on average everyone has the potential to be able to create water, purify water and drink and repair simple tools.
All with 0 level spells.

Now, as you say not everyone has the time and resources to be trained to use these spells because it takes time and money. The time is a nonissue: Adulthood is 15 years and a cleric/wizard starting age is that +2d6. It means that at worst by 27 you are a trained cleric/wizard at least level 1 able to do what we said above.

Create food and water may be harder. To cast 3rd level spells you need 13 wis. Which may be higher than average. Someone using that spell creates food and water for 3 humans/level. Which means 15 humans. Not much, I agree. Not enough to make a difference. If we allow that everyone can't be trained and that wis 13 humans are a small %.

But you're not considering magic items. In less than a week you can create a sustaining spoon which will provide sustenance for 4 humans forever. Let's say that by the time a cleric reaches level 5 they're 50. Let's say they live 'til 70. Using the earth calendar that's roughly 1000 weeks, which means that one single cleric could create 1000 sustaining spoons. Which will feed 4000 humans forever*. When they die it'll be passed on to someone else.

Now I don't care to speculate the size of dnd setting population and whatnot, because in the end it's irrelevant. With enough time everyone is fed.

And once you have taken care of the basic needs, the only thing stopping you is the time to train people and their ability scores. But once you start enchanting a few items you don't really need *that* many casters. It may be slow but it's achievable.



*Sure, some will get broken or lost, but honestly if it meant that you can feed yourself and your family you're probably taking good care of them.

[eggynack]

You mean just like having to learn another craft? Gasp. What an investment to never ever go hungry and thirsty again and be magical at that. Why I would never!!
You do realize that this is an option that is mostly available in the real world, and pursued by relatively few, right? Like, there's a bunch of highly lucrative and difficult to acquire skills that, if gained, would allow the person gaining it to, on average, never go hungry or thirsty again. You wouldn't get magic, which sucks, but you get other advantages. By your logic, all poor people should already have PhD's, because we're straight up ignoring any possible costs under the assumption that the big advantages outweigh said costs. And if you can come up with a reason why such things aren't pursued, such as that you need the money you get in the time you're not pursuing a PhD to survive, or that they're not intelligent enough for it to be a feasible option, well, those things apply the same to D&D. More, even, because clerics are probably chosen by their deities, or lead to the calling by their piety, rather than just choosing cleric as a class.

Edit:

However, the deity bit is not necessary. If I'm not mistaken the manual says clerics can worship an ideal or something like that. Which means, I would assume, that anyone with the skill and training to become one would do so.
I disagree. Not with the part about not needing a deity, that's true, but about how skill and training can get you there. I would strongly suspect that just as devotion to your deity is a primary factor in becoming a cleric, devotion to these ideals is a primary factor when you're a cleric of an ideal. I don't think you can really train up your devotion, y'know?

[Beheld]

You mean just like having to learn another craft? Gasp. What an investment to never ever go hungry and thirsty again and be magical at that. Why I would never!!

So like reality, where people work at Wal Mart and don't get the training and investment needed to have a career that provides them significantly more income.

Because....... That isn't an option for everyone!

[logic_error]

So like reality, where people work at Wal Mart and don't get the training and investment needed to have a career that provides them significantly more income.

Because....... That isn't an option for everyone!

Maybe this logic *does* work. But I doubt it might work when fracking magic is really concerned. I think it is too tempting to not to at least try. Also, as I explained earlier, this is the world with telepathy, psionics and magic spells that impart knowledge. Teaching would be very different in a place like this.

Look.

The point isn't that this is the case: the point is that D&D is not consistent. Which can't be the case because D&D is a perfectly balanced, fair and egalitarian system, right?

[eggynack]

Maybe this logic *does* work. But I doubt it might work when fracking magic is really concerned. I think it is too tempting to not to at least try. Also, as I explained earlier, this is the world with telepathy, psionics and magic spells that impart knowledge. Teaching would be very different in a place like this.
Our world has tons of cool stuff too. We don't know how enthused we'd be about magic in a world with magic.


The point isn't that this is the case: the point is that D&D is not consistent. Which can't be the case because D&D is a perfectly balanced, fair and egalitarian system, right?
The weird thing is, you're probably correct that D&D is not fully consistent, but you keep pointing out things that are kinda totally consistent. You could just say wall of salt and be done with it, y'know?

[logic_error]

Our world has had cool stuff for last 50 years. You know the age of D&D verses? Yeah. And its not "weird" that I am correct. It's obvious. One has to be a moron not to see through that.

[Keral]

Edit:
I disagree. Not with the part about not needing a deity, that's true, but about how skill and training can get you there. I would strongly suspect that just as devotion to your deity is a primary factor in becoming a cleric, devotion to these ideals is a primary factor when you're a cleric of an ideal. I don't think you can really train up your devotion, y'know?


That may be true, but it doesn't make the reasoning unsound.

As I said I don't really want to speculate about population numbers and the such. But let's say 1 billion (which is probably too high, from what I read on the DMG when I was creating my world, but still). Someone said 1% gets to become cleric? Unless my terrible math skill are showing up again, that means 10 million clerics. Not all of them will be able to cast create food and water (and thus the spoon) let's say 1% of all the clerics are at least level 5. 100.000 of them.

Assuming things remain somewhat constant, with no big increase or decrease in the number of clerics. And assuming at least half of them can be persuaded to make their part to solve world hunger, we have 50.000 clerics. Even if they don't spend all their life to create spoons like I postulated in the post above, and only do it part time. So 200 per cleric instead of 1000? That's 10 million spoons which can feed 40 million people.

Say we don't consider that having suddently 40 millions that don't have to work all day just to get food on the table might increase the people willing/able to become clerics.

Say we break this down in centuries.

Century #1: 40 millions fed
Century #2: 80 millions
In 2500 years everyone is fed everywhere.


It takes time, sure. But I believe that a civilization with the means to do so would. And the magic, as designed in D&D, is that mean.

And that's why it's an rpg and not a world simulation game or something.


All of the above, as well as my other post is based on my opinion. That's just how I believe things could/would go if magic were applied with reason.

[Beheld]

Maybe this logic *does* work. But I doubt it might work when fracking magic is really concerned. I think it is too tempting to not to at least try. Also, as I explained earlier, this is the world with telepathy, psionics and magic spells that impart knowledge. Teaching would be very different in a place like this.

Look.

The point isn't that this is the case: the point is that D&D is not consistent. Which can't be the case because D&D is a perfectly balanced, fair and egalitarian system, right?

I don't see a point here, and I think you've lost track too and just started throwing out strawmen.

In the modern world we have the resources to teach and support everyone, but we don't because getting the haves to help the have nots is hard. I don't see why it would be easier when they live on personal demi-planes with succubi harems.

The fact that D&D worlds aren't egalitarian supports my point, not yours.

[eggynack]

Our world has had cool stuff for last 50 years. You know the age of D&D verses? Yeah.
Not sure why this matters. If it's really necessary, we can just call medieval times a period with no cool stuff at all (oversimplifying, but whatever), current times a period with our variety of cool stuff (technology and stuff), and D&D world an environment with their variety of cool stuff (magic). The time when the cool thing is happening doesn't automatically make it cooler.


And its not "weird" that I am correct. It's obvious. One has to be a moron not to see through that.
I'm not saying it's weird that you're correct. I'm saying it's weird that you're supporting a reasonable conclusion with some pretty mediocre premises.

[logic_error]

I don't see a point here, and I think you've lost track too and just started throwing out strawmen.




lol no. You should actually see where this discussion started. Then you will see where the strawman began. To blame me for it is just stupid.



In the modern world we have the resources to teach and support everyone, but we don't because getting the haves to help the have nots is hard. I don't see why it would be easier when they live on personal demi-planes with succubi harems.



Since how long has this situation existed? How far do you think D&D worlds have existed?




The fact that D&D worlds aren't egalitarian supports my point, not yours.

That was my mistake. I meant the *system* not the world. As is, some classes are just better. period. Only mentally deficient people in D&D verses would even consider being these classes.



Im not saying it's weird that you're correct. I'm saying it's weird that you're supporting a reasonable conclusion with some pretty mediocre premises.

I am using mediocre premises because I am quite unfamiliar with the D&D magic stuff. I just know how horrible the basic stuff is. Someone who is really a master of this could make a very more airtight argument.

[Beheld]

Since how long has this situation existed? How far do you think D&D worlds have existed?

"After the 14th nuclear war, area man questions why multiple centuries of technological development didn't result in post scarcity economy."

D&D is a world where entire civilzations are ground to dust in catastrophe every generation. Why haven't they progressed to utopia? I don't know, maybe those Balor invasions had something to do with it.


That was my mistake. I meant the *system* not the world. As is, some classes are just better. period. Only mentally deficient people in D&D verses would even consider being these classes.

The problems with this are legion:

1) The game rules define how many of each class their are.
2) NPCs don't choose their classes.
3) I never made mistakes when I was 14 that led to things not being as good for me at 30!
4) People to this day, and certainly in like 2008, where arguing that Monks and Fighters are as good as Wizards, and those people made that argument after having multiple chances to discover fault, if you choose Fighter at level 1 you don't get another chance to take you first level. Discovering Wizard/Cleric superiority is a non-obvious result.
5) Most NPCs don't have the opportunity to choose another class. They have the choice of be a commoner, or die before getting a class level from starving in the street because you thought you would go to Wizard school instead of farming.

[logic_error]

You are thinking from the point of a commoner in our world. In a world where floating cities exist to brazenly advertise how powerful magic is, all these reasons fall apart.

About your earlier assertion: I thoroughly agree. There is something wrong about D&D verses that make them so unstable. I can guess what. Level 5 spell called plane shift. You basically advertise the multiverse that you are primed for the taking with it. This I pointed out quite earlier and is in fact a part of the argument I was making.

[Cosi]

Of course but even the limitations of spontaneous casters' unmodified spells known are often exagerrated. The simple fact is that knowing all the spells isn't even all that useful. 8-10 per spell level can easily cover nearly any situation and isn't difficult to acquire even for spontaneous casters without even going into spells that can solve nearly any problem all by themselves, ala planar binding and shapechange.

The problem is that you're thinking about "high level problems" as "low level problems but bigger". That's wrong. High level characters have new tools, and face different problems. Where "cross the desert" is a whole adventure for a 1st level party, it's a single action for a 9th level one. That means your adventure has to view "cross the desert" as a primitive -- in the same way that "fight a goblin" is at 1st level -- rather than try to make progressively more dangerous deserts for people to attempt to cross.


Here's another fundamental disagreement. Problem solving is fun. The more difficult it is to solve a problem, the more satisfying it is to do so. Agency is a good thing but not when it reaches the point you can do whatever you want without anything getting in your way. When nothing can stand against you but something just like you the game gets a bit samey.

Part of progression is being able to surpass things that previously challenged you. If you want to continue solving problems with the tools you had at level one (skill checks, thumbs), why progress past level one?


It's not just because it's only one action. It's one action that you knew, going in, was something you had on hand. There's no element of surprise. There's just "I've got an app spell for that."

That's because you're not scaling challenges to player's abilities. Sure, you might be able to accomplish the "cross the desert" adventure with teleport, but that's not fundamentally different from being able to solve the "kill the goblin" challenge with sword.


Different people find different things interesting.

The abilities of a Fighter are things you can do in Skyrim. If you want to do only things that you can do in Skyrim, go play Skyrim.


For a full caster, the answer to any possible problem is 'spell x' or 'spell combo x' as a result, all adventuring is reduced to acquiring sufficient power to utilize 'spell combo x' and render all problems irrelevant.

You're describing "characters progress until they have the tools to solve their problems" as a bad thing. What should people do to solve problems in your view of D&D? Ask the DM nicely?


Players should absolutely have agency, but they shouldn't have infinite agency. Unlimited player agency leads to the equivalent of Grand Theft Auto death rampages and other nonsense, no story, just a sequence of events barely chained together. I've been in a game like that - the GM ran out of ideas and the party made it a running joke that we would 'go south!' whenever we hit any decision point whatsoever. It was sooo stupid.

Players will never have absolute agency. There are still millions of actors who aren't them for the DM to direct.

I also think the whole "what if players just go murder stuff" issue seems like a win for lazy DMs. If players just want to fight a bunch of monsters, you can do that straight out of the MM. That's easier than even a totally scripted campaign. If players want to fight a bunch of enemies, it seems like any amount of agency just wraps back to "dungeon crawl".


And this is another inconsistency. let's say 10 Int/Wis is average. Then 11 int has a fair chance of appearing. Thus level 1 spells (which make food, water and clothing abundant) solve 90% scarcity. This is why the setting is not consistent. Everyone who has above average WIS (so >49 % people) would invest in level 1 Cleric.

At least Sorcerers require that you have inborn talent to start doing magic. It's not nearly so simple as "wanting it".


Our world has had cool stuff for last 50 years. You know the age of D&D verses? Yeah. And its not "weird" that I am correct. It's obvious. One has to be a moron not to see through that.

You know how common apocalypses are in D&Dland? Having a history that starts with "and 6,000 years ago civilization arose anew from the ashes of the previous apocalypse" is not meaningfully different from having a history that starts with "and 6,000 years ago civilization emerged for the first time."


As I said I don't really want to speculate about population numbers and the such. But let's say 1 billion (which is probably too high, from what I read on the DMG when I was creating my world, but still).

That's way too high. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates) says that's off by a factor of two or three for the medieval period D&D seeks to emulate. There are things pushing that up (more races, people can live in places humans can't), but there are also things pushing it down (wildlife is more dangerous, apocalypses).


It takes time, sure. But I believe that a civilization with the means to do so would. And the magic, as designed in D&D, is that mean.

Why would you believe that? We have the means to end world hunger, and people still starve. We don't even have demons of starvation or gods of evil with an agenda that is explicitly pro people starving.

[Beheld]

You are thinking from the point of a commoner in our world. In a world where floating cities exist to brazenly advertise how powerful magic is, all these reasons fall apart.

In this world rich people have giant mansions and yachts to advertise how much better off they are then poor people.

If the poor people see that, then of course they will just decide to be rich people instead.

[logic_error]

Because I totally was talking about sorcerer all this while. Please stop trying to bait so terribly.


In this world rich people have giant mansions and yachts to advertise how much better off they are then poor people.

If the poor people see that, then of course they will just decide to be rich people instead.


After accusing me of Strawman you are the one guilty of it. Flying cities != Yatches/mansions as much as you might want it to be,

[Beheld]

After accusing me of Strawman you are the one guilty of it. Flying cities != Yatches/mansions as much as you might want it to be,

They exactly equal in your comparison. Your claim was that when commoners see a floating city, they will know the power of magic, and all decide to be Clerics.

Even though none of them know how to make a city fly, Clerics don't make cities fly, and none of them know to be Clerics, and THE SAME INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS THAT WERE PREVENTING THEM FROM BEING CLERICS STILL EXIST.

I couldn't make a better comparison to "Isn't that mansion nice, you could have that if you just choose to." if I tried.

[Cosi]

Because I totally was talking about sorcerer all this while. Please stop trying to bait so terribly.

It seems very charitable of you to engage with an example as if it was the only case where the principle holds


After accusing me of Strawman you are the one guilty of it. Flying cities != Yatches/mansions as much as you might want it to be,

If anything, flying cities seem less compelling as a reason to learn magic than yachts do to become rich. Flying cities seem basically like regular cities, except with way more risk of falling to your death. Also, you can probably live in a flying city without being able to make one.

[Keral]

That's way too high. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates) says that's off by a factor of two or three for the medieval period D&D seeks to emulate. There are things pushing that up (more races, people can live in places humans can't), but there are also things pushing it down (wildlife is more dangerous, apocalypses).



Why would you believe that? We have the means to end world hunger, and people still starve. We don't even have demons of starvation or gods of evil with an agenda that is explicitly pro people starving.


I know it's high, but if we keep the same % of clerics and whatnot, it still takes the same time.


As for the second, it's not just about the means, but also effort. People somewhere were drawing comparison between clerics, or casters in general, with people with PhD et simila.

That simply doesn't work. As I said in my example, a not-even-that-high-level-cleric can, in less than a week, provide the means to feed 4 humans forever. Find myself a scientific genius that can do the same alone, with little/no tools. Because if you can I'm gonna go and kidnap him this instant.

It's true: we have the means, but there are different degrees of effort. One one hand we have to move a mountain and we have a shovel. Sure we could do it. On the other hand we have to move a mountain and we have, I don't know, a mountain teleporting device.*


It's not the same. If we take magic like it's been described in the book, it's very hard for it to truly keep the world as it's portrayed in the books. I'm not saying it's entirely impossible, but it's certainly very hard.

Again, this is my take on the matter. The way I see it, magic would provide at least the basic needs for everyone easily.



*This is hyperbolic, the difference in effort are not to scale.

[Cosi]

That simply doesn't work. As I said in my example, a not-even-that-high-level-cleric can, in less than a week, provide the means to feed 4 humans forever. Find myself a scientific genius that can do the same alone, with little/no tools. Because if you can I'm gonna go and kidnap him this instant.

You're describing industrialized agriculture. I mean, it's slightly more capital intensive than magic traps, but it's still the same deal where you take the labor of a tiny fraction of the population and feed everyone forever.


It's not the same. If we take magic like it's been described in the book, it's very hard for it to truly keep the world as it's portrayed in the books. I'm not saying it's entirely impossible, but it's certainly very hard.

The world isn't really described in the books. Also, I think it is non-trivial to assume you can simply convince people who can make anything they want to build infrastructure for you.

[logic_error]

Why the heck not. They literally worship GOOD deities. In fact, for some of them, it might WRONG to refuse this obviously charitable duty. You can, of course, bring in balance issues about portfolios, but the character conviction has nothing to do with this.

[Cosi]

Why the heck not. They literally worship GOOD deities. In fact, for some of them, it might WRONG to refuse this obviously charitable duty. You can, of course, bring in balance issues about portfolios, but the character conviction has nothing to do with this.

If you're bringing alignment into this, you need to respond to the whole "apocalypse" issue. There are gods of evil who want to murder everyone, and tools exist to allow their servants to do so. If the Clerics of good gods go around ending world hunger, why do the Clerics of evil gods not go around ending world life?

[Keral]

I'm not sure that's the same. Not with the means we currently have for agriculture. Machines cost more to produce, and wear out with time, magic items, afaik, don't.

Also, with the machines we currently have, it's unlikely they'll work with no extra maintenance for centuries or millennia. While technically, magic items do.


But again, this is how I see it, and I think I've let myself be distracted enough by this discussion, which is also kinda OT. So that'll probably be all^^

[logic_error]

If you're bringing alignment into this, you need to respond to the whole "apocalypse" issue. There are gods of evil who want to murder everyone, and tools exist to allow their servants to do so. If the Clerics of good gods go around ending world hunger, why do the Clerics of evil gods not go around ending world life?

Now you are slowly starting to see things my way. D&D is a messed up system. A world where people *KNOW* what awaits them after death and what dangers exist around them is not like ours.

[Cosi]

I'm not sure that's the same. Not with the means we currently have for agriculture. Machines cost more to produce, and wear out with time, magic items, afaik, don't.

Well, sure, but they're also easier to build. Ultimately, what matters is output, and industrialized agriculture produces enough of it.


Now you are slowly starting to see things my way. D&D is a messed up system. A world where people *KNOW* what awaits them after death and what dangers exist around them is not like ours.

If you recall, your original position was that D&D magic implied a setting to alien to tell stories about. You have pivoted from that position, to my position that it is not.

[logic_error]

Actually I have NEVER pivoted from that position. But considering your post history I would not be surprised that you have a problem here.

[Almarck]

Actually I have NEVER pivoted from that position. But considering your post history I would not be surprised that you have a problem here.


Quit acting like your have moral and intellectual superiority.
it's incredibly dishonest.

fact of the matter is a caster driven society is unlikely because the demographics and resources need to completely invalidate all other economic activity are simply put too rare. at best it'd be concentrated to the ruling elites and they'd have too much to do than what you'd say.



one thing I will say is that the D&D system doesn't encourage noncasters enough and by this I mean doesn't give martial exploding capabilities per level up such as let them solo entire armies with a,single swipe crazy.

the whole martial vs casters debate would be a little more fair if this was a thing you were expected to do past a certain point.

[logic_error]

Quit acting like your have moral and intellectual superiority.
it's incredibly dishonest.



Ah. So you are the moral authority now :D.

Sure, go ahead and tell me where I have been "dishonest". That's a quite heavy assertion and I want to see now how "honest" you are.

[Cosi]

Actually I have NEVER pivoted from that position. But considering your post history I would not be surprised that you have a problem here.

So you consider "the world, but people are more worried about getting killed by random crap" to be a thing so fundamentally alien from "the world" as to be incomprehensible? Because that seems like not so much a failure of imagination as a failure to have an imagination at all.

[logic_error]

So you consider "the world, but people are more worried about getting killed by random crap" to be a thing so fundamentally alien from "the world" as to be incomprehensible? Because that seems like not so much a failure of imagination as a failure to have an imagination at all.

I said this earlier and I repeat. it is not impossible to write good stories about such places. its just that playing in them requires much more suspension of disbelief. Also, good stories != consistent setting. This is the second time I have to tell you this. Easy example: Harry Potter. They have *time turners*. *TIME TURNERS*.

[Cosi]

I said this earlier and I repeat. it is not impossible to write good stories about such places. its just that playing in them requires much more suspension of disbelief. Also, good stories != consistent setting. This is the second time I have to tell you this. Easy example: Harry Potter. They have *time turners*. *TIME TURNERS*.

And now we're back to square one, where "Time Turners" are apparently equivalent to "the ability to make large amounts of manufactured goods". Your username is becoming impressively ironic.

[logic_error]

And now we're back to square one, where "Time Turners" are apparently equivalent to "the ability to make large amounts of manufactured goods". Your username is becoming impressively ironic.

...

It's pointless you debate with your kind.

[Cosi]

...

It's pointless you debate with your kind.

Well that would explain you apparent unwillingness to make arguments.

[Elderand]

Assuming 1% of the population of a typical dnd world become clerics
Assuming 2/3 of those clerics are of good or neutral alignement
Assuming there twice as many cleric of a given level as there are of of the next level.
Assuming all cleric of good and neutral alignement do nothing with their spell slot but cast create food and water (not counting domain spells)
Assuming all cleric begins with the elite array
Assuming all cleric buy the best periat of wisdom they can as soon as their WBL allows

Clerics of any given world can feed around 3% of the total population.

So I think it's safe to assume that even if every cleric used every trick possible to get their CL as high as possible, they wouldn't be able to multiply that number enough to feed everyone.

Now what if we use spellclocks instead.

A spellclock can feed 1008 people every day. (cast create food and water 1 per hour, every hour, CL14)
Assuming a world population of 500 milion (estimated world population in 1500AD) you would need 496 032 spell clocks to feed everyone.
That would cost, assuming the clock is made purely at crafting cost 32 billions 242 millions and 80 thousands gold.

If we assume 10% of the population enters PC classes and again, twice as many of any level as there are of the next level, 2/3 of which would be interested in spending the entirety of their WBL on spell clocks.

You end up with total amount of wealth of 123 billion 260 million 904 thousand and 948 gold.

So you only need every single good or neutral character with class level to spend roughly 1/4 of their wealth on spell clocks to feed everyone.
Human nature being what it is, you can expect to get between 3 and 5 % of wealth given for charity. 10% if we go by medieval tithe rule.
Which is less than half what's needed to feed everyone.

Realisticly DnD only become post scarity for food and water only once you reach about 30% of the population getting into PC classes. And that's if the entire proceding of tithing goes toward getting spellclocks.

[logic_error]

Assuming 1% of the population of a typical dnd world become clerics
Assuming 2/3 of those clerics are of good or neutral alignement
Assuming there twice as many cleric of a given level as there are of of the next level.
Assuming all cleric of good and neutral alignement do nothing with their spell slot but cast create food and water (not counting domain spells)
Assuming all cleric begins with the elite array
Assuming all cleric buy the best periat of wisdom they can as soon as their WBL allows

Clerics of any given world can feed around 3% of the total population.

So I think it's safe to assume that even if every cleric used every trick possible to get their CL as high as possible, they wouldn't be able to multiply that number enough to feed everyone.

Now what if we use spellclocks instead.

A spellclock can feed 1008 people every day. (cast create food and water 1 per hour, every hour, CL14)
Assuming a world population of 500 milion (estimated world population in 1500AD) you would need 496 032 spell clocks to feed everyone.
That would cost, assuming the clock is made purely at crafting cost 32 billions 242 millions and 80 thousands gold.

If we assume 10% of the population enters PC classes and again, twice as many of any level as there are of the next level, 2/3 of which would be interested in spending the entirety of their WBL on spell clocks.

You end up with total amount of wealth of 123 billion 260 million 904 thousand and 948 gold.

So you only need every single good or neutral character with class level to spend roughly 1/4 of their wealth on spell clocks to feed everyone.
Human nature being what it is, you can expect to get between 3 and 5 % of wealth given for charity. 10% if we go by medieval tithe rule.
Which is less than half what's needed to feed everyone.

Realisticly DnD only become post scarity for food and water only once you reach about 30% of the population getting into PC classes. And that's if the entire proceding of tithing goes toward getting spellclocks.


True creation can create Gold. A LOT OF IT. You dont even need those many classed people to provide tithe. You need ONE charitable Cleric/Wizard.

[Elderand]

True creation can create Gold. A LOT OF IT. You dont even need those many classed people to provide tithe. You need ONE charitable Cleric/Wizard.

Actually no, it's not that simple.

True creation has an xp cost of 1xp per gold value of the item created.

That means a level 20 character can at best create 19 999 gold worth of wealth per casting of true creation.

The means to really start making money with true creation you need someone who is both high level enough (which is only about 900 people in an average world) of good or at least neutral alignement (600) altruistic enough to do it (about 60) and who has the means of negating the XP cost in some way before you have a realistic chance of true creation becoming a factor.

I'mnot sure you can get a spell clock of true creation, I don't know if spellclock can cast spells with an XP cost.

[logic_error]

Actually no, it's not that simple.

True creation has an xp cost of 1xp per gold value of the item created.

That means a level 20 character can at best create 19 999 gold worth of wealth per casting of true creation.

The means to really start making money with true creation you need someone who is both high level enough (which is only about 900 people in an average world) of good or at least neutral alignement (600) altruistic enough to do it (about 60) and who has the means of negating the XP cost in some way before you have a realistic chance of true creation becoming a factor.

I'mnot sure you can get a spell clock of true creation, I don't know if spellclock can cast spells with an XP cost.

Welcome to Dweomerkeeper. A class that can cast all that stuff without any loss of XP. Enjoy. yes, its broken.

[Elderand]

Welcome to Dweomerkeeper. A class that can cast all that stuff without any loss of XP. Enjoy. yes, its broken.

Except that doesn't work, dweomerkeeper can only cast a spell as an SLA if it has a casting time of 1 standard action or less.

It takes 10 minutes to cast true creation.

[logic_error]

Except that doesn't work, dweomerkeeper can only cast a spell as an SLA if it has a casting time of 1 standard action or less.

It takes 10 minutes to cast true creation.

Whoops right. Let them cast wish and ask for it then. Sorry.

[Elderand]

Whoops right. Let them cast wish and ask for it then. Sorry.

At that point you have about....14 people in any given world who could do it. And that's not counting the odds of any of them being dweomerkeepers.
So can that make a world in dnd post scarcity? Yeah, but it's like... 1 world in a dozen or more.

And that work only for one edition of the game, not for DnD in general.

So yeah, you can end up with something post scarcity, it's just not very likely.

[logic_error]

Actually, it's much more like due to stuff like polymorph abuse or summoning outsiders. I am simply not expert in these matters to conclude them satisfactorily. But to not overstress the point, the idea is that D&D is pretty much an inconsistent world and breaks itself easily of you take what it says in the book legally.

[Dagroth]

Why would you believe that? We have the means to end world hunger, and people still starve. We don't even have demons of starvation or gods of evil with an agenda that is explicitly pro people starving.

Citation Needed. :smallbiggrin:


Why the heck not. They literally worship GOOD deities. In fact, for some of them, it might WRONG to refuse this obviously charitable duty. You can, of course, bring in balance issues about portfolios, but the character conviction has nothing to do with this.

1. Because not all Good (& most Neutral) deities believe that people should just be given stuff for free?
2. Because a deity of agriculture would be understandably pissed off if people stopped farming?
3. Because some deities would see that as interfering with their domains (see: agriculture deity just mentioned, not to mention death deities who are not always evil)?
4. Because if a 5th level Cleric made too many of these, he'd have to stop for awhile and adventure (and possibly get killed) so he could get enough xp to make more?
5. Because many Clerics might have other things they need to do besides create spoons (like appeasing the deities who give them the power to make said spoons)?


Now you are slowly starting to see things my way. D&D is a messed up system. A world where people *KNOW* what awaits them after death and what dangers exist around them is not like ours.

So Devils, Demons, Evil Deities, etc. don't lie to people to convince them that they'll be rewarded for being evil?

------
Let's look at another aspect of fantasy medieval life... Peasant Joe & his wife have 3 kids... two boys and a girl. Unless he's living in a very well protected area, at least one of those kids is going to die young. There just aren't enough Clerics to keep every disease at bay, and barbarians/orcs/goblins/dragons/whatever do raid civilization almost as often as PCs raid dungeons.

The girl (assuming she survived) can't take over the farming... unless we assume that the egalitarianism of PCs applies across all levels of society. At any rate, it's going to require 2 people to take over for Peasant Joe & his wife. Running a farm takes all one's free time during working days. Assume there are days of worship when working is not permitted. Assume there are days when Peasant Joe has to go to market to sell his goods... but wait! He doesn't go to market to sell his goods because the goods are not his. He's a Peasant and doesn't own anything, the local Lord does!

Now, let's assume that Jeffy, Peasant Joe's son, shows the right amount of piety and faith to become a Cleric. If he's lucky, then the local Cleric (or more likely, a traveling Cleric) discovers this and takes Jeffy away to become a Cleric. Now, the local Lord most likely isn't going to stop the Church from kidnapping his property (because the local Lord doesn't just own the land, he owns the Peasants too), but he's not going to want the land producing less crops just because one kid left for Church. So, for the next 7 (average) years, Peasant Joe, his wife & one remaining child have to work harder to keep up with the requirements of the local Lord. Now maybe Jeffy comes back for a very brief visit... but more likely he's gone for good and Peasant Joe's other kid better find someone to marry to help around the land soon.

Now, Willy, the son of Peasant Steve, see's the situation over in the Joe household and has to decide... does he stay and care for his family, or does he run off with the old coot who says he could become a Wizard? If he leaves with the Wizard, he probably won't come back any more than Jeffy came back and it will be his family that suffers because of it.

Peasants don't become Wizards & Clerics because life is hard and getting away from the life of a Peasant is even harder.

[logic_error]

So was this case in our world. My grand-dad was a farmer in a third world country. And now I have a PhD in Physics. Things change. People change them. If anything, we can use this aspect of MUNDANE reality to convince ourselves that in a magical world change might be "easier".

[Beheld]

So was this case in our world. My grand-dad was a farmer in a third world country. And now I have a PhD in Physics. Things change. People change them. If anything, we can use this aspect of MUNDANE reality to convince ourselves that in a magical world change might be "easier".

One poor person got rich. This is proof that all poor people can be rich if they just try.

[logic_error]

One poor person got rich. This is proof that all poor people can be rich if they just try.


No. Poor people can change in mundane world, hence it should be easier in magical world.

[Dagroth]

So was this case in our world. My grand-dad was a farmer in a third world country. And now I have a PhD in Physics. Things change. People change them. If anything, we can use this aspect of MUNDANE reality to convince ourselves that in a magical world change might be "easier".

Society changed, not people. When "the powers that be" have the ability to literally change peoples minds, not to mention strong institutionalization of deific powers (when a King says his right to rule comes from god in a D&D world, he's got proof!), such changes come much more slowly.

When the upper classes control all avenues to power (Churches, Wizard Schools, Martial Training), Peasants either don't gain power or they become co-opted by the system.

When the God of Agriculture says "25% of the people must be farmers", that's what happens.

When St. Cuthbert says "the Role of the Church is to Fight Evil", that's what they do... not "make magic spoons".


No. Poor people can change in mundane world, hence it should be easier in magical world.

The reason you could get a PhD in Physics is because the technology changed and it no longer required as much manpower to maintain farmland.

In a world with Magic and "Real" deities, there are much more powerful beings out there maintaining the status quo and preventing such things from happening.

[logic_error]

Society changed, not people. When "the powers that be" have the ability to literally change peoples minds, not to mention strong institutionalization of deific powers (when a King says his right to rule comes from god in a D&D world, he's got proof!), such changes come much more slowly.

When the upper classes control all avenues to power (Churches, Wizard Schools, Martial Training), Peasants either don't gain power or they become co-opted by the system.

When the God of Agriculture says "25% of the people must be farmers", that's what happens.

When St. Cuthbert says "the Role of the Church is to Fight Evil", that's what they do... not "make magic spoons".

The reason you could get a PhD in Physics is because the technology changed and it no longer required as much manpower to maintain farmland.

In a world with Magic and "Real" deities, there are much more powerful beings out there maintaining the status quo and preventing such things from happening.

Actually that is false. Eberron is an example of how at least semi-realistic take on magic meets tech would look. And guess what, for the reasons of game mechanics its still a functioning world like ours.

[Dagroth]

Actually that is false. Eberron is an example of how at least semi-realistic take on magic meets tech would look. And guess what, for the reasons of game mechanics its still a functioning world like ours.

Eberron relies on a number of very specific conceits that don't exist in other fantasy worlds. Dragonmarks, for one.

Oh, and Eberron has Peasants that are never anything but Peasants too! It has ruling classes that are interested in doing nothing but keeping the Status Quo too!

[sleepyphoenixx]

Eberron relies on a number of very specific conceits that don't exist in other fantasy worlds. Dragonmarks, for one.

Oh, and Eberron has Peasants that are never anything but Peasants too! It has ruling classes that are interested in doing nothing but keeping the Status Quo too!

It also has scary badass epic dragons that will scry & die your ass if you try to defy your fate, because the Draconic Prophecy is a thing there.
So if anything it's even less likely to have significant chance.

The same is true for FR. The gods explicitly prevent the kind of progress they don't want.
If they don't want you to do something then that something will just suddenly not work, no matter what "science" or "common sense" say.
There's also always the "curbstomped by outsiders/fanatics/Thayans/Zhentarim/Yuan-Ti/etc" option. Because there's lots of factions who either like the status quo as it is or want to change the status quo their way, not yours.

[Elderand]

It also has scary badass epic dragons that will scry & die your ass if you try to defy your fate, because the Draconic Prophecy is a thing there.
So if anything it's even less likely to have significant chance.

The same is true for FR. The gods explicitly prevent the kind of progress they don't want.
If they don't want you to do something then that something will just suddenly not work, no matter what "science" or "common sense" say.
There's also always the "curbstomped by outsiders/fanatics/Thayans/Zhentarim/Yuan-Ti/etc" option. Because there's lots of factions who either like the status quo as it is or want to change the status quo their way, not yours.

And then, in Faerun at least, relying a magic for stuff you can do with mundane means is a stupidly bad idea given that ever few centuries something bad happens to magic and all magic goes to the crapbasket, it keeps happening, you'd have to be an idiot to do anything long term with magic in Faerun.

So you found a way to feed everyone in your kingdom with magic, well next time magic fails everyone starves, or your magic floating mountain come crashing down.

[Dagroth]

Most fantasy worlds are really crap-sack worlds that just seem wonderful because the players are already part of the elite. Or, at the very least, outside of most of the normal power structures.

[logic_error]

Most fantasy worlds are really crap-sack worlds that just seem wonderful because the players are already part of the elite. Or, at the very least, outside of most of the normal power structures.

or Rather the game is designed so that you can be free of mundane problems and enjoy adventuring.

[Deeds]

or Rather the game is designed so that you can be free of mundane problems and enjoy adventuring.
Indeed. Perhaps D&D is just a game that's intended purpose was to be played. I doubt it's purpose was to devolve into a 9 page forum post about a fictional wizard's impact on a fictional economy. The real travesty here is that the Kensai prestige class requires Ride 5 as a class skill. :(

[Psyren]

Indeed. Perhaps D&D is just a game that's intended purpose was to be played. I doubt it's purpose was to devolve into a 9 page forum post about a fictional wizard's impact on a fictional economy.

Welcome to the Playground :/

Getting back on topic...

...actually, has the OP posted in this thread even once since making it?

[Dagroth]

Indeed. Perhaps D&D is just a game that's intended purpose was to be played. I doubt it's purpose was to devolve into a 9 page forum post about a fictional wizard's impact on a fictional economy. The real travesty here is that the Kensai prestige class requires Ride 5 as a class skill. :(

Agreed...

If you want the Kensai to be connected to "nobility" & Samurai/Knighthood, they could have added Knowledge: Nobility & Royalty.

I think it's dumb they require the Combat Expertise Feat.

[lylsyly]

has the OP posted in this thread even once since making it?


Personally, I am going to sit back and watch.

...... I would really like to hear your opinions.

Note how fast it was to get a response that said "yes, casters are the only thing worth playing." ??

Although ... I was glad to see that some people don't believe it.

And I AM reading every word.

[Psyren]

Note how fast it was to get a response that said "yes, casters are the only thing worth playing." ??

Although ... I was glad to see that some people don't believe it.

And I AM reading every word.

Glad you're still here, hope you got your answer. There isn't consensus around this (and not ever likely to be.)

[Kelb_Panthera]

The problem is that you're thinking about "high level problems" as "low level problems but bigger". That's wrong. High level characters have new tools, and face different problems. Where "cross the desert" is a whole adventure for a 1st level party, it's a single action for a 9th level one. That means your adventure has to view "cross the desert" as a primitive -- in the same way that "fight a goblin" is at 1st level -- rather than try to make progressively more dangerous deserts for people to attempt to cross.

We're talking past each other, apparently. I'm not talking about campaign level design. I'm talking about -encounter- level design. A fighter can buy a helmet of teleportation and the wayfarer's guild is a thing. The paradigm shifting spells aren't hard to come by just because you can't cast them directly from your own memory. They're not relevant to what I'm trying to get accross because, in most cases, you can take a little time and/or money to acquire the desired effect unless the DM is actively blocking it. If a DM is blocking it, being able to cast it directly won't help.


Part of progression is being able to surpass things that previously challenged you. If you want to continue solving problems with the tools you had at level one (skill checks, thumbs), why progress past level one?

What an absurd thing to suggest. Many skills evolve in their use as level increases either by simply bringing the DC's for more impressive feats into reach or by being directly modified by the acquisition of relevant class features or skill tricks. Same goes for improving and modifying other basic mechanics as levels progress.

Examples: dc 40 tumble lets you take 10ft steps instead of 5ft and ranged pin lets you "grapple" a foe from the range of your bow/ x-bow. You can't do either of these at level 1. Evolution of basic mechanics is still progression.




That's because you're not scaling challenges to player's abilities. Sure, you might be able to accomplish the "cross the desert" adventure with teleport, but that's not fundamentally different from being able to solve the "kill the goblin" challenge with sword.

You missed it again. You cannot possibly be unaware of what tools you will have available when you bring all your usable tools with you.


The abilities of a Fighter are things you can do in Skyrim. If you want to do only things that you can do in Skyrim, go play Skyrim.

The forum's strict policy against flaming prevents me from addressing this appropriately. Imagine something vitriolic in response to this blatant condecension over differing opinion.


Apropos of nothing in particular, I can't help but wonder if you have any idea how to properly work a non-caster or if you've always been a caster-supremacist.

[icefractal]

You missed it again. You cannot possibly be unaware of what tools you will have available when you bring all your usable tools with you.If this is regarding "use the environment, not your character sheet", I have to say that I find that concept to be a bit overrated in theory, compared to how it comes up in practice.

For several reasons:
1) The use of the environment is not always necessary or helpful, even for pure non-casters.
2) The use of the environment is sometimes really obvious, to the extent you can't really call it a use of creativity or cleverness. "Cut the obvious rope to drop the unusually heavy chandelier on the monster that's conveniently standing underneath it" is not really any more creative than "Cast a spell on said monster".
3) A number of things people will point to as "smart thinking" / "using the environment" require a hefty dose of GM generosity.
4) Many spells benefit just as much or more from using the environment as do skills. Illusions. Telekinesis. Most of the Enchantment school. Various Transmutations like Stone Shape / Wood Shape / Stone to Mud / etc. Animate Dead, in many cases. Short range teleportation. There are a lot of spells where outside factors matter considerably.
5) GMs have off days. Or they get fixated on a particular course of events and subconsciously block alternatives. Even a GM who's good in general can do these, which is an issue when GM-adjudicated methods are the only methods of action you have.

Now that said, it's not like it's a worthless concept. Interaction with the world around the character should be encouraged. Abilities that enable and benefit from creative use are better than ones which don't. Certain spells are too overwhelming and binary in their usage. All agreed. But "less tools = more creative" as a universal? That I don't agree with.

[eggynack]

Note how fast it was to get a response that said "yes, casters are the only thing worth playing." ??

Although ... I was glad to see that some people don't believe it.

And I AM reading every word.
Who are you referring to? It seems like most people are speaking in terms of pure opinion, like, "I vastly prefer playing wizards." That has nothing to do with your question of contribution level and objective utility. In point of fact, going purely off of thread title, "This class is not worth playing in general," is fundamentally distinct from, "This class is not worth playing for me in the specific." And I see no problem whatsoever in the former. I don't even know why you'd be glad that some people aren't expressing the latter. It strikes me as such an innocuous position.

[Kelb_Panthera]

If this is regarding "use the environment, not your character sheet", I have to say that I find that concept to be a bit overrated in theory, compared to how it comes up in practice.

For several reasons:
1) The use of the environment is not always necessary or helpful, even for pure non-casters.
2) The use of the environment is sometimes really obvious, to the extent you can't really call it a use of creativity or cleverness. "Cut the obvious rope to drop the unusually heavy chandelier on the monster that's conveniently standing underneath it" is not really any more creative than "Cast a spell on said monster".
3) A number of things people will point to as "smart thinking" / "using the environment" require a hefty dose of GM generosity.
4) Many spells benefit just as much or more from using the environment as do skills. Illusions. Telekinesis. Most of the Enchantment school. Various Transmutations like Stone Shape / Wood Shape / Stone to Mud / etc. Animate Dead, in many cases. Short range teleportation. There are a lot of spells where outside factors matter considerably.
5) GMs have off days. Or they get fixated on a particular course of events and subconsciously block alternatives. Even a GM who's good in general can do these, which is an issue when GM-adjudicated methods are the only methods of action you have.

Now that said, it's not like it's a worthless concept. Interaction with the world around the character should be encouraged. Abilities that enable and benefit from creative use are better than ones which don't. Certain spells are too overwhelming and binary in their usage. All agreed. But "less tools = more creative" as a universal? That I don't agree with.

I never said it was a universal. This is not an all or nothing matter. There -is- a correlation though, in that it -does- often require more critical thinking to make do with greater limitations. There are certainly interesting things that can be done with some of the more verasatile spells, like the ones you mentioned, but they're -still- things you brought with you. You know going into a situation that these are things you can do.

The image line are fundamentally the same, no matter what you do with them. They are images, nothing more. Picking a good image can be very effective but it's fundamentally no different from simply bluffing the opponent. It's simple deception.

Telekinesis is just doing a subset of basic actions at a distance. It's notable for allowing you to make dramatically more attack rolls than you otherwise might but that's about it.

BFC is bfc, no matter which spells you're using. If stone shape won't work because you're in a wooden structure, wall of stone will. Opening a hole in a wall can be done with HP damage and either adamantine or certain maneuvers, often nearly as quickly. You have to go out of your way to include the environment with such spells rather than simply selecting ones that work in most circumstances.

You're reaching on enchantment. That's using the enemies in the environment rather than the environment itself and can be more than a little dodgy short of domination effects. At least the enemy getting a save makes it -less- likely to be a foregone conclusion, I suppose.

_________________

I don't deny the potential problems you've cited but those complications are, in fact, part of the draw of this mode of play.

[Eleriel]

Except that doesn't work, dweomerkeeper can only cast a spell as an SLA if it has a casting time of 1 standard action or less.

It takes 10 minutes to cast true creation.

I dont wanna bring another endless discussion here, but it is at least arguable that Uncanny Forethought can decrease it to a standard action...


Anyway... trying to answer to the OP.

Restricting spellcasting, for me, is like when you are the owner of the ball of any sport - and you suck at this particular sport - then, you try to make up rules that doesn't exist to compensate.

I dont wanna sound rude, but the game itself tries to make it balanced at spells per day and other constraints.
If you must rule anything, try to talk to the players to keep them at the same power level and come to an agreement that leave the overpowering behind, like the dweomerkeeper + uncanny forethought...

It is a game highly based on fantasy and spells, you must have fun but you also have to think that players wanna have fun their way too.
If you are going to impose things as you DM, you will probably going to make everyone miserable at the game and sooner or later they will stop playing.

[icefractal]

The image line are fundamentally the same, no matter what you do with them. They are images, nothing more. Picking a good image can be very effective but it's fundamentally no different from simply bluffing the opponent. It's simple deception.So - illusions are bad, because they're just bluffing, but Bluff is good? You can't say that skills are good and creative, and then say that spells which do similar things to those skills are boring and uncreative.


You're reaching on enchantment. That's using the enemies in the environment rather than the environment itself and can be more than a little dodgy short of domination effects.And this I don't get at all. If the situation is that you're trying to accomplish something in a social environment like a city or a court, then people are the most important part of the environment. And wouldn't skills be doing the same thing? You use Diplomacy on people, you don't use it on furniture.

If you're talking about just combat specifically, then points #1-3 apply really strongly. I seldom see non-contrived uses of the environment in combat that are an improvement on attacking normally. It does come up occasionally, but not even as much as "off brand" spell usage does.


BFC is bfc, no matter which spells you're using.And it seems from this you are talking about combat specifically. With how fast-paced (in game time, not real time) 3.x combat is, I don't find it to be the best place for experimenting on the fly. I think you would need to change how the system works on a basic level for that to really work well. Like 4E maybe, if you beefed up the 'page 42' effects.

Personally, I find there's a lot more room to be inventive outside of combat, and that spells (some of them, at least) are as versatile and creativity-inspiring as skills for that purpose.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So - illusions are bad, because they're just bluffing, but Bluff is good? You can't say that skills are good and creative, and then say that spells which do similar things to those skills are boring and uncreative.

Not what I was saying (whatever happened to the principle of charitable interpretation?). Images (not all illusions) aren't bad. They're the same as bluffing. If the concept and result are the same, why does it matter which tool you use to garner that effect?


And this I don't get at all. If the situation is that you're trying to accomplish something in a social environment like a city or a court, then people are the most important part of the environment. And wouldn't skills be doing the same thing? You use Diplomacy on people, you don't use it on furniture.

One of two things happens in a social encounter, barring DM incompetence or deliberate generosity:

The target is important enough to have taken steps to protect himself or to be in an environment protected from enchantment effects

or

The target is a chump and this isn't an encounter, per se.


Side-note: in a courtly intrigue adventure/campaign, you're going to be using a wand for these things because it's one of the few exceptions to the generality of casters having plenty of slots most of the time. UMD isn't tough to come by.

See also the previous comment about why should you insist on spells if not-spells can garner the same or sufficienty similar results.


If you're talking about just combat specifically, then points #1-3 apply really strongly. I seldom see non-contrived uses of the environment in combat that are an improvement on attacking normally. It does come up occasionally, but not even as much as "off brand" spell usage does.

It is generally a combat concern but it's not limited to that alone.

I'll posit that a DM skilled enough to deal with the myriad options that casters have is also more than skilled enough to lay out encounter environs that include useful details fairly consistently.

[ryu]

Just gonna point out it's pretty disingenuous to argue that your method of achieving the result doesn't matter when literally your entire argument so far was about having a problem with the expedient way magic achieves things. Also charitable interpretation is a privilege generally reserved for people not on the opposite side of debate. Ceding free opportunities to rattle the opponent is poor strategy.

[Cosi]

We're talking past each other, apparently. I'm not talking about campaign level design. I'm talking about -encounter- level design.

Encounter level design is even easier. Out of the book monsters are balanced to casters. FFS, whole swathes of them just are casters. Remember last time you brought this point up, then ran away in shame when people pointed out you were totally wrong?


A fighter can buy a helmet of teleportation and the wayfarer's guild is a thing. The paradigm shifting spells aren't hard to come by just because you can't cast them directly from your own memory.

If you can't do it directly from your own memory, it's not paradigm shifting. The abilities to "buy a thing", "hire a NPC", or "find a location" are not, at least as generally implemented in D&D, a part of your character power in any meaningful sense. They do not shift the game in the way the ability to cast a spell does.


Examples: dc 40 tumble lets you take 10ft steps instead of 5ft and ranged pin lets you "grapple" a foe from the range of your bow/ x-bow. You can't do either of these at level 1. Evolution of basic mechanics is still progression.

Ah yes, clearly these are paradigm shifting abilities on par with teleport and planar binding. No ability shifts your character more than going from moving one square to two squares as a free action.


You missed it again. You cannot possibly be unaware of what tools you will have available when you bring all your usable tools with you.

You are always aware of all the tools you have available to you. As a Fighter those tools might be things like "skill checks" and "thumbs". As a Wizard they are things like "unseen servant" and "fabricate". Just as Fighter can use his "thumbs" ability to manipulate a rope, the Wizard can use his "unseen servant" ability to move various parts of the environment.


The forum's strict policy against flaming prevents me from addressing this appropriately. Imagine something vitriolic in response to this blatant condecension over differing opinion.

Which of the Fighter's abilities is not lifted straight from Skyrim? Is it the ability to wield weapons? Attack things? Pick up items? You would think if you were so performatively angry, you'd be able to name something.


I never said it was a universal. This is not an all or nothing matter. There -is- a correlation though, in that it -does- often require more critical thinking to make do with greater limitations.

It requires more critical thinking to solve the same problem with greater abilities. However, high level characters (the sort of people who get new abilities), should not solve the same problems as low level characters. I have to make this point disturbingly often here, but the entire point of the level system is to not be forced to solve the same problems for the whole game. If you don't want to use new abilities to solve new problems, why are you gaining levels? If you like how the game plays at 1st level, play the game at 1st level. Don't demand the whole game be 1st level, let alone call me condescending for wanting to play the game at a higher level.


The image line are fundamentally the same, no matter what you do with them. They are images, nothing more. Picking a good image can be very effective but it's fundamentally no different from simply bluffing the opponent. It's simple deception.

Well, except that it creates the appearance of genuine alteration, meaning you can Bluff people you can't communicate with. And that you can Bluff passively. And, depending on duration, that you can Bluff areas you can't see. All that just off the top of my head.


Telekinesis is just doing a subset of basic actions at a distance. It's notable for allowing you to make dramatically more attack rolls than you otherwise might but that's about it.

And giving you a dramatically higher strength score. You really think Phoenix and Hawkeye are fundamentally the same because they both "do stuff at range"?


BFC is bfc, no matter which spells you're using. If stone shape won't work because you're in a wooden structure, wall of stone will.

Yes, there is no difference between grease, silent image, wall of stone, cloudkill, wall of fire, evard's black tentacles, and web the same thing. There is no difference between those spells, and encounters involving any of them play out exactly the same.


Not what I was saying (whatever happened to the principle of charitable interpretation?). Images (not all illusions) aren't bad. They're the same as bluffing. If the concept and result are the same, why does it matter which tool you use to garner that effect?

So why is it so important that we not use spells?


The target is important enough to have taken steps to protect himself or to be in an environment protected from enchantment effects

Wow, it sounds like well developed encounters cope with the abilities of PCs and still provide a challenge even if people can cast spells.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Just gonna point out it's pretty disingenuous to argue that your method of achieving the result doesn't matter when literally your entire argument so far was about having a problem with the expedient way magic achieves things.

Remember the question posed by the thread: are -only- spellcasters worth playing. If extra difficulty makes the game more enjoyable for others as it often does for me, then the expedience of spells -becomes- bad as it actively hurts one of their sources of enjoyment.

My ultimate position is that neither casters nor non-casters are entirely bad. I enjoy both for different, sometimes conflicting reasons.

In the points you're referencing, I was pointing out that spells are -not- dramatically more expedient or exclusive sources of the desired effect as a counter to the idea that they are inherently better because it simply isn't true in those specific cases. I was countering a point, not making one there.


Also charitable interpretation is a privilege generally reserved for people not on the opposite side of debate. Ceding free opportunities to rattle the opponent is poor strategy.

That presumes that your goal is to defeat your opponent rather than to actually try to reach mutual understanding. It also leads directly to strawmanning which weakens your position when it's spotted.

Taking the charitable interpretation, on the other hand, tends to help both sides to -honestly- reach an understanding of the others' position and to help onlookers make a clearer decision on whom it is with which they agree.

So I ask, do you want to convince anybody or just to make the other guy look bad?

[ryu]

Remember the question posed by the thread: are -only- spellcasters worth playing. If extra difficulty makes the game more enjoyable for others as it often does for me, then the expedience of spells -becomes- bad as it actively hurts one of their sources of enjoyment.

My ultimate position is that neither casters nor non-casters are entirely bad. I enjoy both for different, sometimes conflicting reasons.

In the points you're referencing, I was pointing out that spells are -not- dramatically more expedient or exclusive sources of the desired effect as a counter to the idea that they are inherently better because it simply isn't true in those specific cases. I was countering a point, not making one there.



That presumes that your goal is to defeat your opponent rather than to actually try to reach mutual understanding. It also leads directly to strawmanning which weakens your position when it's spotted.

Taking the charitable interpretation, on the other hand, tends to help both sides to -honestly- reach an understanding of the others' position and to help onlookers make a clearer decision on whom it is with which they agree.

So I ask, do you want to convince anybody or just to make the other guy look bad?

I would posit that your hypothetical scenario is such a completely and utterly rare scenario in debate that I will continue to presume the goal of all involved parties is to achieve victory until proven otherwise on an a case-by-case basis. It's statistically highly likely to be correct in the vast majority of situations. This is why it's the default assumption.

[icefractal]

Also charitable interpretation is a privilege generally reserved for people not on the opposite side of debate. Ceding free opportunities to rattle the opponent is poor strategy.That's a bit far. :smalltongue: We're not debating for points or anything, it's just a conversation.


My ultimate position is that neither casters nor non-casters are entirely bad. I enjoy both for different, sometimes conflicting reasons.In that case, I think I misread you a bit. If it's just that non-casters can be completely viable characters, then I don't disagree. I'd still prefer a caster for a long-term sandbox campaign, but that's a personal preference for concrete mechanics on strategic actions, and with the right GM it wouldn't be essential. And for shorter and/or more directed stuff, it's not even a factor; I've played non-casters or only-slightly-casters (Totemist, for example) and had no problems contributing.

From some of the posts, it sounded more like you were saying that casters are going to inherently have less creativity possible than non-casters; that's what I was disagreeing with.

[ryu]

That's a bit far. :smalltongue: We're not debating for points or anything, it's just a conversation.

In that case, I think I misread your point a bit. If it's just that non-casters can be completely viable characters, then I don't disagree. I'd still prefer a caster for a long-term sandbox campaign, but that's a personal preference for concrete mechanics on strategic actions, and with the right GM it wouldn't be essential. And for shorter and/or more directed stuff, it's not even a factor; I've played non-casters or only-slightly-casters (Totemist, for example) and had no problems contributing.

From some of the posts, it sounded more like you were saying that casters are going to inherently have less creativity possible than non-casters; that's what I was disagreeing with.

You don't find that to generally the case until proven otherwise? You've a much less jaded view of people than I do if so.

[icefractal]

You don't find that to generally the case until proven otherwise? You've a much less jaded view of people than I do if so.I do find that a lot of people try to achieve victory at all costs in online debates/conversations/whatever, but that doesn't mean it's logical to do so. :smallwink:

It's not like I'd get any money or fame from 'winning' a thread, nor is it likely that taking a hard-line approach will convince anyone to change their mind. That latter is pretty unlikely even under the best of circumstances, but making things hostile just reduces the odds more.

In this case, I'm not sure I even have a specific objective in mind - maybe to find some ground that's unknown, like where exactly the line is for "spells that enable interesting actions" vs "spells that avoid interesting actions", and then see if discussion of that area turns up any new ideas? But really I was just responding because it's a potentially interesting topic, and seeing where it went.

Of course, what with a textual format making it hard to read tone or intent, it's easy to get heated, and I'm pretty far from being a perfect logical being, so hence uncharitable responses sometimes. :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

That presumes that your goal is to defeat your opponent rather than to actually try to reach mutual understanding. It also leads directly to strawmanning which weakens your position when it's spotted.

Taking the charitable interpretation, on the other hand, tends to help both sides to -honestly- reach an understanding of the others' position and to help onlookers make a clearer decision on whom it is with which they agree.

So I ask, do you want to convince anybody or just to make the other guy look bad?

This should be the goal, I agree. Good luck finding it here.

[ryu]

I do find that a lot of people try to achieve victory at all costs in online debates/conversations/whatever, but that doesn't mean it's logical to do so. :smallwink:

It's not like I'd get any money or fame from 'winning' a thread, nor is it likely that taking a hard-line approach will convince anyone to change their mind. That latter is pretty unlikely even under the best of circumstances, but making things hostile just reduces the odds more.

In this case, I'm not sure I even have a specific objective in mind - maybe to find some ground that's unknown, like where exactly the line is for "spells that enable interesting actions" vs "spells that avoid interesting actions", and then see if discussion of that area turns up any new ideas? But really I was just responding because it's a potentially interesting topic, and seeing where it went.

Of course, what with a textual format making it hard to read tone or intent, it's easy to get heated, and I'm pretty far from being a perfect logical being, so hence uncharitable responses sometimes. :smalltongue:

Why is it an illogical thing to occur? People on opposing sides of an argument will tend to get heated. Doubly so when general anonymity turns all possible conversation partners into words on a screen connected to the abstract concept of a person that will likely never be known as anything other than an alias. Seriously. It's like the internet was designed to foster that approach. Could you conceive of a better way to do so if you tried?

[Boogastreehouse]

*

When I play Arcanists I do like to plan for many contingencies, and I try and play as close to Treantmonk's God-Wizard archetype as the setting allows, however...

I also love playing lowly-tiered fighter-types (and not crazy-optimized either!), playing them smart, and still contributing significantly to the game.

I love when the wizard starts flipping through their spells—not even looking at the map—while trying to decide which of their pre-selected options will be of use in the current situation. Meanwhile, I'll have the fighter run up and kick over a stack of barrels, knocking a bunch of monsters prone and dividing their ranks. I got yer battlefield control, right here.

See the fighter can have options, too, if the player asks questions about the surroundings and gets creative. A lowly fighter can interact with the environment in lots of fun and exciting ways, given half a chance, and if the GM puts some kind of winch-and-pully system in a room and the rogue doesn't try to use it on the villain, then they deserve to be outshined by the wizard. Sure, this sort of thing is not exactly the same as casting god-like high-level spells, but taking an underestimated class and surprising everyone with it can still be immensely satisfying.

*

[Cosi]

Why is it an illogical thing to occur? People on opposing sides of an argument will tend to get heated. Doubly so when general anonymity turns all possible conversation partners into words on a screen connected to the abstract concept of a person that will likely never be known as anything other than an alias. Seriously. It's like the internet was designed to foster that approach. Could you conceive of a better way to do so if you tried?

You could do what reddit does, and have content that's posted faster and requires less effort be more visible, while simultaneously providing an incentive to make comments as provocative and/or circlejerk-y as possible.

I guess you could also pay people to insult each other?

[ryu]

You could do what reddit does, and have content that's posted faster and requires less effort be more visible, while simultaneously providing an incentive to make comments as provocative and/or circlejerk-y as possible.

I guess you could also pay people to insult each other?

To be fair I said the internet, not this forum. Got any examples that don't fall under the blanket?

[icefractal]

I love when the wizard starts flipping through their spells—not even looking at the map—while trying to decide which of their pre-selected options will be of use in the current situation.It's true, having too many options to keep in memory at once can impeded really getting the most out of them. Out of combat, it's usually fine, but in combat, having a small number of versatile options is my ideal zone.

Like for example, I played a Ghost in one campaign, and that was just perfection, tactically speaking. Telekinesis, possession, draining touch, plus of course incorporeality. Few enough options I could always keep them in mind, and each one with versatility to play with (the touch not as much, but even that has some). Tons of ability to interact with the environment, good teamwork potential ... now I'm wanting to play one again, thinking about it. Possibly the only thing I've seen actually worth +5 LA.

The Warlock comes close, but there's a bit too much focus on amping up the blast if you want to be effective against serious opposition, and then at that point the other options are largely eclipsed.

[Cosi]

To be fair I said the internet, not this forum. Got any examples that don't fall under the blanket?

Oh I'm not saying the internet doesn't do what you said. I'm just saying you can totally make it worse than the baseline internet's problem of "anonymous people are *****".

[Kelb_Panthera]

Encounter level design is even easier. Out of the book monsters are balanced to casters. FFS, whole swathes of them just are casters. Remember last time you brought this point up, then ran away in shame when people pointed out you were totally wrong?

I didn't "run away." I stopped engaging when we reached the point that it became clear that you had no interest whatsoever in having your mind changed. Frankly, this conversation is probably a waste of both of our time but maybe someone beyond the two us can find it useful.


If you can't do it directly from your own memory, it's not paradigm shifting. The abilities to "buy a thing", "hire a NPC", or "find a location" are not, at least as generally implemented in D&D, a part of your character power in any meaningful sense. They do not shift the game in the way the ability to cast a spell does.

I'm just going to call a spade a spade here and say that's straight up BS. Teleport invalidates overland travel between known locations whether you cast it yourself or shell out a fist full of gold to get it done. Same goes for plane-hopping, flight, etc. Access to the effects at all causes the shift in paradigm, no matter how you get them. Seriously; beyond the price tag, what difference is there between knowing teleport and owning a helmet of teleportation?


Ah yes, clearly these are paradigm shifting abilities on par with teleport and planar binding. No ability shifts your character more than going from moving one square to two squares as a free action.

Did I say they were on the same scale? No. Trying to cover one absurd, deliberate misinterpretation my statements with another isn't a good look, dude. It shows your hand on the fact that you're far more interested in defeating me than understanding me.


You are always aware of all the tools you have available to you. As a Fighter those tools might be things like "skill checks" and "thumbs". As a Wizard they are things like "unseen servant" and "fabricate". Just as Fighter can use his "thumbs" ability to manipulate a rope, the Wizard can use his "unseen servant" ability to move various parts of the environment.

But you didn't know the rope was going to be there. That's the point. If you're trying to drop the shandelier because you need to flatten or delay 3 or 4 enemies at once, why would you bother if you know -any- AoE attack or entanglement effect spell, nevermind one that does both? You wouldn't because those options will near certainly be more effective than the shandelier and it'll be a comparable resource burn regardless.



Which of the Fighter's abilities is not lifted straight from Skyrim? Is it the ability to wield weapons? Attack things? Pick up items? You would think if you were so performatively angry, you'd be able to name something.

I dismissed what I took to be a dismissive statement.

You're too focused on the single character. Maybe I, and others, like those things -AND- telling a collaborative story with my friends, something I can't do by playing friggin' skyrim. I can't help thinking you're being deliberately obtuse here.


It requires more critical thinking to solve the same problem with greater abilities. However, high level characters (the sort of people who get new abilities), should not solve the same problems as low level characters. I have to make this point disturbingly often here, but the entire point of the level system is to not be forced to solve the same problems for the whole game. If you don't want to use new abilities to solve new problems, why are you gaining levels? If you like how the game plays at 1st level, play the game at 1st level. Don't demand the whole game be 1st level, let alone call me condescending for wanting to play the game at a higher level.

Alright, which problem, exactly, is not just an upscaled version of a lower level problem -and- cannot be solved without being a spellcaster?

I doubt you can come up with a singular answer. While a spellcaster can produce effects to copy the role of most other classes, -everything- they can do is available for purchase. I'm perfectly willing to be surprised, though.


Well, except that it creates the appearance of genuine alteration, meaning you can Bluff people you can't communicate with. And that you can Bluff passively. And, depending on duration, that you can Bluff areas you can't see. All that just off the top of my head.

The underlined is false. All of the image line are figments and figments explicitly cannot alter appearance. You can make a thing seem to be where nothing exists but you cannot alter anything except the overall scene.

That out of the way, a good bluff can easily obviate the need to bluff further. If you're stealthing then you probably don't -want- to throw an image around a corner and put the enemy on the alert or fake one of their own and have to both image -and- bluff when you're working without seeing what it is to which you're talking. Telepathy and tongues aren't that hard to come by for language issues and lack of communication ability is a major problem in its own right. Also, "depending on duration," when most of them have a duration of concentration plus a couple rounds, really? Which reminds me, what's passive about having to cast and concentrate on a spell? Unless you're talking about -just- programmed image for some reason?



And giving you a dramatically higher strength score. You really think Phoenix and Hawkeye are fundamentally the same because they both "do stuff at range"?

Higher than whom? Certainly not a strength based warrior of any kind. You might be able to get Jean Grey out of a psion built for the purpose but certainly not out of a mere telekinesis spell and you're not getting Phoenix out of a pre-epic character.

And again, I never -once- so much as suggested that casters and non-casters are on the same scale. There's not much a caster can do that a non-caster can't but it's going to take a -lot- longer for the non-caster and there may be sidetracking. Sidetracking, however, is another way of saying plot-points. How much less satisfying would the Lord of the Rings story have been if the party -hadn't- been waylayed at every turn? (And don't try to derail this by going on a tangent about how low-magic the LoR world is. That's deliberately avoiding the point.)



Yes, there is no difference between grease, silent image, wall of stone, cloudkill, wall of fire, evard's black tentacles, and web the same thing. There is no difference between those spells, and encounters involving any of them play out exactly the same.

Let me rearange those for you:

Control enemy movement without harm; grease, SI, wall of stone, web

Control enemy movement with harm; cloudkill, wall of fire, EBT

naturally, you'll select whichever fits the environment/enemy you're currently dealing with best but they do ultimately do the same fundamental thing; control movement either with or without harm.


So why is it so important that we not use spells?

It's not. My point is that non-casters can be entertaining to play not that casters are boring.



Wow, it sounds like well developed encounters cope with the abilities of PCs and still provide a challenge even if people can cast spells.

Yeah, because there are -so- many ways to deal with social encounters magically that don't ammount to either enchantment or buffiing the party face to use the skill system. At least directly.

If you go around it by digging up some kind of leverage, that's something not-casters can do too.

[Kelb_Panthera]

This should be the goal, I agree. Good luck finding it here.

Hope springs eternal. :smallamused::smallwink::smalltongue:

[ryu]

I didn't "run away." I stopped engaging when we reached the point that it became clear that you had no interest whatsoever in having your mind changed. Frankly, this conversation is probably a waste of both of our time but maybe someone beyond the two us can find it useful.


You see? Even you admit that you lose all interest in a debate when you honestly believe victory can't be achieved, then further admit you're only continuing to win in the eyes of the audience. This is what most people do.

[Cosi]

I didn't "run away." I stopped engaging when we reached the point that it became clear that you had no interest whatsoever in having your mind changed. Frankly, this conversation is probably a waste of both of our time but maybe someone beyond the two us can find it useful.

You mean, the point where I asked you to provide evidence for your beliefs? Because if you think "provide evidence for what you believe" is an indication that someone isn't willing to change their mind, I'm not convinced you understand how arguing works.


I'm just going to call a spade a spade here and say that's straight up BS. Teleport invalidates overland travel between known locations whether you cast it yourself or shell out a fist full of gold to get it done. Same goes for plane-hopping, flight, etc. Access to the effects at all causes the shift in paradigm, no matter how you get them. Seriously; beyond the price tag, what difference is there between knowing teleport and owning a helmet of teleportation?

The point is not just the effect. The point is agency. With a helm, or a NPC, or a waygate, the prerogative is on the DM to say yes. He has to approve your plan to skip the adventure, which is essentially the same as not being able to skip the adventure at all. He still decides what happens. With an ability your character has, the prerogative is on the DM to say no. You are setting the pace. The ability to do that is what differentiates tabletop games from video games.


But you didn't know the rope was going to be there. That's the point. If you're trying to drop the shandelier because you need to flatten or delay 3 or 4 enemies at once, why would you bother if you know -any- AoE attack or entanglement effect spell, nevermind one that does both? You wouldn't because those options will near certainly be more effective than the shandelier and it'll be a comparable resource burn regardless.

First, you've skirted the example given. Why is manipulating the environment with your hands good, but manipulating it with unseen servant bad?

Second, you have described the process of leveling up. If an option was compelling at 1st level, and it's still equally compelling at 20th, there was no reason to gain the intervening levels. You like 1st level, where abilities like "has thumbs" are an important part of your character's power? Fine! Lots of good stories can happen at 1st level. But good stories can also happen at 9th level when your abilities are things like fabricate and teleport. Unless you reject the notion of getting those abilities, in which case you've destroyed the purpose of the level system.


You're too focused on the single character. Maybe I, and others, like those things -AND- telling a collaborative story with my friends, something I can't do by playing friggin' skyrim. I can't help thinking you're being deliberately obtuse here.

If you have no power to direct the story, you are not "cooperatively telling a story", you are experiencing a story that is presented to you. Which is kind of exactly like Skyrim.


The underlined is false. All of the image line are figments and figments explicitly cannot alter appearance. You can make a thing seem to be where nothing exists but you cannot alter anything except the overall scene.

So you can alter appearance, but only if your alteration adds things to the environment. Like walls, or hills, or floor, or trees. You can cover stuff up. It's not free alteration, but it never was because spells have limits.


Telepathy and tongues aren't that hard to come by for language issues and lack of communication ability is a major problem in its own right.

"If I just get magic to compensate for their weaknesses, non-magical abilities are just as good as magical ones!"


Higher than whom? Certainly not a strength based warrior of any kind. You might be able to get Jean Grey out of a psion built for the purpose but certainly not out of a mere telekinesis spell and you're not getting Phoenix out of a pre-epic character.

It's certainly more strength, and more precise, than martial types direct at range.


Sidetracking, however, is another way of saying plot-points.

No, plot points are a way of saying plot points. Sidetracking is just filling space. If the "sidetracks" are compelling encounters, people won't skip them. If they aren't, you shouldn't force people to deal with them.


How much less satisfying would the Lord of the Rings story have been if the party -hadn't- been waylayed at every turn? (And don't try to derail this by going on a tangent about how low-magic the LoR world is. That's deliberately avoiding the point.)

How much less satisfying of a story would Lord of Light have been if we had to experience all of Sam's travels in real time? Yes, you can tell low level stories that are satisfying. That is no reason to throw out the changes that come with higher levels. I'm not demanding that people get teleport at 1st, why are you objecting to getting it at 9th?


Control enemy movement without harm; grease, SI, wall of stone, web

web, grease, and silent image are all far easier to bypass than wall of stone. Also they have different areas of effect.

web has a unique interaction with fire, and has to be anchored.

silent image can be shaped to function as things other than battlefield control.

grease can be put on items.


Control enemy movement with harm; cloudkill, wall of fire, EBT

cloudkill and wall of fire don't lock people down, black tentacles does.

wall of fire once again has a different area of effect from the others.

cloudkill is mobile, and clears out minions better.


naturally, you'll select whichever fits the environment/enemy you're currently dealing with best but they do ultimately do the same fundamental thing; control movement either with or without harm.

Fundamentally all actions do the same thing: help you win the encounter. The fact that you're selecting different options in different circumstances means the options are different. What do you think a compellingly different pair of spells would look like?

[Boogastreehouse]

*

You see? Even you admit that you lose all interest in a debate when you honestly believe victory can't be achieved, then further admit you're only continuing to win in the eyes of the audience. This is what most people do.

No, I think that he's saying that when he discusses a subject, he's looking for an opportunity to have his opinions challenged by someone who is looking for the same thing.

He wants to compare ideas with someone who is also willing to compare ideas; he's not interested in comparing ideas with someone who just wants to pwn the debate.

*

[Psyren]

See the fighter can have options, too, if the player asks questions about the surroundings and gets creative. A lowly fighter can interact with the environment in lots of fun and exciting ways, given half a chance, and if the GM puts some kind of winch-and-pully system in a room and the rogue doesn't try to use it on the villain, then they deserve to be outshined by the wizard. Sure, this sort of thing is not exactly the same as casting god-like high-level spells, but taking an underestimated class and surprising everyone with it can still be immensely satisfying.

*

While this kind of thing does happen in D&D, I'd say other systems are far better suited to it. D&D is more mechanical - thus I like the idea of some options being internal to the class, with clear rules (and less need for DM providence.)

The Fighter doesn't need many - in fact, I would argue that their simplicity is part of their appeal - but some would be nice. Things like Style Feats, special attacks like Grapple or Sunder, and Advanced Weapon Training are what I would consider the minimum, and then things like Equipment Tricks, Item Mastery and Combat Stamina can be added on top of that.

The more advanced option is to supplant the Fighter entirely and use a PoW/ToB solution. I don't think this is necessary personally but I won't deny its effectiveness either, provided it doesn't drive anyone (players or DM alike) away.

[Dagroth]

Cosi... how often do you DM, rather than play?

If you DM, do you like creating long-term storylines for the characters to follow?

If you DM, have you ever run something like the Savage Tide adventure path... a single story that starts at level 1 and goes until 20+ level?

If you DM, have you ever had to deal with a player who was more interested in "having agency" to "do his own thing"?

[ryu]

No, I think that he's saying that when he discusses a subject, he's looking for an opportunity to have his opinions challenged by someone who is looking for the same thing.

He wants to compare ideas with someone who is also willing to compare ideas; he's not interested in comparing ideas with someone who just wants to pwn the debate.


Intention of allowing one's own beliefs to be changed is no prerequisite to challenging someone else's. You can easily see as many counterpoints to your ideas as you desire simply by continuing discussion. It's more optimal actually if having points raised against you is all you desire. None of that pesky winning to stop the conversation before you've had your fill.

[Cosi]

If you DM, do you like creating long-term storylines for the characters to follow?

That mentality seems just so obviously wrongheaded to me. The point of the game is to tell a story with the players. If I come in with a long term story prepared for them, I'm telling a story to the players. That's a failure state for the game.


If you DM, have you ever run something like the Savage Tide adventure path... a single story that starts at level 1 and goes until 20+ level?

I guess this goes to the idea of expectations? If the whole group wants to run Savage Tide, that's fine, and the players should avoid sequence breaking or going off the rails. But if you try to unilaterally declare that the group is doing Savage Tide, you're overstepping your authority.


If you DM, have you ever had to deal with a player who was more interested in "having agency" to "do his own thing"?

I've never had problems with that if expectations were properly managed, on either side of the screen.

[Dagroth]

That mentality seems just so obviously wrongheaded to me. The point of the game is to tell a story with the players. If I come in with a long term story prepared for them, I'm telling a story to the players. That's a failure state for the game.

So you don't have events that take place in your world whether the PCs are there or not (and if not, then they go "badly" for the "good guys")?

The story of the Lord of the Rings is a story that happens to the characters... yet cannot happen without the characters (or, at least, doesn't end well without the characters).

The second Ah-nold Conan movie (as cheesy as it was) was practically a text-book D&D adventure. Do you think a game like that would be wrong?


I guess this goes to the idea of expectations? If the whole group wants to run Savage Tide, that's fine, and the players should avoid sequence breaking or going off the rails. But if you try to unilaterally declare that the group is doing Savage Tide, you're overstepping your authority.


I've never had problems with that if expectations were properly managed, on either side of the screen.

So you basically just run (and run in) open sandbox game worlds with no long-term villains... no epic storylines... no series of adventures leading up to a dramatic climax?

If that's so, then its no wonder you don't see why some of us think casters are too powerful, have too many options, etc.

[Cosi]

So you don't have events that take place in your world whether the PCs are there or not (and if not, then they go "badly" for the "good guys")?

I guess I misunderstood? Of course stuff happens. But the PCs have to be able to decide whether to engage with that stuff. Having a Necromancer King for the players to fight is fine. What's not fine is saying that the adventure is fight the Necromancer King, regardless of player interest.


So you basically just run (and run in) open sandbox game worlds with no long-term villains... no epic storylines... no series of adventures leading up to a dramatic climax?

The most epic storylines are created by allowing the players to determine what they want to engage with. You have to start with a world, then see what happens when people interact with it. Don't start with the story and build the world around it.

[syryous]

This thread exposes the roll-players and the role-players...

[ryu]

This thread exposes the roll-players and the role-players...

And ye old practitioners of stormwind fallacy eager shove ant-correlation between the two where no correlation exists.

[Dagroth]

I guess I misunderstood? Of course stuff happens. But the PCs have to be able to decide whether to engage with that stuff. Having a Necromancer King for the players to fight is fine. What's not fine is saying that the adventure is fight the Necromancer King, regardless of player interest.

The most epic storylines are created by allowing the players to determine what they want to engage with. You have to start with a world, then see what happens when people interact with it. Don't start with the story and build the world around it.

You know those great Steven Burst Dragaera books? Taltos doesn't choose what he wants to engage with... situations happen and he has to deal with them.

You know pretty-much all great fiction, ever? Great & Terrible events sweep the characters up and the characters have to deal with it.

Good stories don't start with "there was a terrible evil rising in the East... but Joe Wizard was too busy trying to get tenure at the Mage College, so he and his friends never bothered to deal with it." Unless, of course, it's Parody.

When a Hero in a story hears about a problem, he goes out and tries to fix it. The character in the story more worried about their own self-interest and "agency"? That's the villain.

[Shackel]

While I wouldn't say that I think only spellcasters are worth playing, I like to have a wealth of options, so as a result spellcasters are often the best choices in that, even if only for a couple levels as a dip. At the same time, I'm a big fan of at-will powers that you can rely on, so call me picky. :smalltongue:

Coincidentally, liking a wealth of options is why I like partial casters and dips more than just a full arcane/divine caster. It seems like with them you might look like you have a lot of options but in reality you just have "the spell that basically solves this problem" and "everything else."

Whereas with a larger number of less powerful options, you tend to think more outside of the box and by putting together more complicated plans with more options being a part of them. At least to me, it winds up feeling more involved, even if the results(your abilities win the day) are the same.

[ryu]

You know those great Steven Burst Dragaera books? Taltos doesn't choose what he wants to engage with... situations happen and he has to deal with them.

You know pretty-much all great fiction, ever? Great & Terrible events sweep the characters up and the characters have to deal with it.

Good stories don't start with "there was a terrible evil rising in the East... but Joe Wizard was too busy trying to get tenure at the Mage College, so he and his friends never bothered to deal with it." Unless, of course, it's Parody.

When a Hero in a story hears about a problem, he goes out and tries to fix it. The character in the story more worried about their own self-interest and "agency"? That's the villain.

You know what else is common in those stories? A severe lack of omnipotent world controlling being who's really pushy about just how they do their ''jobs.'' Yes GM you get to give me a problem. No, you don't get to decide how I go about dealing with it.

[icefractal]

When a Hero in a story hears about a problem, he goes out and tries to fix it. The character in the story more worried about their own self-interest and "agency"? That's the villain.You're mixing up player and character agency here, and it's making your argument unclear.

The character deciding to go solve the problem vs stay home and pursue their own agendas is character agency, and it has nothing to do with being a caster or not. A Fighter could just as easily decide to ignore the quest and do something else instead.

The player having tools to directly do things on a greater than tactical level, rather than achieving this by GM-mediated means, is player agency, and it has nothing to do with what the character's goals are.

Let's say a Cleric hears about a king with a wasting illness, which only the moon orchid from a far-away mountain can cure ... so then he vaporizes the king, brings him back to life in a brand new body, problem solved, time to hit the tavern. That's a problem if the GM who planned for the process to be a whole quest with a lot of events in it. But the problem isn't that the character isn't being heroic!

[Florian]

I´ve no real preference for casters over non-casters, or really for any kind of class at all.
Having said that and being a PF player, I feel that the 6/9, 3/4 BAB classes hit the sweet spot, as they encourage broader builds and give something to do in any situation.

[Esprit15]

With a few exceptions, any mage I make ties their hand behind their back and acts like a martial. Maybe they go archer, or unarmed fighter, but I never was too keen on the "Oh, everyone is practically dead, go mop them up everyone" gameplay. I've played pretty even between casters and non-casters, and each has their appeal.

[Yahzi]

I would really like to hear your opinions.
Everybody who plays Ars Magica, for starters.

Fighters are what the Leadership/Cohort rules are for. Every caster needs a small army of beatsticks. But come on, those guys have "Expendable" stamped on their foreheads.

A high-level fighter is like a Gargantuan Scorpion: dangerous to mortal things like people, armies, and buildings. But once you join the ranks of the Powers, they exist only as traps for the unwary and foolish.

[ryu]

Everybody who plays Ars Magica, for starters.

Fighters are what the Leadership/Cohort rules are for. Every caster needs a small army of beatsticks. But come on, those guys have "Expendable" stamped on their foreheads.

A high-level fighter is like a Gargantuan Scorpion: dangerous to mortal things like people, armies, and buildings. But once you join the ranks of the Powers, they exist only as traps for the unwary and foolish.

I mean do they really? At low levels their job can be easily accomplished by a small child with a heavy rock, or the wizard wielding a scythe, and at high levels you're either summoning things objectively better at anything they could do or simply don't care about what they do at all. This is assuming we're talking about the role fighters generally play in combat. If it's the carrying things bit I'll just buy mules (or later bags of holding) and cut out the much more expensive feat cost.

[Yahzi]

Most fantasy worlds are really crap-sack worlds that just seem wonderful because the players are already part of the elite. Or, at the very least, outside of most of the normal power structures.
Best comment in the thread. :smallsmile:

[Yahzi]

I mean do they really? At low levels their job can be easily accomplished by a small child with a heavy rock, or the wizard wielding a scythe, and at high levels you're either summoning things objectively better at anything they could do or simply don't care about what they do at all. This is assuming we're talking about the role fighters generally play in combat. If it's the carrying things bit I'll just buy mules (or later bags of holding) and cut out the much more expensive feat cost.
Small children with heavy rocks count as 1/2 CR cohorts. But they're not really the best followers because they keep crying at night and they can be bribed with lollipops. And mules are no good for trap-finding.

A good army feeds itself and provides you with a steady stream of zero-spell slot castings of Summon Monster 1/2. :smallbiggrin:

[Illven]

I tend to prefer spellcasters because then I feel I have more options then. I have alot of armor, and swing the heaviest weapon I can find.

With a caster it's. Do I go divine and full faith, divine and minimum faith, wizard, sorcerer. If they are a wizard who taught them, etc.

[Tiri]

Small children with heavy rocks count as 1/2 CR cohorts. But they're not really the best followers because they keep crying at night and they can be bribed with lollipops. And mules are no good for trap-finding.

I don't see how lollipop-bribability is a point against using small children in the capacity of minions, though.

The mules don't need to be used for trap-finding if you don't want to. You have children. It gets rid of the 'crying at night' problem, too.