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Kapow
2021-01-22, 11:07 AM
Hey playground,

while reading (more working through) the "Why low magic" thread, I had a thought, that I had some times before.

It didn't really fit there and the thread is bloated enough...

In short:
What is and what should be the cost of magic?

Now, I know that in the end it is a matter of taste and there certainly is no "right" answer.
But I would like to hear your thoughts on the subject.

To kick it off...

I came to DnD late in my RPGing life and though I (sometimes) like the ease of magic in this system, I found (and sometimes still find) it weird.
Magic, to me was something obscure or mysterious, that needed either dedication or demanded a steep price, to learn and master.
In DnD you basically get your spells for free, when leveling up (the whole spell list in some cases) and casting won't fail, except for spell resistance.
You don't have to invest time or resources to learn spells and pretty small amounts to cast them.
There is nearly no downside to being a caster.

In other games I played, each spell was something akin to a skill, that you had to learn and then roll successfully to cast.
In some cases it could cost your very life-energy (hitpoints) if you where unlucky or exceeded your reach.
There are usually ways around this. But they come with other costs, deals with devils/demons could that mark you as outsider abd/or cripple you physically, loss of sanity...
Additionally, spell failure can have devastating side effects.

To me, that means, that even if magic is really powerful, mundane characters keep being a solid choice, because by avoiding those costs, you can invest your resources in other ways and (kind of) keep up.

I think, by handling magic in this way, you can keep (high) magic as an option, but avoid things like the tippyverse.
The mentioned mystery of magic is also easier to achieve.

Again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with slinging spells in fire and forget mode, I like it too. It's just not always the flavor I'm looking for.

Looking forward to your thoughts about this

Segev
2021-01-22, 11:33 AM
The trouble with "the cost of magic" in an RPG is that you have to make it one that is actually payable, worth the price, but not overpowered. This is a very delicate balancing act, especially if you're using "cost of magic" to be why non-casters are a thing.

Consider this: If there is a free feature that anybody may choose to pick up without character-building cost that lets you throw a fireball, but it costs you a permanent stat point every time you do, wouldn't every character pick up this feature unless his player was conceptually opposed to it for that character? Wouldn't every character who picked up that feature be more powerful? Yes, they would, because options to expend resources for effects are an increase in overall power.

In most systems these days, the "cost of magic" is opportunity cost: you built your character in a class, or bought the features with points or feats or something, that gives them the power to cast spells. Ignoring subclasses for the moment, in 5e, playing a wizard in a level 2 game means you did not get Action Surge, and getting Action Surge will mean you must get less magic overall. Is this a fair trade off? That's harder to judge, but the point is, the "cost of magic" in D&D 5e is an opportunity cost of not having taken classes that give features you can't get on spellcasting classes.

Maybe that opportunity cost is too low. Maybe the number of character points "magical talent" costs as a feature is far smaller than the benefit it gives, compared to what other, less magical features cost. But that IS a cost, and tweaking it up or down is part of balancing any feature, including magical ability.


From a narrative standpoint, "the cost of magic" is usually something cumulative over a long term, and thus doesn't lend itself well to a game. As an example, in many games, the whole game takes place in less than a few months of in-game time (unless it's a campaign with lots of downtime). If there is a feature that will get your character killed if you use it too much, but will kill them slowly, say over the course of a year after they "pass the limit" on it, this cost of the character's death isn't something that will be felt during gameplay. You could burn that feature as hard and bright as you liked, knowing that the only cost to you as a player is the tragic death scene that may or may not play out in the epilogue.

This is actually something I think a lot about, because I have what I think is a cool "cost of magic" for a setting that is impossible, as far as I can tell, to make a feasible RPG system work with. Casting spells costs you age. No, not making you older: making you YOUNGER. This is part of why mages live so long, but it's a very real cost, nevertheless. Use too much magic, and you wind up being a kid again. Sure, you're still you and have your memories and skills, but you're in a kid's body with a kid's brain. And if you send yourself back to a point where you're small and frail, or worse, unable to even feed yourself.... And also, the way you regain this fuel is...by living and aging. So your magic refills slowly.

Make this system cost too much age for too simple a spell, and even old and wizened mages can't do a whole lot of magic before they have to stop for decades. Make it cost too little for magic, and there's no notable price at all. This is tricky to manage in any narrative, but at least you can use the constant calculus as something the character is acutely aware of and tracking, even if you have to be careful about "big spells" that make them noticeably younger being something you use sparingly lest the character become one you aren't able to write about using magic anymore. In an RPG, actually assigning specific numbers of minutes, days, months, years, etc. to various power levels of spells or even to specific spells is very hard, because it's a permanent cost, really.

For comparison, consider a mana point system that just gives you a certain number of mana points at the start of the game. You NEVER recover them, so every spell you cast is a permanent loss of mana. How many mana points should a starting character have, and how much should spells cost? This is INCREDIBLY hard to balance!

And most "costs of magic" in fiction can be modeled by that non-regenerating mana pool of sufficient size: they're not "real" limits until they are, and then there's nothing to do about them in the scope of the story. Usually they're an excuse for the BBEG to waste away at the end of the narrative, after being defeated, because that climactic fight had him over-use his power and now the cost is catching up to him (even if the heroes didn't finish him off).

Xervous
2021-01-22, 11:55 AM
Depends on what stories you aim to tell. I favor magic with drawbacks in freeform RP since conflict is mainly what produces novel actions and reactions as the characters respond to shifting circumstances. In more structured play the mechanics need to be playable and deliver on a fiercely desired intent, or they just get in the way. Summoning chaos demons on accident is par for WFRP, but randomly hijacking a healing spell in D&D or Shadowrun to summon a manifestation of Orcus / insect spirits is generally BS.

Grod’s Law on game design says it plainly. Saddling overpowered features with debilitating drawbacks does not balance them. If you have powerful wizards and boring sword swingers either (Non exhaustive list, but the pattern holds few good outcomes)

A. Wizard applies power and circumvents penalty’s relevance
B. Wizard is unable to participate most of the time, but utterly trivializes things whenever they chose to act.
C. Drawbacks are so detrimental wizard is some degree of unplayable

That is if you care about balance. If not... sentient potted plant and Superman?

High magic settings can accommodate ordinary mundanes in a balanced fashion if everyone is on the same level of incompetence. Remove the balance requirement and you can introduce competent or wacky wizards to the mix.

Anonymouswizard
2021-01-22, 12:20 PM
I like costs that are in theory easy to mitigatem but not in an adventuring situation. I have two major examples of this:

In Unknown Armies you prepay for your magick. You either get a (relatively minor) restriction on your roleplaying as an Avatar, or have to ritualistically engage in a certain activity as an Adept in order to build up Charges (and have to avoid other actions to avoiding grounding out your mojo). Generating Charges isn't hard, most Adepts could whip up a bunch of minors or a couple of Sigs with a day's work, but apart from a couple of schools can't be done just about everywhere.

The best way to kill an Entropomancer is to make them desire five Significant Charges in two seconds. Oh, and all Adepts are crazy, and Avatars can't get too crazy or too detached.

Meanwhile The Fantasy Trip has spellcasting cause Fatigue. This has the same penalties as damage but can be shed quickly, but only if you can afford to spend ten minutes per point of fatigue resting. Fine in a city, not so much in a dungeon labyrinth.

MoiMagnus
2021-01-22, 12:53 PM
IMO, costly magic is much better at being relegated to magical objects or "minor" parts of the character creation.

A game should be interesting and fun to play for everyone even if all the players restrict themselves to never use the "costly" part of the system. This allows for "costly" features are only used for exceptional cases where the circumstances requires it, and the players are always wondering "Is it really worth it? Do we have an alternative?" without having to feel like "I'm bored and I just want to use my spells to have fun, but the system is punishing me each time I try to have fun".

Anymage
2021-01-22, 01:04 PM
If a character's main shtick is using magic, high costs do really mess with the character concept. Like it's one thing if your Call of Cthulhu character can gain the option to use a spell where both learning it and using it will scar his sanity, because he presumably has a primary skillset to fall back on. A D&D wizard who permanently loses a point of Con every time they cast any leveled spell is looking at a short career.

D&D does kind of goof by pooling all their magical effects into the spell system, which does make magic too reliable. If you wanted to have fantasy with active wizards but that didn't go all in on magic-as-reliable-technology, 4e might have actually done this too well. They had spells as class powers (where everybody with an appropriate power source would use spells or prayers or whatnot on a regular basis), and rituals as a separate pool where many people rightly argued that mundane means could achieve most of the effects faster and easier. Breaking it down into "here are low to no cost powers your spellslinger adventurer can use as staples" and "here are the big plot device effects, you're going to have to work for them" might help avoid the feeling that all problems can be solved by raiding spell lists and the expenditure of one spell slot.

Tvtyrant
2021-01-22, 01:10 PM
I think magical classes are a terrible system to be honest. To actually feel like Sword and Sorcery I would take a mundane combat system and then stick rituals on top of it, which have increasingly difficult costs as they get bigger.

This is how it usually works in Urban Fantasy like Supernatural or Buffy, where magic rituals are either very difficult to pull off or have massive drawbacks so most threats it is better to hit people instead. Raise Dead requiring human sacrifice would be a good example, with more sacrifices the further back someone died. Dying to return your friend who just died is heroic, but sacrificing a high school to return the Dark lord from 100 years ago is deeply evil using the same rules.

KaussH
2021-01-22, 01:21 PM
For dnd at least, I think it is carry over.
Early versions, the spells always worked (1st/2nd ed) but you had to work to get them cast. You didnt get them for free but often had to find or buy them, they required some of all of verbal, material, or gesturing to use, so if you were gagged, lost your stuff, ect your castable spells went down, and any damage at all could flub them so you had to be carefull about fights. Also you had to pre pick your list, so if you were wrong with what kind of day you were going to have, you might have a lot of spells that are not quite a fit.. oh, and you had low hit points and ac most the time.

The flip side to all this was, spells just worked. Targets still got saves, but barring something interfering with the cast itself. spells just go off.

Over the years and versions, a lot of the "requirements " have been removed, mitigated or modified, but the spells themselves are still always work. A few more spells require a to hit, and dcs are a thing but there you have it.

kyoryu
2021-01-22, 01:32 PM
The main issue is that you can't have "costly" magic if a character's main shtick is casting spells.

If you want "tool" magic (that is, something that is a character's main means of interacting with the world), then it needs to be low cost. Sometimes people build systems that appear to have costs, but inevitably those are balanced so that the costs can be managed and minimized.

If you really want costly magic, it needs to be something that is special and rare. Ritual magic, etc. And you need to make sure that characters are not (and preferably cannot) be built around casting.

Generally available ritual magic is one solution (where the "magic" is more around acquisition, prep, and cost of casting vs. who can cast). Making magic only available to NPCs is another solution.

gijoemike
2021-01-22, 02:32 PM
Magic in a high magic system can just make one fatigued. If a wizard goes nova they pass out. But if they spread that out they can have a longer adventuring day. Suddenly magic has a cost that is temporary. I dislike permanent loss of character points to use a game feature meant to be used by PCs.

Having a meat shield and in turn hitting something doesn't exhaust the wizard mentally.

NichG
2021-01-22, 02:50 PM
I'd say the thing to do is to look at the amount of screen time that paying the cost or dealing with the cost would take up/create, and the amount of screen time that the event of the use of magic either resolves or bypasses, and ensure that the time spent handling the cost is strictly less than the time it would take to accomplish whatever the corresponding act of magic accomplished. Then you can vary that increment of time to get different styles of magic, from the more CRPG/Anime-themed stuff to Cthulhu. But I think its important to think in terms of time impacted rather than 'power'.

Taking the fireball example from up-thread, the problem with making that costly (rather than just removing it) is that no matter how powerful a combat-scale fireball is, its basically a single action and at its most powerful it still can only fiat a resolution to a single fight, which D&D designers assumed would be about a sixth of a session meaning probably something like 40 minutes of screentime (though I think in reality its more like 1 hour 30 minutes on average). And that would be the most powerful combat-scale version of fireball you could imagine - something like a meteor drop that if you pull it off, decisively ends the fight. If you were fighting things purely using the actual D&D fireball spell, it'd probably be ~4 castings to resolve the sorts of fights that happen at that level. So whatever the cost of D&D fireball is, it shouldn't really take more than 20 minutes of gameplay to conclude somehow. And even Meteor Storm or whatever shouldn't really be taking more than half a session to conclude.

So how would you go in the Cthulhu/Lovecraft direction? I don't think its to make the spells more intense - upgrading fireball to meteor storm basically didn't matter in the time analysis, since a fight ender is still just a fight ender. Rather, I think its to change the scope of a single act of magic to be larger and then scale the cost accordingly. Fairy tale magic has things like 'put an entire kingdom to sleep for 100 years' for example. It's not a thing you'd do in a fight, but that is in some sense what lets it be more expensive. So if you have spells that gradually drive you crazy, permanently drain your stats, age you, or taint your soul then each thing they do should be similarly permanent in its consequences to the game.

What if you want magic to be at the combat scale despite this? In that case, I'd say to make a system of magic where each spell in some way permanently empowers the character. You don't cast a 'Fireball', you cast a spell that makes a compact with the elemental forces of fire, causing you to experience the pain of being burned alive for the rest of your life but meaning that fire follows your will wherever its found. You still can cast Fireball each time basically for free, but you paid a permanent price in order to gain permanent access to Fireball. Casting Fireball isn't the act of magic, its just the byproduct of the real act of magic of binding a fire elemental into your soul.

kyoryu
2021-01-22, 04:46 PM
As far as costs go, I'd generally prefer that they either be plot costs (causes complications) or setup costs (have to do things to get the ability to cast it).

Plot costs are the most interesting to me, but generally require a flexible enough structure to handle them, which most linear games can't do.

Elbeyon
2021-01-22, 05:57 PM
The costs are the character isn't a plate user that can hack four goblins down a turn. The cost is that they don't have a bunch of skills and can sneak attack. That they can't use this other type of magic. The players already pay a cost to play a magic user. It's them not being this other thing they could play.

Anonymouswizard
2021-01-22, 06:04 PM
The costs are the character isn't a plate user that can hack four goblins down a turn. The cost is that they don't have a bunch of skills and can sneak attack. That they can't use this other type of magic. The players already pay a cost to play a magic user. It's them not being this other thing they could play.

Course not, I've played 3.5. Why would you want plate armour or skills when magic just does that stuff better?

Elbeyon
2021-01-22, 06:11 PM
Course not, I've played 3.5. Why would you want plate armour or skills when magic just does that stuff better?I consider that a different issue.

Anonymouswizard
2021-01-22, 06:29 PM
I consider that a different issue.

The theory is that magic has a 'cost' because taking it locks you out of taking other options (or in point buy games less resources for other options). My objection to this in the case of D&D is essentially:

A cost that is not meaningfully impactful is not a cost.

D&D tends to either have a way to let magic-users do the same thing anyway (often a spell, sometimes a class feature) or do an equivalent thing but better. It doesn't matter if I don't have the points to spend on the Sneak skill if going ethereal is just better.

Now how much this matters at the table differs from edition to edition, but there are certainly editions and classes that get no meaningful costs.

Elbeyon
2021-01-22, 06:54 PM
The theory is that magic has a 'cost' because taking it locks you out of taking other options (or in point buy games less resources for other options). My objection to this in the case of D&D is essentially:

A cost that is not meaningfully impactful is not a cost.

D&D tends to either have a way to let magic-users do the same thing anyway (often a spell, sometimes a class feature) or do an equivalent thing but better. It doesn't matter if I don't have the points to spend on the Sneak skill if going ethereal is just better.

Now how much this matters at the table differs from edition to edition, but there are certainly editions and classes that get no meaningful costs.That's a different issue with the system/game. Magic is not inherently unbalanced without a cost. I have played in games and systems where magic does not have a cost and everything works. If balance is the issue, that is a different issue to address.

NichG
2021-01-22, 06:56 PM
Game mechanical opportunity cost is different from the in-character thematic impact of 'magic has a cost'. They can't replace one-another, but rather they're two different concepts that have to be aligned.

If you play a wizard, the magic saps your health (HD lower than even Commoner) is an example of aligned costs. If you play a wizard, you aren't playing an artificer or psion or warblade isn't really thematically aligned with anything beyond 'magic takes the same dedication and focus as any other class'

Elbeyon
2021-01-22, 07:35 PM
Game mechanical opportunity cost is different from the in-character thematic impact of 'magic has a cost'. They can't replace one-another, but rather they're two different concepts that have to be aligned.

If you play a wizard, the magic saps your health (HD lower than even Commoner) is an example of aligned costs. If you play a wizard, you aren't playing an artificer or psion or warblade isn't really thematically aligned with anything beyond 'magic takes the same dedication and focus as any other class'I do like your HD example. I'm not a fan of each time a mage uses magic they are hurt in some way. It's hard to balance that, and I think it is better to balance systems some other way.

Mechalich
2021-01-22, 07:48 PM
The problem with applying cost to magic in a game context it is means that in order to do so in any sort of mechanistically fair way you have to properly value the outputs of magic, which is incredibly hard to do.

Combat magic can be given a cost, because it's outputs - how much damage it does, how many people it damages at a time, etc. - are measurable, and there are games were, for example, casting spells drains your HP or some other immediate combat measurable cost is imposed.

However, once you get into more nebulous outputs it becomes extremely difficult to evaluate how much any particular magical effect is worth. Which means imposing a cost is equally nebulous and likely to end up with totally unbalanced results that make some magical effects total steals while others are rip-offs you should never use in any system that tries. Even in D&D we can see this. Spells are sorted by level, which is intended to measure their power, but we all know there are vast differences in the power of the spells assigned to a given level. And of course there are magical effects whose value varies by who they are targeted at or immediate needs - like raising the dead.

Anonymouswizard
2021-01-22, 07:57 PM
I do like your HD example. I'm not a fan of each time a mage uses magic they are hurt in some way. It's hard to balance that, and I think it is better to balance systems some other way.

I think his example was meant to be 'a commoner gets 1d6 hp per level, a wizard gets 1d4 hp per level, therefore implicitly magic makes you less healthy'. Similar to how in many games players of spellcasters will dump their physical stats, but codified in the system.

Honestly I like casting magic being draining in the Shadowrun/GURPS/The Fantasy Trip style, where casting spells can make you less capable until you have tine to sit down/heal. The problem is of course balancing how draining spells should be, and as Mechalich says this is really hard with noncombat spells (which is probably why Shadowrun: Anarchy didn't even bother porting it). You've also got to balance against how quickly characters recover, to stop spells being outright replacements for mundane skills.

Jorren
2021-01-22, 08:34 PM
The cost of magic seems like something that would not be just a balancing or flavor issue but rather a core theme of the game. The best way to do that would be to wrap the entire premise of the game around the cost of magic. The problem is that games are often trying to balance out a variety of factors and make non-magic using characters just as viable as ones who do use magic. This I think takes away from the theme of sacrifice and what price are you willing to pay for magic.

The cost of magic can also be measured not just in risks such as demons, backlash, sanity, and physical enervation but in costs to the characters other goals, including friendly organizations, family, friends, etc.

Mechalich
2021-01-23, 12:12 AM
The cost of magic seems like something that would not be just a balancing or flavor issue but rather a core theme of the game. The best way to do that would be to wrap the entire premise of the game around the cost of magic. The problem is that games are often trying to balance out a variety of factors and make non-magic using characters just as viable as ones who do use magic. This I think takes away from the theme of sacrifice and what price are you willing to pay for magic.

The cost of magic can also be measured not just in risks such as demons, backlash, sanity, and physical enervation but in costs to the characters other goals, including friendly organizations, family, friends, etc.

Players, in games, are notoriously averse to using anything that has any sort of permanent cost. PCs will hoard potions, wand charges, and other disposable items endlessly, or accumulate tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition and still believe they don't have enough. If you develop a system that ties power to costs players will either ignore it as not worth having (especially if the mechanics actually do make the approach suboptimal), or spend an immense amount of effort trying to subvert it. Call of Cthulhu leans into the latter by making the entire approach to magic being about subversion of the costs (that will eventually fail, but that's the whole point), but it's hard for a game that's played straight and not about inevitable doom to use such a method.

And sacrifice as a theme is tricky overall, because different plays have different values and this changes the calculation of what any particular sacrifice is worth. This is problematic in a game where you have to model such sacrifices mechanically. Also, is sacrifice = power in any form you run the risk of creating perverse incentives where one person can con another into providing the sacrifice for miracles and other similar scenarios. Gaming history makes it clear that there is no form of in-game abuse so vile that gamers won't embrace if it offers even the most marginal of benefits.

Jorren
2021-01-23, 01:50 AM
Players, in games, are notoriously averse to using anything that has any sort of permanent cost. PCs will hoard potions, wand charges, and other disposable items endlessly, or accumulate tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition and still believe they don't have enough. If you develop a system that ties power to costs players will either ignore it as not worth having (especially if the mechanics actually do make the approach suboptimal), or spend an immense amount of effort trying to subvert it. Call of Cthulhu leans into the latter by making the entire approach to magic being about subversion of the costs (that will eventually fail, but that's the whole point), but it's hard for a game that's played straight and not about inevitable doom to use such a method.

And sacrifice as a theme is tricky overall, because different plays have different values and this changes the calculation of what any particular sacrifice is worth. This is problematic in a game where you have to model such sacrifices mechanically. Also, is sacrifice = power in any form you run the risk of creating perverse incentives where one person can con another into providing the sacrifice for miracles and other similar scenarios. Gaming history makes it clear that there is no form of in-game abuse so vile that gamers won't embrace if it offers even the most marginal of benefits.

Presumably, players are playing in that sort of game because the central tenet appeals to them in some way or another. Like in Call of Cthulhu notions regarding insanity and cosmic horror; that's kind of the point. If your game has a myriad of ways to subvert the cost of magic (or whatever it happens to be), then your game really isn't about magic having a cost, but rather avoiding them.

As for different costs for different characters, that should be tailored to the individual. As for getting someone else to pay that price sure, that sort of emphasizes the costs in a different way, which should have its own consequences.

These are not necessarily bad things. If people are keen on the theme, they can probably highlight the costs using the game's mechanics in a meaningful way. If not, well they are probably not going to be interested in that kind of a game to begin with.

anthon
2021-01-23, 02:35 AM
i run mostly grognard games from the 70s-90s and in them you really have to pay for everything.

Spells occupy pages, pages cost 50-100 gold each. A spell was like 2-15 pages long, so like 100-1500 gold pieces.

you also had to roll a check to see if you could learn it that level, spend time memorizing it, and quest around for the spells to find them, and in some cases, the components.

Then there might be magical schools and tests, like in Dragonlance.

Ironically, how we ran D&D 20-30 years ago is very similar to how anime magic schools run today - teens in neat outfits at fancy academies learning the basics of attack/defense magic. It's all very Harry Potter/Worst Witch, complete with the castles.

But i think people try too hard to make magic somehow worse than it needs to be.

When World War 1 and 2 ended, people came back with an awareness of stuff like big bombs, flying machines, tanks, and so on. By the time AD&D came out, people were already familiar with mechanized modernized war. Automatic weapons, grenade launchers, and ICBMs.

What a normal human being was capable of, given the right circumstances, by the time people rolled their first d20, amounted to very very high level wizard magic. This was featured to some extent in the 1970s animation "Wizards".

in terms of raw damage, a magic missile wand is not going to out perform an M16. A wand of fireballs has nothing on a Grenade launcher or RPG with a bunch of extra rockets. There's nothing particularly horrifying about a Dragon when facing down a main battle tank, and honestly, almost nothing including most artifacts rival the nightmares of the atomic age.

So the idea of a low magic game? isn't that basically camping?

i mean, in camping, you go primitive, sleep outside in a cold tent that leaks in the rain if you touch the ceiling. Wild animals are around and if you are lucky you have something like bear spray or hunting doodads to fend them off. But in the back of your mind, you know you are stepping down a notch in your experience of quality, not upgrading. You know that electricity and heat, and restaurant food beats canned meat products, cold dark nights, and mosquito bites. You are roughing it.

But not every escapism is roughing it.

a lot of escapism is about imagining what it would be like if life were better, if people had more power to change their circumstances, not less.

When people imagine making a wish, they don't usually start with "gee, i wish i could go camping and sleep on the dirt, rubbing two sticks together in the hopes of heating up this can of beans".

They wish for stuff like super powers and piles of money. Their fantasy is an upgrade.

If fantasy is an upgrade, then your magic should be an upgrade over whatever it is people take for granted.

And considering the capacity of the 21st century, which, by 1970s standards was basically magic, people need to decide,

are they camping,
or going fantasy?

Mechalich
2021-01-23, 03:03 AM
Presumably, players are playing in that sort of game because the central tenet appeals to them in some way or another. Like in Call of Cthulhu notions regarding insanity and cosmic horror; that's kind of the point. If your game has a myriad of ways to subvert the cost of magic (or whatever it happens to be), then your game really isn't about magic having a cost, but rather avoiding them.

As for different costs for different characters, that should be tailored to the individual. As for getting someone else to pay that price sure, that sort of emphasizes the costs in a different way, which should have its own consequences.

These are not necessarily bad things. If people are keen on the theme, they can probably highlight the costs using the game's mechanics in a meaningful way. If not, well they are probably not going to be interested in that kind of a game to begin with.

Theme is difficult to enforce. The oWoD was supposed to be all about personal horror and degradation and the rode to destruction and so forth, but what people actually played was street-level supers who carried katanas under their trenchcoats. The design staff at WW got particularly cheesed about this and ended up in an active fight with a significant portion of the fanbase to the point of blowing up the setting and subsequently losing a very substantial portion of said fanbase in perpetuity, to the point that they went bankrupt in a very short timeframe thereafter.

And it's hard to prevent subversion, of anything, in the TTRPG environment. Ironclad rules are difficult to write, especially as games continue to publish and rules accrete over time and interact with each other in various complex ways. 3.X D&D isn't supposed to have stacking metamagic reducers that allow the reduction of essentially all metamagic costs to nothing so casters can infinitely power-up their spells, but it does.

The cost of magic is an excellent device in storytelling, as it ties in with themes of sacrifice and scarcity and unwinnable conflicts. However such stories are difficult to tell in games, which tend to focus on escapist melodrama. Also because the distance between a player and PC is usually lower than that of a reader and a fictional character created by a third party the ability to actually make PCs suffer in meaningful ways while keeping the game going is limited.

You can design a game that explores these themes, but it's going to be very niche and require very mature players. That may be worth doing, certainly (in fact it's probably been done, effectively, in some game that hardly anyone knows), but it's a very specialized goal. Applying costs to magic is going to be ineffective in typical gameplay systems because it doesn't align with the actual goals of play and the actual maturity level people bring to the table (even very mature players often deliberately game in a distinctly childish fashion because they find it fun, sometimes to the point of outright trolling). So if you want to do a system that applies significant costs to the use of magic, and utilizes magic as a significant part of gameplay, you have utilize this as a central focus of the overall design.

Anonymouswizard
2021-01-23, 07:37 AM
I'm a big fan of magic systems where a miscast might possibly result in headsplosion.

Or like Forbiddan Lands, where a demon pops out of a rift and drags you away forever.

Having played Warhammer games, the dice being able to immediately kill your character and the entire party sounds fun on paper, but only works because of the small chance of it happening per casting. And layer editions allowed you to sacrifice raw power to avoid it anyway. The second worst level of consequences is killing your character off, the worst is letting the daemons through.

It's why I just won't pay a wild magic Sorcerer in 5e, there's just far too much chance of dropping a party killing fireball by accident when playing at my preferred levels.

Quertus
2021-01-23, 09:47 AM
That is if you care about balance. If not... sentient potted plant and Superman?

For some reason, I strongly agree. :smallamused:


I'd say the thing to do is to look at the amount of screen time that paying the cost or dealing with the cost would take up/create, and the amount of screen time that the event of the use of magic either resolves or bypasses, and ensure that the time spent handling the cost is strictly less than the time it would take to accomplish whatever the corresponding act of magic accomplished.

You mean, you don't like the idea of spending 20 sessions questing for the components for the Fighter's new sword?


a resolution to a single fight, which D&D designers assumed would be about a sixth of a session meaning probably something like 40 minutes of screentime (though I think in reality its more like 1 hour 30 minutes on average).

Ugh. Train faster players!


What if you want magic to be at the combat scale despite this? In that case, I'd say to make a system of magic where each spell in some way permanently empowers the character. You don't cast a 'Fireball', you cast a spell that makes a compact with the elemental forces of fire, causing you to experience the pain of being burned alive for the rest of your life but meaning that fire follows your will wherever its found. You still can cast Fireball each time basically for free, but you paid a permanent price in order to gain permanent access to Fireball. Casting Fireball isn't the act of magic, its just the byproduct of the real act of magic of binding a fire elemental into your soul.


This is actually something I think a lot about, because I have what I think is a cool "cost of magic" for a setting that is impossible, as far as I can tell, to make a feasible RPG system work with. Casting spells costs you age. No, not making you older: making you YOUNGER. This is part of why mages live so long, but it's a very real cost, nevertheless. Use too much magic, and you wind up being a kid again. Sure, you're still you and have your memories and skills, but you're in a kid's body with a kid's brain. And if you send yourself back to a point where you're small and frail, or worse, unable to even feed yourself.... And also, the way you regain this fuel is...by living and aging. So your magic refills slowly.

Those sound like fun systems!

I especially love how the "costs age" system is a perversion of the early D&D spell costs.

-----

So, how do *I*, personally, feel about the notion of "magic, but at a cost"? Hmmm…

Fiction first. It's a terrible balancing tool (see also Grod's Law), but it can be great fun if it is built into the system inherently, for the express purpose of "cool concept for magic".

Then, once you've got the magic system up and running, *if* you care about balance, build the muggles to be balanced to the mages.

Pex
2021-01-23, 12:35 PM
I have a preference for what it shouldn't cost. The cost should never punish the character for doing what he's supposed to be doing for anything a character does. For a spellcaster that means casting spells. What's a punishment? A punishment is anything that makes the character worse off doing the Thing than if he hadn't done the Thing at all accepting the arbitrary resource allotment expenditure to do the Thing. The character should not suffer loss of health, loss of turns, loss of actions, or loss of defenses. I can give some leeway. Doing X means you can't do Y next turn but only next turn can be ok for me depending on Y, but you can still do X again or Z or other cool stuff. Devil is in the details.

I could still not like a particular cost as a matter of personal opinion but agree it's not a punishment. I get over it or whatever, but I remain adamant a cost should not be a punishment. For spellcasters in particular, they're entitled to cast spells. They're entitled to have their spells work. They're entitled to have their spells do cool things. They are allowed to be able to do cool things in addition to casting spells. Warriors should have their own cool things.

JoeJ
2021-01-23, 01:28 PM
In other games I played, each spell was something akin to a skill, that you had to learn and then roll successfully to cast.
In some cases it could cost your very life-energy (hitpoints) if you where unlucky or exceeded your reach.
There are usually ways around this. But they come with other costs, deals with devils/demons could that mark you as outsider abd/or cripple you physically, loss of sanity...
Additionally, spell failure can have devastating side effects.

To me, that means, that even if magic is really powerful, mundane characters keep being a solid choice, because by avoiding those costs, you can invest your resources in other ways and (kind of) keep up.

You might want to look at Threshold Limited Magic in GURPS Thaumatology. Basically, wizards can cast any spell they want, but every time they cast or maintain a spell they add points to a power tally and if they accumulate too may, you roll on a table to see if a disaster happens. The tally decreases over time if they don't use magic. The end result is that spells are used sparingly, but in an emergency a wizard can take a risk and call on a lot of power. (It also means that players will probably put a significant number of points into things other than magic when they create their characters.)

NichG
2021-01-23, 02:55 PM
You mean, you don't like the idea of spending 20 sessions questing for the components for the Fighter's new sword?


If the fighter is going to use that new sword for 20+ sessions going forward, then this is fine. Much better than spending 20 sessions dealing with the fallout of side-effects of a spell the wizard cast to one-shot a single dragon.
Even better would be to spend 20 sessions questing for the fighter to invent a signature maneuver that they'll use for the rest of the campaign.

NigelWalmsley
2021-01-23, 05:31 PM
What magic "should" cost isn't a question with a single answer, because the appropriate cost of magic is contextual.

In a book, or movie, or other single-author fiction, the cost of magic can just be whatever is appropriate for the story you're trying to tell. If you want to tell a story where magic has costs that ruin people's lives for minor effects, you can do that. If you want to tell a story where magic does incredible things without any lasting cost, you can do that instead.

But in a TTRPG, there are constraints. Whatever magic you put in the game has to make for an enjoyable game, not just an interesting story. Now, there's still a lot of flexibility in what the role of magic is. A game like Call of Cthulhu can have magic that is costly and unimpressive. But if you're talking about a game that is "like D&D", the cost of magic has to be pretty low. Half of the people in a stock D&D party contribute by "doing magic". That means "doing magic" can't result in a meaningful chance of demons showing up and eating the party.

Another thing to bear in mind is that costs that are meaningful in real life or in other media often aren't meaningful in a TTRPG. For example, AD&D had some spells cost years off your life. This was a really bad balancing mechanic, because most campaigns don't last even one in-world year, let alone enough for it to matter if you cut five years or only four off your nominal lifespan. For all but the most dedicated roleplayers, the cost may as well have not existed. Similarly, various "if you do magic, monsters come after you" setups work poorly, because the expected default of the game is that you will be fighting monsters.

Frankly, I think the best approach for a TTRPG is to make whatever "terrible price" you're thinking of largely a fluff thing. So the Necromancer gets to be all emo about how calling up the souls of the dead disturbs the natural order of things, but without there being a risk that he'll roll a natural 1 at a bad time and leave the party down a man in the middle of a dungeon.

Cluedrew
2021-01-23, 09:22 PM
Several people have been hinting at this but I'm going to spell it out how I think about it: You can't figure out the cost of magic without knowing the effects of magic.

A scene level ability should probably have a scene level cost. If something has a cost that should be felt for several scenes it should probably also have an effect that is felt (directly or indirectly) for several scenes. Of course its hardly a hard line, especially with costs and effects accumulating and being situational and stuff.

Then there is thematic elements as well. Maybe healing magic could drive you insane but that would be kind of weird.

Ravens_cry
2021-01-23, 10:31 PM
It really all depends on the tone you are going for, what kind of world it's set in. Something like Call of Cthulhu and similar, you want magic to have an extremely heavy cost, though you also probably want it to have some potent effects, so it's also very tempting to use as well. Otherwise anyone using it will look like a fool. "I will mutate into an unspeakable creature of chaos in order to fling this small piece of metal at you at the speed of sound! Warping my mind as much as my body!" "Um, we got guns, dude."

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2021-01-24, 02:25 AM
I always think of magic as being physically taxing in the long term. However, D&D spellcasters don't cast all their spells every day for several years, they cast all their spells for a few days then spend at least twice as many days traveling to/from the adventure. If they were casting all their spells every day like it's a full time job, I'd think they would be worse off than someone working 60 hours a week in a coal mine. Mechanically there's nothing stopping them from casting like that, but RP-wise it should be extremely taxing to do so.

Other costs include lack of mundane capabilities like fighting with weapons, skill proficiencies, etc., as well as a lack of combat training that causes a lower HD and no ability to use armor. There are ways around some of these things without sacrificing any spellcasting ability, but that requires effort on the part of the player and another type of opportunity cost for the character.

As far as always having a failure chance when casting and other variable outcome mechanics, there's not really an elegant way to do that in D&D. I think WoW actually did a good job on this: Casting classes need to stand still to cast, but fight mechanics require a lot of movement, so you need to pay attention and prioritize survival over casting sometimes.

You could also look at the World of Darkness rules, where you measure your number of successes rolled against the target's defense to see how effective your spell is against them. In that case failure occurs if you get fewer successes than what's required to beat their defense, and there are varying degrees of success each time depending on how well you roll and how many dice you get. While d20 systems are typically all-or-nothing with misses and hits, in the d10 system a high defense always reduces an attacker's effectiveness even when their attack succeeds. This is the type of system required for a game where spells inherently don't work every time, as you'll typically get at least one or two successes, but in a d20 system it'd be a real bummer to completely whiff the spell when you're not even in combat. D&D doesn't have the varying degrees of success mechanic, so it just doesn't make sense to require a check to cast a spell.

Regarding how new spells are learned, i.e. automatically gaining them on level-up, I think that's mostly to keep the game fun for everyone. Nobody wants to finally get 3rd level spell slots but still need to spend several sessions and/or a pile of gold to learn fireball. In previous editions spells were too powerful but they were balanced against being difficult to obtain, it's more fun for the person playing the character to just get the spells automatically, and it's more fun for everyone else that the spells are no longer overpowered*.


*I'm sure some spells are still too powerful, but it's not as extreme as previous editions.

ezekielraiden
2021-01-24, 09:09 PM
Consider this: If there is a free feature that anybody may choose to pick up without character-building cost that lets you throw a fireball, but it costs you a permanent stat point every time you do, wouldn't every character pick up this feature unless his player was conceptually opposed to it for that character? Wouldn't every character who picked up that feature be more powerful? Yes, they would, because options to expend resources for effects are an increase in overall power.
As usual, you have many good points, but this made me want to respond for very specific reasons. Your (intentionally "toy") example made three assumptions that I think weaken it severely as an approach. To whit:
You pay nothing, in terms of "character" investment, to acquire the ability in the first place;
You pay a permanent and visible cost to do the magic thing in question;
You only get one magic thing to do.
These are...generally not how anyone would WANT to make such a system. And I know of a system that, IMO, inverted all of these and made magic really work. It was only unpopular because it DID work to balance magic, and thus made people who expected Phenomenal Cosmic Power upset at feeling "nerfed." I am, of course, referring to 4e Rituals.

To cast ritual spells in 4e, you need only acquire the Ritual Caster feat, spend money to learn the ritual, pay any associated ritual component costs, and sometimes make a skill roll to determine how much the ritual does for you. The vast majority of potent utility magic, including stuff like raising the dead, summoning mounts, understanding languages, and changing the weather, got ported into 4e's Ritual system. In general, only the most ridiculously niche or insanely powerful abilities were off-limits, like wishes or creating demiplanes. (More or less, those were tacitly treated the same way as RP: Impossible to make a general-use structure, so best left to DM discretion, as the DM will know better what costs and benefits such should have than the designers ever could.)

By your metrics, this should barely qualify as "restrictive" at all, and literally every character that isn't starved for feats should be picking up rituals left and right. Except...that didn't happen. In fact, rather the opposite: most characters that didn't get the feat for free avoided them, and despite gold (and residuum) being a river, players were often extremely reluctant to spend even a single coin on ritual magic, even when it would be extremely useful. It was seen as sacrificing permanent benefits (magic items) to get temporary and circumstantial ones, with the only major exceptions being item-enchantment-related, or Raise Dead.

I think this is very instructive. It shows us that non-"hard" limits CAN still work, if they hit the part of player psychology that causes the same issues as "Too Awesome to Use" (as TVTropes puts it). Further, it shows that a small but meaningful hurdle to get in, as long as the benefits aren't unambiguously amazing for everyone, can be an excellent deterrent for the "everyone takes it" problem without also deterring people who seek it out for flavor reasons.

Thoughts?

Segev
2021-01-24, 09:26 PM
As usual, you have many good points, but this made me want to respond for very specific reasons. Your (intentionally "toy") example made three assumptions that I think weaken it severely as an approach. To whit:
You pay nothing, in terms of "character" investment, to acquire the ability in the first place;
You pay a permanent and visible cost to do the magic thing in question;
You only get one magic thing to do.
These are...generally not how anyone would WANT to make such a system. And I know of a system that, IMO, inverted all of these and made magic really work. It was only unpopular because it DID work to balance magic, and thus made people who expected Phenomenal Cosmic Power upset at feeling "nerfed." I am, of course, referring to 4e Rituals.

To cast ritual spells in 4e, you need only acquire the Ritual Caster feat, spend money to learn the ritual, pay any associated ritual component costs, and sometimes make a skill roll to determine how much the ritual does for you. The vast majority of potent utility magic, including stuff like raising the dead, summoning mounts, understanding languages, and changing the weather, got ported into 4e's Ritual system. In general, only the most ridiculously niche or insanely powerful abilities were off-limits, like wishes or creating demiplanes. (More or less, those were tacitly treated the same way as RP: Impossible to make a general-use structure, so best left to DM discretion, as the DM will know better what costs and benefits such should have than the designers ever could.)

By your metrics, this should barely qualify as "restrictive" at all, and literally every character that isn't starved for feats should be picking up rituals left and right. Except...that didn't happen. In fact, rather the opposite: most characters that didn't get the feat for free avoided them, and despite gold (and residuum) being a river, players were often extremely reluctant to spend even a single coin on ritual magic, even when it would be extremely useful. It was seen as sacrificing permanent benefits (magic items) to get temporary and circumstantial ones, with the only major exceptions being item-enchantment-related, or Raise Dead.

I think this is very instructive. It shows us that non-"hard" limits CAN still work, if they hit the part of player psychology that causes the same issues as "Too Awesome to Use" (as TVTropes puts it). Further, it shows that a small but meaningful hurdle to get in, as long as the benefits aren't unambiguously amazing for everyone, can be an excellent deterrent for the "everyone takes it" problem without also deterring people who seek it out for flavor reasons.

Thoughts?
I find it hard to take your comments on its balance and reception seriously, because it assumes beliefs and preferences that do not align with why I despise 4e casting. I despise 4e casting because it's not functionally different from 4e martial or 4e skill or 4e ... anything else. They're all martial adepts.

I never got so far as the ritual casting rules, because 4e's problems were that magic wasn't any different than anything else. This is a flaw in literally every aspect of it. The fact that any disagreement with this paradigm seems to be dismissed as "wanting phenomenal cosmic power" rather than considering the actual reasons they express for their preferences.

That said, by my metrics, a feat is a cost. Therefore, if people didn't want rituals, they wouldn't spend the feat. My toy problem was very specific. No, nobody is designing systems in that precise fashion, but the statement is important to make because people WERE asserting that having a really high cost of using magic would keep people from choosing to have the option.

ezekielraiden
2021-01-25, 04:31 AM
I find it hard to take your comments on its balance and reception seriously, because it assumes beliefs and preferences that do not align with why I despise 4e casting. I despise 4e casting because it's not functionally different from 4e martial or 4e skill or 4e ... anything else. They're all martial adepts.

I never got so far as the ritual casting rules, because 4e's problems were that magic wasn't any different than anything else. This is a flaw in literally every aspect of it. The fact that any disagreement with this paradigm seems to be dismissed as "wanting phenomenal cosmic power" rather than considering the actual reasons they express for their preferences.

That said, by my metrics, a feat is a cost. Therefore, if people didn't want rituals, they wouldn't spend the feat. My toy problem was very specific. No, nobody is designing systems in that precise fashion, but the statement is important to make because people WERE asserting that having a really high cost of using magic would keep people from choosing to have the option.
Well, if you hate it, you hate it, I can't really argue with that. If you don't wish to engage any further than that, I can accept that.

However, if you do wish to engage further...
I think that ignoring Rituals and decrying 4e magic as "no different from combat" is...a bit odd. That is, it sounds like the things you wanted from magic were specifically moved over to Rituals, meaning you cut out right before getting (some of) the stuff you were looking for. "Magic" in 4e includes both combat actions, which are comparable to non-magic combat actions, and non-combat ritual spells, which...covers everything else magic does in 4e (well, other than magic items I guess, since those can have more varied function).

Now, if what you mean is "I want the process of doing magical things to be simply, fundamentally different from the process of doing non-magical things, such that it is never possible even in principle to conflate the two," then yes, anything like 4e's approach will never be your cup of tea, and its rituals will be at best a bandaid over a bullet wound.

Satinavian
2021-01-25, 05:53 AM
I have not played 4E much and don't like it for other reasons.

But i would have bought rituals for every character. And i found it a bit strange that they still had caster classes when basically all relevant magic of the game is now behind a specific feat.

ezekielraiden
2021-01-25, 06:09 AM
I have not played 4E much and don't like it for other reasons.

But i would have bought rituals for every character. And i found it a bit strange that they still had caster classes when basically all relevant magic of the game is now behind a specific feat.

It is worth noting that there were many rituals that were class-specific.

Anymage
2021-01-25, 07:17 AM
I have not played 4E much and don't like it for other reasons.

But i would have bought rituals for every character. And i found it a bit strange that they still had caster classes when basically all relevant magic of the game is now behind a specific feat.

Dropping the 4e issues, 5e also allows a character to learn a sizable chunk of spells at just the cost of a feat. Very few builds I've seen prioritize taking vhuman/custom lineage for Ritual Caster right out the gate, or even making it a mandatory fourth level pick.

That said, I do think that the reasons people had for disliking 4e in the first place are kind of tangential to ezekielraiden's main point. For the people who did like and understand the system, there are reasons why rituals were something that were largely avoided even by people who got Ritual Caster as a free bonus feat.

NigelWalmsley
2021-01-25, 08:23 AM
I suspect when Segev complains that "magic is the same as non-magic", he's talking about the fact that they are the same in combat. It's not that rituals are "a bandaid over a bullet hole", it's that they're fundamentally irrelevant to the issue. Rituals are basically what would happen if you added a feat to 3e that let people who couldn't cast spells natively activate scrolls. The issue with classes is that every class uses the same resource management mechanics, while in 3e you had this huge variety of classes that ranged from the Druid to the Binder to the Warblade to the Incarnate to the Warlock.

Telok
2021-01-25, 11:29 AM
I have not played 4E much and don't like it for other reasons.

But i would have bought rituals for every character. And i found it a bit strange that they still had caster classes when basically all relevant magic of the game is now behind a specific feat.

Eh. My group played 4e D&D for a year (40 to 45-ish sessions). Very unimpressed. Rituals were... sad. I think I was the only person who ever used them across 3 characters, got to use them like 4 times, and they only did anything once. That was a weird light/not light torch ritual that let a no-darkvision human rogue do a solo scouting thing. Every other ritual had no effect except waste time and money.

The biggest issue I think was that 4e didn't really just push all the non-combat magic to rituals, but they did that while cutting down the magic to "cannot disrupt DM plot/railroad" levels. But that was sort of our experience with 4e all over. Great for the DM but lots of "you only have actual abilities in combat" for the PCs. I'm sure someone will disagree with details or specifics, but that was our experience.

Segev
2021-01-25, 11:29 AM
I think that ignoring Rituals and decrying 4e magic as "no different from combat" is...a bit odd. That is, it sounds like the things you wanted from magic were specifically moved over to Rituals, meaning you cut out right before getting (some of) the stuff you were looking for. "Magic" in 4e includes both combat actions, which are comparable to non-magic combat actions, and non-combat ritual spells, which...covers everything else magic does in 4e (well, other than magic items I guess, since those can have more varied function).

Now, if what you mean is "I want the process of doing magical things to be simply, fundamentally different from the process of doing non-magical things, such that it is never possible even in principle to conflate the two," then yes, anything like 4e's approach will never be your cup of tea, and its rituals will be at best a bandaid over a bullet wound.I want playing a spellcaster to be fundamentally different from playing a non-spellcaster, and playing a psion to be fundamentally different from both, yes. I do not mind - and in fact like - subsystems that casters can't/don't use being available to non-casters, as well. Bo9S was good and welcome, and PF's Path of War increasing that further is great. 4e making every class a Bo9S martial adept and just calling some of it "magic" and some of it "not magic" was...disappointing, to put it mildly.

I don't mind the concept of rituals. I don't even mind them being open to anybody who takes a feat. 5e handles it quite decently.


I have not played 4E much and don't like it for other reasons.

But i would have bought rituals for every character.I believe I did in the two games I played (I played a caster and a non-caster, but I can't even remember what specific classes. Probably rogue and wizard, but I don't know for sure at this point.)


And i found it a bit strange that they still had caster classes when basically all relevant magic of the game is now behind a specific feat.


It is worth noting that there were many rituals that were class-specific.But still lock it behind a feat. :smallamused::smallmad:

This kind-of leads to my biggest issue with 4e: what's the point of playing a caster if there's no difference than playing a non-caster? What's the point of playing any particular class? They're all the same! (I know, technically, they have distinct features, but in practice, the features are just variants on the same mechanic. The experience of playing one class over another varies as little as playing one champion over another in a MOBA. There is variety there, but it's not extensive enough to build interesting characters around, just slightly different roles in combat.)


I suspect when Segev complains that "magic is the same as non-magic", he's talking about the fact that they are the same in combat. It's not that rituals are "a bandaid over a bullet hole", it's that they're fundamentally irrelevant to the issue. Rituals are basically what would happen if you added a feat to 3e that let people who couldn't cast spells natively activate scrolls. The issue with classes is that every class uses the same resource management mechanics, while in 3e you had this huge variety of classes that ranged from the Druid to the Binder to the Warblade to the Incarnate to the Warlock.
I am mostly complaining that 4e made everything a martial adept. I like having different subsystems for different Things.

Satinavian
2021-01-25, 12:09 PM
I suspect when Segev complains that "magic is the same as non-magic", he's talking about the fact that they are the same in combat. It's not that rituals are "a bandaid over a bullet hole", it's that they're fundamentally irrelevant to the issue. Rituals are basically what would happen if you added a feat to 3e that let people who couldn't cast spells natively activate scrolls. The issue with classes is that every class uses the same resource management mechanics, while in 3e you had this huge variety of classes that ranged from the Druid to the Binder to the Warblade to the Incarnate to the Warlock.
My argument was more along the lines that for me the interesting magic is near esclusively the noncombat portion.

Combat magic only provides alternative options to things that are already possible. Its presence or absence doesn't really change anything fundamentally. It is the utility side of things where magic is actually important.
To distinguish between caster and noncaster based on how to kill things and neglecting all the actual word changing magic is laughable. How they fight is one of the least interesting/important aspects a character can have. At least, when you play an RPG, not some skirmish wargame.

Anymage
2021-01-25, 12:56 PM
I want playing a spellcaster to be fundamentally different from playing a non-spellcaster, and playing a psion to be fundamentally different from both, yes. I do not mind - and in fact like - subsystems that casters can't/don't use being available to non-casters, as well. Bo9S was good and welcome, and PF's Path of War increasing that further is great. 4e making every class a Bo9S martial adept and just calling some of it "magic" and some of it "not magic" was...disappointing, to put it mildly.
...
I am mostly complaining that 4e made everything a martial adept. I like having different subsystems for different Things.

I find this "different power sources should have different resolution mechanics" to be an odd insistence. Not only do most games tend to have a unified underlying mechanic that various powers tend to engage similarly with, but even in D&D I find it telling that academic laboratory magic, the innate powers of a bloodline, the primal forces of nature and channeling the power of the gods all run on the exact same system and nobody complains. I mean yes, 4e is at its heart a miniatures skirmish game and I get how that isn't some people's cup of tea. But in that context the pieces absolutely feel distinct. And brushing them off as all being the same thing because they run under the AEDU system is like saying that sorcerers and druids are both exactly the same because they both have the same spellcasting progression.

Also, since this is about the cost of magic and Ritual Caster as a concept (and its implementation in 4e instead of 4e as a whole), I'll repeat again that Ritual Caster in 5e is rather similar and I don't see that being a must take for every character.

Anonymouswizard
2021-01-25, 01:10 PM
I have not played 4E much and don't like it for other reasons.

But i would have bought rituals for every character. And i found it a bit strange that they still had caster classes when basically all relevant magic of the game is now behind a specific feat.

In a class-based game there are arguable advantages and disadvantages to having class-agnostic powers for the taking, and rituals were a specific form of that alongside feats. There are also advantages and disadvantages to an explicit divide btween combat an noncombat magic, a split which in D&D only appears in one edition.

But rituals themselves are of questionable value, and there are one or two that depending on world-building are either necessary or redundant. They can also scale weirdly, the affordability of Raise Dead is based on character tier, which means there's a noticeable drop in affordability at levels 11 and 21 (not enough to put them out of reach, but it is noticeable).

That said, I don't think it's inherently a bad idea to have ritual magic. It's just that in the fantasy system I'm writing magic rituals are about sidestepping costs, for some relatively cheap chalk, incense, candles, and other b=gubbins you can do a ritual lasting ten minutes per point of fatifgue the spell costs to cast the spell for free. Useful for some, but fire-mages never bother.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-01-25, 01:54 PM
I think, personally (and depending on the implementation details), that I would prefer sort of a hybrid of 4e and 5e's rituals.

Move 99% of the non-combat stuff into Rituals. By default these cost one or both of expensive components and/or time. Anyone can use these. At most you could "level lock" them by putting them in tiers or levels like spell levels. No feat, just need to have acquired the knowledge from somewhere.

Then give casters bonuses to casting Rituals from a class-defined list. Or based on tags. Things like
* Can cast using spell slot, dropping the time cost to <smaller number like 1 action>. So anyone can cast dispel magic, but a wizard can do it fast (at the cost of a slot).
* Reduced prices on expensive components. So anyone can cast raise dead, but clerics can do it paying less than <umpteen billion gold>.
* Improved effectiveness. Anyone can cast speak with animals, but druids can push it to animal friendship.

You could make a Ritual Caster <Class> feat that emulates some of those bonuses while not being of that class. So a rogue with Ritual Caster <Wizard> could cast <Wizard> Rituals with some or all of the perks a real wizard could. Not the "use spell slots for very fast casting" unless they had spell slots from another class, but maybe "cast this fast X times per day".

Now everyone has access to utility magic, but casters do it better/faster/cheaper. While leaving combat room for casters and non-casters to use different resource structures.

Democratus
2021-01-25, 02:18 PM
I don't think there is a cost that could be high enough in any publishable RPG.

Even if you had a system where every wizard could cast only 10 spells, and the 10th one would kill them. I could just create a wizard, cast 10 spells, and then create a new wizard.

Rather than look for something to make spellcasting costly. I would rather see something that makes spellcasting interesting.

NigelWalmsley
2021-01-25, 03:02 PM
Having played 4e extensively, I can assure you this is not the case. They feel significantly different. Even classes within the same Role feel very different.

I think you would be hard-pressed to defend the claim that classes feel different compared to 3e.


My argument was more along the lines that for me the interesting magic is near esclusively the noncombat portion.

I just don't think that's true at all. The combat minigame is the most detailed part of the game (there are not, for better or for worse, five books worth of social or exploration challenges), and the differences in how characters perform in that environment are quite meaningful. I don't think my experience (where combat has been the majority of the majority of D&D sessions I've played) is atypical.

That's not to say that non-combat magic is boring or anything, but frankly if you gave me the choice between "characters work basically the same in combat, but differently outside it" and "characters work differently in combat, but basically the same outside it" I would choose the latter in a heartbeat (at least for a D&D-like game). Having those abilities is important, but they don't need to be as different as combat abilities (as those take more screen time).


I find this "different power sources should have different resolution mechanics" to be an odd insistence. Not only do most games tend to have a unified underlying mechanic that various powers tend to engage similarly with

I don't think that's actually true. I mean, yeah, games mostly have a single RNG, but if you look at, say, Shadowrun, shooting a guy with a gun, hacking a computer network, calling up some spirits, and casting a spell all work pretty differently. It's not unusual for different characters to use different minigames.


but even in D&D I find it telling that academic laboratory magic, the innate powers of a bloodline, the primal forces of nature and channeling the power of the gods all run on the exact same system and nobody complains.

I mean they don't do that? Only Clerics and Druids use the same set of mechanics for casting, and even then there are clear differences between the classes.


Even if you had a system where every wizard could cast only 10 spells, and the 10th one would kill them. I could just create a wizard, cast 10 spells, and then create a new wizard.

That only makes certain kinds of costs unworkable. If backlash happens every time you cast a spell, but is generally survivable, you could have a cost to magic that people couldn't cheat (this is basically Shadowrun's Drain mechanic). It's certainly possible for magic to have a cost, it's just not clear to me that it's necessary.

Satinavian
2021-01-25, 04:02 PM
I just don't think that's true at all. The combat minigame is the most detailed part of the game (there are not, for better or for worse, five books worth of social or exploration challenges), and the differences in how characters perform in that environment are quite meaningful. I don't think my experience (where combat has been the majority of the majority of D&D sessions I've played) is atypical.
See, that is one of the main reasons i don't actually play D&D. Way too much emphasis on combat, way too litttle for everything else for what i consider ideal for a fantasy RPG.

At the moment i am active in 4 different groups using different systems for regular heroic fantasy settings. On average we get slightly less than one fight per session.

Segev
2021-01-25, 05:23 PM
Nope. They feel just as different from each other as 3e or 5e classes do. Just in different ways.

What I won't try to "defend" is that 4e classes are all configured for tactical battlemat play with tokens. It's within that context that they feel different. More than any other edition of D&D, it was optimized as a combat rule set. And a very specific way of playing combat at that.

OTOH that was the direction D&D had been going since 2e combat & tactics, so it's hardly surprising that Heinsoo would double down on it and try to make it work properly. What he didn't reckon with is grognard and sacred cow power.

I get annoyed when "it doesn't actually feel like D&D" is dismissed as "grognard and sacred cow power." If you're going to dismiss any criticism based on how the new system or settings are designed that way, they could make "D&D" be a collectable card game that exactly mimics Magic: the Gathering's mechanics, and anybody who complains that it's "not D&D" would be equally dismissed as "grognards" who are wedded to "sacred cows" like being able to play characters, or having character classes, or the game having a DM.

Or you could have made 4e to be what Gloomhaven is, and claimed that anybody who doesn't like it is just a grognard wedded to sacred cows.

4e is a well-balanced tactical game. I imagine it does invite differing tactics. It doesn't invite much in the way of characters who feel like they do different things, to my experience. I feel like I'm playing the same class, just with different choices made about which features I'll pick up. More like playing different Vigilante archetypes in PF than like playing a cleric vs. a ranger vs. a monk.

I will agree that 4e would be easily recognized as a fantasy RPG, and that it could even get criticized, if made by a third party, as "a D&D-clone," but most of its defenders then would be rabidly denying that it's a D&D clone on the basis of how radically the system was altered and how the class design is so much better balanced for the combat/tactical game. I think it a fair criticism or comment that "4e is a very well-balanced and perfectly fine fantasy combat simulator that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike D&D."


Ranting on 4e aside, though, it definitely does exemplify that you don't need a "cost of magic" beyond opportunity cost and resource management to have a well-balanced magic system that stands next to its non-magical counterparts. But it kind-of fails on the other front because, in order to do this, it mostly just eliminates all difference between using magic and not using magic. This doesn't mean magic can't be balanced with non-magic, but it does mean it's harder if you don't take the cop-out of saying that whether you pick the lock or cast the knock spell, you do it by using an Encounter power to pick locks.

Pex
2021-01-25, 06:30 PM
I'm not dismissing it. It absolutely didn't feel like D&D. Because it didn't have the sacred cows any good grognard wants. It's an explanation, not a dismissal.

It didn't feel like D&D to me at all but I loved some of the innovations so I tried it, and found I loved it. Then I burnt out on the super heavy mechanical battlemat play. And then along came 5e. Which had some innovations I loved, so I tried it, and found I loved it. Story of a new edition for me. :smallsmile:

But long story short, it's not just not having sacred cows and that grognard feeling that is a totally fair objection point to 4e. Its tactical battlemat focus is also something that's not going to be for everyone. But classes were most definitely not all the same.

Ana analogy would be previously having a bunch of vegetables, then someone comes along with a bunch of fruits, and objecting that they're all the same. They're just a different kind of different, with a different set of common traits.

4E is one person has a green grape. Another has a red grape. That person has a white grape. Over here is a red grape with seeds. The 4E fans say, see? all different. The 4E critics say, see? they all have grapes. The critics have the better claim.

Segev
2021-01-25, 06:34 PM
I'm not dismissing it. It absolutely didn't feel like D&D. Because it didn't have the sacred cows any good grognard wants. It's an explanation, not a dismissal.

It didn't feel like D&D to me at all but I loved some of the innovations so I tried it, and found I loved it. Then I burnt out on the super heavy mechanical battlemat play. And then along came 5e. Which had some innovations I loved, so I tried it, and found I loved it. Story of a new edition for me. :smallsmile:Fair enough.


But long story short, it's not just not having sacred cows and that grognard feeling that is a totally fair objection point to 4e. Its tactical battlemat focus is also something that's not going to be for everyone. But classes were most definitely not all the same.

Ana analogy would be previously having a bunch of vegetables, then someone comes along with a bunch of fruits, and objecting that they're all the same. They're just a different kind of different, with a different set of common traits.

I'd say that 3e had fruits, vegetables, and candies, and 4e came along and just had fruits, then swore up and down that it still had candies and vegetables, too. You can make a perfectly fine dish with naught but fruits, but that doesn't replace the lack of vegetables and candies.

jjordan
2021-01-25, 06:46 PM
What is and what should be the cost of magic? In my opinion magic ought to be organized differently and more skill-based. I've argued that here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?616247-Making-Arcane-Magic-More-Difficult-pls-PEACH). But I also concluded that the magic system was too deeply embedded in the game, too many changes were needed.

Anonymouswizard
2021-01-25, 06:53 PM
4E is one person has a green grape. Another has a red grape. That person has a white grape. Over here is a red grape with seeds. The 4E fans say, see? all different. The 4E critics say, see? they all have grapes. The critics have the better claim.

Eh, it's closer to 'everybody has a fruit salad', there's likely grapes in there but not everybody's got apple or kiwifruit. Mine has guava, because I'm the weird guy who bought the 'American Plants' supplement.

Honestly? The difference between 4e classes is similar to the difference in spell lusts in 3e. People like to claim that 4e classes are the same, but if that's true the same can be said of the Cleric and Wizard spell lists. They even get a lot of spells that do the same things!


Honestly, 4e's problems are less to do with homogeny and more to do with crunchiness. Not to dsay that crunch is bad, but D&D4e made it next to impossible to build a mechanically simple character for much of it's run. And when it did it caused balance problems. Which isn't a massive problem if and of itself, but it turned away a certain kind of player.

Oh, and issues with a fast release schedule limiting playtesting, but we're getting further away from your complaint there.

I love Shadowrun, including the shopping step. But others don't. So I don't run Shadowrun 5e or 3e anymore, I run Shadiowrun Anarchy, where instead of buying individual pieces of cyberware I just buy a handful of 'amps' with a DIY sysrem.

NigelWalmsley
2021-01-25, 07:17 PM
Honestly? The difference between 4e classes is similar to the difference in spell lusts in 3e. People like to claim that 4e classes are the same, but if that's true the same can be said of the Cleric and Wizard spell lists. They even get a lot of spells that do the same things!

4e classes are vastly more similar than 3e class lists. Like, it's not even close. A third-string 3e caster like a Dread Necromancer or Wu Jen has a wider range of powers than anything in 4e.

I honestly don't get the insistence that 4e classes are actually super different. They just... aren't. You can build two Wizards who are more different from each other in 3e than it is possible for two 4e characters to be. That doesn't necessarily mean 4e's a bad game! Preferring simplicity is a reasonable stance. If you wanted to say that a centralized resource management mechanic is good, there are arguments for that. But the argument that ever single character using the same resource management system does not result in characters being more similar than not doing that is just facially absurd.

JNAProductions
2021-01-25, 07:24 PM
4e classes are vastly more similar than 3e class lists. Like, it's not even close. A third-string 3e caster like a Dread Necromancer or Wu Jen has a wider range of powers than anything in 4e.

I honestly don't get the insistence that 4e classes are actually super different. They just... aren't. You can build two Wizards who are more different from each other in 3e than it is possible for two 4e characters to be. That doesn't necessarily mean 4e's a bad game! Preferring simplicity is a reasonable stance. If you wanted to say that a centralized resource management mechanic is good, there are arguments for that. But the argument that ever single character using the same resource management system does not result in characters being more similar than not doing that is just facially absurd.

But no one claimed that...

People HAVE claimed that 4E characters are basically identical, even across classes. Which is false. You can get a bigger spread in 3.5, sure, but that comes at a pretty considerable cost in both complexity and balance.

You're not wrong to prefer 3.5 to 4E, or to dislike 4E entirely, or anything like that. But to say that 4E classes are basically identical is, at best, misguided.

Anonymouswizard
2021-01-25, 07:31 PM
I never said that the classes don't all use the same resource mechanic (although they don't, three out of four psionic classes use a slightly more flexible system, and essentials classes use a completely different system). I never said that 4e classes have more inherent diversity than 3.X classes. I said that there is as much overlap in the 3.5 spell lists as there are in the 4e power lists. Honestly there's probably a bit more overlap, but not enough that I'd casually notice.

Now there is less variety in 4e, bit not to the absurd degree that people claim. The four roles all benefit from different combat playstyles, each class throws some twists on how it executes it's role, and selecting different powers can make two characters of the same class feel different. Now 4e does focus on combat, and you can make arguments for and against that, but that's not the point I was arguing against. Oh, and skill challenges are a separate issue, b because apparently that one mechanic makes 4e more broken then Scion 1e.

The argument was that all variety in 4e is basically minor flavour. Which isn't true, it's just a bad reaction to 1) 4e not providing as much diversity as 3.X, and 2) an unfortunately aggressive marketing campaign. Which is the reason for the fruit salad analogy, yes there's a lot of similarities between one fruit salad and another, but if I make two fruit salads with different fruits eating them is going to be two different experiences.

Mechalich
2021-01-25, 09:08 PM
The argument regarding variety of abilities and resource management is only marginally relevant to the idea of the cost of magic.

It does matter in the sense that if you have different forms of magic they can have different costs in addition to working differently. This is actually quite common, settings often have a form of magic that is difficult to master but ultimately without cost, and form of magic that is easy, but will ultimately cost you everything (commonly, your soul). Star Wars is probably the most familiar example of this, but the idea of 'dark magic' appears in all sorts of sources.

Unfortunately this sort of thing is very tricky in games. For one, morality-based costs of magic are tricky generally because they rely on at least some moral consensus among the audience in order to function (the aforementioned Star Wars has fought fandom wars about this for decades). They also often rely on a very religious idea that what happens in this life is really only a test for the afterlife, which allows for systems where doing evil = increased power = increased suffering for the innocent and that's somehow okay because it's only the next life that matters. This is arguably even true in a setting like D&D, where an given person is likely to exist for far longer as a petitioner than they were alive, but it allows for a lot of really weird thinking that can get very disturbing (the Euthanatos, from Mage: the Ascension, possess a worldview whereby killing people can actually serve as salvation for the people you just murdered and well...that book has a lot of disclaimers in it for a reason).

Beyond that, it can be very difficult to manifest moral consequences in a game scenario. For one, many players simply don't care if bargaining for power makes their character horribly evil or that Asmodeus now owns the character's soul because they don't intend on that debt ever coming due during a campaign. For another, having a system where the GM is obligated to say 'doing X makes your character more evil' may be rather meaningless because the GM's ability to induce a player to active role-player character degradation is highly limited. This leads to scenarios wherein PCs accumulate an ever-growing number of dark side points or some other evil counters without changing their portrayal one iota until they cross some arbitrary numeric threshold and are suddenly turned into a NPC.

Lord Raziere
2021-01-25, 09:44 PM
yeah I generally don't even bother with those kinds of moral magic systems or see them as absurd. I just replayed KOTOR 1: I played my character as a selfish but reasonable smuggler who didn't much like the Jedi but didn't want the Sith destroying everything they loved either. they got nothing but dark side powers, mostly went back and forth on the middle end of the force alignment scale and was mostly grey at the end and making decisions based on what I thought was right rather than what the game thought was right was more fun than optimizing my light side points.....but was still an unambiguous hero in the end because the game wasn't programmed with any middle ending option so you can be the worst possible person in KOTOR 1, but if you choose light side at the last second when speaking to Bastila at a certain point? you'll be hailed as a hero despite using the dark side or taking a whole bunch of other corruptive options throughout the game. you can even make Bastila jealous of how well you stay to the lightside despite being dark side leaning but not fully mechanically. it was more fun than if I had been truly staying lightside the whole time because it proves the whole moral system absurd and unneeded. as long as I made the right important decisions, I could do whatever I want when it didn't count.

and sometimes I just want to play someone who has the dark aesthetics without any of the actual horrible things that come with y'know? I mean yeah sure, you can argue that actions should have consequences and being this thing should mean something and all that, but sometimes I just want to sith force lightning wookie slavers to death without a jedi moralizing me about the sanctity of life and state of my soul, is that so wrong?

Satinavian
2021-01-26, 02:23 AM
Unfortunately this sort of thing is very tricky in games. For one, morality-based costs of magic are tricky generally because they rely on at least some moral consensus among the audience in order to function (the aforementioned Star Wars has fought fandom wars about this for decades). They also often rely on a very religious idea that what happens in this life is really only a test for the afterlife, which allows for systems where doing evil = increased power = increased suffering for the innocent and that's somehow okay because it's only the next life that matters. This is arguably even true in a setting like D&D, where an given person is likely to exist for far longer as a petitioner than they were alive, but it allows for a lot of really weird thinking that can get very disturbing (the Euthanatos, from Mage: the Ascension, possess a worldview whereby killing people can actually serve as salvation for the people you just murdered and well...that book has a lot of disclaimers in it for a reason).

Beyond that, it can be very difficult to manifest moral consequences in a game scenario. For one, many players simply don't care if bargaining for power makes their character horribly evil or that Asmodeus now owns the character's soul because they don't intend on that debt ever coming due during a campaign. For another, having a system where the GM is obligated to say 'doing X makes your character more evil' may be rather meaningless because the GM's ability to induce a player to active role-player character degradation is highly limited. This leads to scenarios wherein PCs accumulate an ever-growing number of dark side points or some other evil counters without changing their portrayal one iota until they cross some arbitrary numeric threshold and are suddenly turned into a NPC.
Not sure about that. TDE has had "trade away your soul for extra power" for around three decades now and, while considering it more as an NPC option still provides rules for PCs doing since at least two decades.
And hardly ever any player does it, even if it mostly just presents some mechanical upgrade. It seems that the cost of your soul is something players want to avoid even without mechanical consequences.
As for "changing portrayal", there even is something as the system has drawback-rules for certain vices and selling your soul to some demon lord does mechanically increase the vice associated with that demon lord. So that is there. But there is no snowballing, no "more evil points for more bad behavior", no moral meter thing.


But as i said, that was originally designed for NPCs, it never was meant to be part of the magic system as such. It is just something demons do, power for your soul and that kind of power does not have to be particularly magical, you can just sell your sould to make your martial literally stronger.

kyoryu
2021-01-26, 09:59 AM
Nope. They feel just as different from each other as 3e or 5e classes do. Just in different ways.

4e classes feel different in terms of what impact they have on the battlefield, what choices they make on a turn-by-turn basis.

They do not feel different in terms of "what resources do I have to manage".

So it's a matter of where you're looking for differentiation.

That said, no, 4e does not allow the level of differentiation that 3e did. I don't think that was its goal. But there's a lot of daylight between that and "they're all exactly the same". The chassis/resource management bits are, for sure (see my first two lines).

ventoAureo
2021-01-26, 10:18 AM
Anyone mention Dungeon Crawl Classics yet? That system has a really interesting take on magic, imo. Basically, most spellcasting is Wild Magic in that the manifestation and spell effects of a spell vary entirely on your Spell Check roll. Unlike Vancian magic, you can cast all day long but if you roll a sufficiently low enough result on the spell table for your Spell Check, you'll lose the spell for the day. And losing the spell for the day is the best case scenario for magic going wrong. The spell might backfire, or inflict some sort of corruption upon your wizard.

There's also Mercurial Magic, which is an effect you roll for each time you learn a new spell. It affects your spellcasting of that spell, and essentially makes it so that, even if you and a fellow party member both know Magic Missile, you each cast it differently. And it's quite risky, too, since your casting of it might require for someone you know to die while your teammate's casting might physically or mentally corrupt them unless they sacrifice ability score points to negate this.

There's a lot of costs to using magic in DCC, basically, but rolling high and using Spellburn (the aforementioned sacrifice of ability points) means the pay-off can be huge even if you pay a price. Even so, Mercurial Magic, can shift things up when it comes into play, for better or for worse.

Cluedrew
2021-01-28, 10:23 PM
I did plan out a magic system that had an unusual cost for its magic system: your magic "skill" was also used as a penalty in other places. Where it is a penalty can really effect what the cost is. If it poisons your body take it away from your physical skills, if it twists your mind take it away from intellectual skills, if it separates your from other people take it away from social skills and if it leaves you open to the other world it reduces your magic defense. Whatever fits the setting.

As an aside its always weird to me when I see people complaining about 4th edition and can't help but think: "But isn't that every edition of Dungeons and Dragons?"

Quertus
2021-01-30, 10:46 PM
Eh, it's closer to 'everybody has a fruit salad', there's likely grapes in there but not everybody's got apple or kiwifruit. Mine has guava, because I'm the weird guy who bought the 'American Plants' supplement.


Now there is less variety in 4e, bit not to the absurd degree that people claim. The four roles all benefit from different combat playstyles, each class throws some twists on how it executes it's role, and selecting different powers can make two characters of the same class feel different. Now 4e does focus on combat,

The argument was that all variety in 4e is basically minor flavour. Which isn't true, it's just a bad reaction to 1) 4e not providing as much diversity as 3.X,

Which is the reason for the fruit salad analogy, yes there's a lot of similarities between one fruit salad and another, but if I make two fruit salads with different fruits eating them is going to be two different experiences.

I've only ever seen 4e characters as bland paste, of the sort that "Create Food and Water" would make.

Sure, *part* of that could be the focus on combat abilities, I guess. And *part* of that could be the samey nature of the recharge mechanics - even red box probably had more diversity than 4e, with tables, at will vs Vancian vs % chance vs stat roll. Yes, I recognize the statistical, mathematical similarities of several of those, but they still *felt* different.

And that's my point.

I simply can't see how 4e characters *feel* different, even viewed as a minis war game.

Terrans think, Protos plan, Zerg feel.

An Awesome will stand and deliver and care about people getting too close; a Jenner will race behind terrain to get close, then dodge and pray nothing hits it while running for its life.

But *how* do 4e characters feel different? What's the vector that I'm missing to describe the difference in taste between these two(+) fruit salads, when I'm used to describing the difference between pizza, steak, croutons, and ice cream?


Unfortunately this sort of thing is very tricky in games. For one, morality-based costs of magic are tricky generally because they rely on at least some moral consensus among the audience in order to function (the aforementioned Star Wars has fought fandom wars about this for decades).

Beyond that, it can be very difficult to manifest moral consequences in a game scenario. For another, having a system where the GM is obligated to say 'doing X makes your character more evil' may be rather meaningless because the GM's ability to induce a player to active role-player character degradation is highly limited. This leads to scenarios wherein PCs accumulate an ever-growing number of dark side points or some other evil counters without changing their portrayal one iota until they cross some arbitrary numeric threshold and are suddenly turned into a NPC.

Nobody roleplays becoming more Green when they take a Green action?

Or, alternately, you go out, get drunk, come home, and flame people on some other website. The next day, should we notice that your alignment has become more "flaming" because you took a "flaming" action?

I think that human psychology is a bit too complex for this simplification.


As an aside its always weird to me when I see people complaining about 4th edition and can't help but think: "But isn't that every edition of Dungeons and Dragons?"

Insert my obligatory commentary here :smallwink:

KineticDiplomat
2021-01-30, 11:44 PM
As a game design point, regardless of fiction, I strongly support hard costs on magic. Magic almost inevitably ends up more powerful than anything else in a system either through straight mechanics or because of “its MAGIC!” giving it vastly greater utility value than anything else.

If you try to constrain that with soft limits, you’re done for, because it’s a rare GM who will “get in the way of a player’s fun” even if said “fun” is miserably overpowered and negates entire swathes of core gameplay for other people.

The flip of which is when you don’t have hard costs, you try to balance magic by making somethings patently ridiculous, especially is directly measurable damage - of course you can be hit by lightning three to four times!

So let serious power come at a serious price, and make sure there’s consequences.

Because other wise you get D&D, and as we know, that’s a really crappy way to do magic.

Segev
2021-01-31, 12:56 AM
As a game design point, regardless of fiction, I strongly support hard costs on magic. Magic almost inevitably ends up more powerful than anything else in a system either through straight mechanics or because of “its MAGIC!” giving it vastly greater utility value than anything else.

If you try to constrain that with soft limits, you’re done for, because it’s a rare GM who will “get in the way of a player’s fun” even if said “fun” is miserably overpowered and negates entire swathes of core gameplay for other people.

The flip of which is when you don’t have hard costs, you try to balance magic by making somethings patently ridiculous, especially is directly measurable damage - of course you can be hit by lightning three to four times!

So let serious power come at a serious price, and make sure there’s consequences.

Because other wise you get D&D, and as we know, that’s a really crappy way to do magic.

Perhaps suggest some costs? That's what this thread is about. The only counterpoints to having costs so far have been how they tend to either be nothing but fluff, or tend to be so crippling that magic is unusable. So if you have ideas and suggestions that thread that needle, they'd be of interest.

Telok
2021-01-31, 01:15 AM
Perhaps suggest some costs? That's what this thread is about. The only counterpoints to having costs so far have been how they tend to either be nothing but fluff, or tend to be so crippling that magic is unusable. So if you have ideas and suggestions that thread that needle, they'd be of interest.

AD&D Haste, that worked. Or run it off some skills so one 'class' isn't able to be omnipotent, stick the ability to flex spells linked to raising the difficulty, and stick a penalty on rolling too well when casting. It works in other systems. Not going to happen in D&D these days though.

NigelWalmsley
2021-01-31, 01:48 AM
The flip of which is when you don’t have hard costs, you try to balance magic by making somethings patently ridiculous, especially is directly measurable damage - of course you can be hit by lightning three to four times!

Ridiculous: surviving multiple lightning bolts.
Not Ridiculous: shooting lightning from your fingers.

The problem here is not magic. It's the idea that entirely non-magical characters need to compete with people who have abilities with names like "Finger of Death" and "Apocalypse From The Sky". You're not going to solve it by giving magic a cost, because any cost large enough to make "a regular dude" a competitive option in that environment is going to make playing a spellcaster absolutely miserable (not to mention deeply unsatisfying for someone whose idea of a wizard is someone like Doctor Strange or Harry Potter).


AD&D Haste, that worked.

You mean the thing where using it aged you? Because I would not describe that as "working". It's like having an XP cost (already a problematic mechanic), except even worse because the disparity in outcomes is even starker. At least if you spend too much XP, you get to keep playing your character at all.

Lord Raziere
2021-01-31, 02:31 AM
Ridiculous: surviving multiple lightning bolts.
Not Ridiculous: shooting lightning from your fingers.

The problem here is not magic. It's the idea that entirely non-magical characters need to compete with people who have abilities with names like "Finger of Death" and "Apocalypse From The Sky". You're not going to solve it by giving magic a cost, because any cost large enough to make "a regular dude" a competitive option in that environment is going to make playing a spellcaster absolutely miserable (not to mention deeply unsatisfying for someone whose idea of a wizard is someone like Doctor Strange or Harry Potter).


No. both are ridiculous. some people just want the latter because it looks cool and thus ignore how its nonsense, which is how all fictional abilities work, magical or nonmagical.

On the flipside, the idea that magic needs to be superior or that any non-magical character needs to be a magic user in fluff to keep up is equally deeply unsatisfying to those want the martial equivalents of those things. if you can imagine hypothetical misery, perhaps you can apply such imagination to misery that already exists first?

also your continued use of "regular dude" is ignoring an excluded middle of highly competent nonmagical elites by insisting that the non-magical character in question is some mediocre incompetent and that any expression of competence is somehow magic.

Telok
2021-01-31, 03:20 AM
You mean the thing where using it aged you? Because I would not describe that as "working". It's like having an XP cost (already a problematic mechanic), except even worse because the disparity in outcomes is even starker. At least if you spend too much XP, you get to keep playing your character at all.

I mean the part where the hasted side got two turns to everyone else's one turn causing basically an auto-win that was offset by the ageing triggering a system shock roll. Mind, it was still a 70% survival rate even at 10 Con that increased to 88% at 14 Con and 95% at 16 Con, but still quite a risk. It was not your 'cast it 4 times a day because it barely does anything' sort of spell, being rather more hardcore and powerful than a mere fireball.

Anonymouswizard
2021-01-31, 03:23 AM
Didn't spells like Haste have a chance of killing you? I'm fairly certain magically aging a year forced a System Shock roll to avoid death.


I've only ever seen 4e characters as bland paste, of the sort that "Create Food and Water" would make.

Read the spell, you get actual, if bland, food items. Probably along the lines of some bread, unseasoned meat, and boiled vegetables. Or a bland stew and some bread.


But *how* do 4e characters feel different? What's the vector that I'm missing to describe the difference in taste between these two(+) fruit salads, when I'm used to describing the difference between pizza, steak, croutons, and ice cream?

Weirdly if this was actual food that might actually help you with describing the difference between two fruit salads. But I've done my best to explain, I'm not sure what else I could add.

Really, I'd just like 4e haters to realise that while the game isn't for them, other people do like it and sometimes for the very reasons they dislike it. And honestly the 4e fanbase is small enough that the likelihood of you being forced into a game is miniscule compared to other editions of D&D. There's no need to 'proove' that 4e is bland, broken, or anything else, WotC have already decided that well designed games aren't worth the effort and that they can just still us a half completed system that just looks a bit like the editions people liked. The 4e haters have won, there will never be actual design goals when writing new editions of D&D.

(Whether 4e should have been released as D&D is a separate issue.)

Pex
2021-01-31, 09:56 AM
No. both are ridiculous. some people just want the latter because it looks cool and thus ignore how its nonsense, which is how all fictional abilities work, magical or nonmagical.

On the flipside, the idea that magic needs to be superior or that any non-magical character needs to be a magic user in fluff to keep up is equally deeply unsatisfying to those want the martial equivalents of those things. if you can imagine hypothetical misery, perhaps you can apply such imagination to misery that already exists first?

also your continued use of "regular dude" is ignoring an excluded middle of highly competent nonmagical elites by insisting that the non-magical character in question is some mediocre incompetent and that any expression of competence is somehow magic.

Nothing he said suggested non-spellcasters must not have Nice Things. The point is the better solution is to raise the power level of non-spellcasters to that of the spellcasters. There's no harm in lowering the power level of spells a bit, if that's a problem (5E did in comparison to 3E), but making it absolutely miserable to play a spellcaster via the high cost of casting a spell, i.e. punishing the character for do doing what he's supposed to be doing, is not a viable a solution. Players wanting to feel like, as in the examples given Doctor Strange or Harry Potter, are not doing anything wrong.

The misery that already exists is some players are not feeling like they're Conan, Indiana Jones, or Tarzan when playing along side with Doctor Strange and Harry Potter. The solution is to get Conan, Indiana Jones, and Tarzan into the game, not forbid Doctor Strange and Harry Potter.

NigelWalmsley
2021-01-31, 10:13 AM
On the flipside, the idea that magic needs to be superior or that any non-magical character needs to be a magic user in fluff to keep up is equally deeply unsatisfying to those want the martial equivalents of those things. if you can imagine hypothetical misery, perhaps you can apply such imagination to misery that already exists first?

Magic doesn't have to be superior to non-magic. You could make magic weaker than or balanced with non-magic. But what you can't do is the reverse. There are magical characters that are balanced with non-magical ones. But there are also magical characters for which there aren't balanced non-magic characters. If your party is Doctor Strange, Caladan Brood, and Zorian, you're not going to fill in slot four with a non-magical character and get a balanced party. The best you can do is play a game of semantics and have the four character be someone like Ranger, who has abilities like "can cut things by thinking about cutting them" and "can cut holes between realities", but is nevertheless "not magic" because those abilities come from something that isn't called "magic" in-setting.


also your continued use of "regular dude" is ignoring an excluded middle of highly competent nonmagical elites by insisting that the non-magical character in question is some mediocre incompetent and that any expression of competence is somehow magic.

I'm ignoring the middle because it doesn't matter. We could go back and forth forever arguing about the exact point where competence stops being enough to compete with magic. But unless you want to argue that the point doesn't exist, the argument isn't worth having. Maybe it's Conan. Maybe it's Aragorn. Maybe it's Captain America. Maybe it's Logen Ninefingers. But does it really matter?


I mean the part where the hasted side got two turns to everyone else's one turn causing basically an auto-win that was offset by the ageing triggering a system shock roll. Mind, it was still a 70% survival rate even at 10 Con that increased to 88% at 14 Con and 95% at 16 Con, but still quite a risk. It was not your 'cast it 4 times a day because it barely does anything' sort of spell, being rather more hardcore and powerful than a mere fireball.

That still strikes me as absolutely terrible design. Having a 5% lose your character roll attached to an ability isn't really an interesting cost, and psychologically makes it very likely people will under-utilize the ability.


The 4e haters have won, there will never be actual design goals when writing new editions of D&D.

Have you ever listened to someone explain why they don't like 4e? It's not "because it had design goals". It's because it's a bad game. People don't dislike Skill Challenges because WotC laid out a bunch of targets for what they wanted them to do. They dislike them because WotC did that, missed those targets, then continued to miss them for iteration after iteration. Frankly, the worst thing about 4e is that it had this effect on the discourse. WotC made a bad, imbalanced game while talking a big game about balance, and now the entire TTRPG community is convinced that if you pursue balance as a design goal the only thing you can get is 4e. The reason people are still mad about the game is because it poisoned the well.

Anymage
2021-01-31, 10:44 AM
AD&D Haste, that worked. Or run it off some skills so one 'class' isn't able to be omnipotent, stick the ability to flex spells linked to raising the difficulty, and stick a penalty on rolling too well when casting. It works in other systems. Not going to happen in D&D these days though.

AD&D Haste being a "you're awesome, but there's a small chance of you being dead instead" is too swingy even if it would be considered balanced over an arbitrarily long run. A character having a significant boost to damage output or having it drop to zero can have a major impact on how the overall encounter plays out.

You did touch on one thing that would be nice to change if it wouldn't cause fan outrage. Wizards and clerics are catch-all classes that do get too many effects, and that breadth plus a relatively easy ability to swap around their powers makes them a balance nightmare even if every individual power was balanced. More tightly themed caster classes could still get impressive effects without being able to bring all the effects to bear.


Really, I'd just like 4e haters to realise that while the game isn't for them, other people do like it and sometimes for the very reasons they dislike it. And honestly the 4e fanbase is small enough that the likelihood of you being forced into a game is miniscule compared to other editions of D&D. There's no need to 'proove' that 4e is bland, broken, or anything else, WotC have already decided that well designed games aren't worth the effort and that they can just still us a half completed system that just looks a bit like the editions people liked. The 4e haters have won, there will never be actual design goals when writing new editions of D&D.

(Whether 4e should have been released as D&D is a separate issue.)

The part that grabs me is that most of the time, even systems I don't like might have bits that I do think are clever or useful and might want to apply elsewhere. Whatever else people might say 4e did try to break some new ground, and many of its ideas are interesting additions to 5e. (At least in theory. Hit dice, short rests, and the Ritual Caster feat get overlooked a lot in active play from what I've seen, but that's mostly stylistic inertia.)

Never mind that anyone who's ever played a miniatures game or MMORPG can tell you how you don't need radically different mechanics to make two different things feel distinct. The part where any discussion of any 4e mechanic brings out such knee-jerk reactions makes me wonder why you have haters who are so invested in it.

Edit:

Have you ever listened to someone explain why they don't like 4e? It's not "because it had design goals". It's because it's a bad game. People don't dislike Skill Challenges because WotC laid out a bunch of targets for what they wanted them to do. They dislike them because WotC did that, missed those targets, then continued to miss them for iteration after iteration. Frankly, the worst thing about 4e is that it had this effect on the discourse. WotC made a bad, imbalanced game while talking a big game about balance, and now the entire TTRPG community is convinced that if you pursue balance as a design goal the only thing you can get is 4e. The reason people are still mad about the game is because it poisoned the well.

There are a ton of legitimate criticisms for 4e. If anything, its first mention in this thread was how the ritual system was widely disliked, why that might have been, and what good and bad things we can learn about how to make magic balanced.

The criticism that did pop up here, and that tends to reflexively come up from the active 4e haters, was that it made all classes work the same. Which was a derail on top of being pointedly false. That goes beyond both "I tried it and didn't like it" and "meh, read it and it wasn't my thing".

Anonymouswizard
2021-01-31, 11:09 AM
Have you ever listened to someone explain why they don't like 4e?

Yes. I'm humourously suggesting that 5e had no design goals. Which isn't far from the truth, it's main design goal seems to have been 'throw things at the wall until people start liking it'.


It's not "because it had design goals". It's because it's a bad game.

No, it's because it's a game they dislike. There is a difference.


People don't dislike Skill Challenges because WotC laid out a bunch of targets for what they wanted them to do. They dislike them because WotC did that, missed those targets, then continued to miss them for iteration after iteration. Frankly, the worst thing about 4e is that it had this effect on the discourse. WotC made a bad, imbalanced game while talking a big game about balance, and now the entire TTRPG community is convinced that if you pursue balance as a design goal the only thing you can get is 4e. The reason people are still mad about the game is because it poisoned the well.

WotC also spent a lot of time during 4e errataring the game to improve balance, so I'd argue that they were putting their money where their mouth is on that one. Sure, for some things they never actually got there, but it got a little bit better every time and at least there was a goal.

Also, unpopular opinion: I know people who enjoy Monopoly, therefore Monopoly is not a bad game. I don't like Monopoly and so will ask not to pay it, but that doesn't mean I should tell them that Monopoly is broken.

And honestly, I've not seen it affect discussion in communities about other RPGs, in fact they seem to be able to discuss balance without it coming up. It seems to be limited to a certain RPG fandom, where some people can't accept that other people might enjoy a certain edition.


The part that grabs me is that most of the time, even systems I don't like might have bits that I do think are clever or useful and might want to apply elsewhere. Whatever else people might say 4e did try to break some new ground, and many of its ideas are interesting additions to 5e. (At least in theory. Hit dice, short rests, and the Ritual Caster feat get overlooked a lot in active play from what I've seen, but that's mostly stylistic inertia.)

Oh, there's some great stuff in 4e. Reworking everything to 'attacker rolls', healing surges, rituals and skill challenges (although both need a cleaning up to add some more functionality). Even just letting Fortitude, Reflex, and Will work off the better of two stats was a great change.


Never mind that anyone who's ever played a miniatures game or MMORPG can tell you how you don't need radically different mechanics to make two different things feel distinct. The part where any discussion of any 4e mechanic brings out such knee-jerk reactions makes me wonder why you have haters who are so invested in it.

I don't know, it made more sense when it was the active edition and you were not likely to find a game of it. But while it's legitimate to dislike a game, I don't know why it gets so stereotyped with so many attempts made to lump it into 'not a working RPG'.

Remember the discussion about how Skill Challenges meant that 4e was more broken than Scion 1e? I do, mainly because I got to laugh at how Eric Donner is a hilariously badly built gunfighter again. But yeah, apparently Skill Challenges are worse than Epic Attributes (max Epic Dexterity. Nobody will be able to hit you and you'll get a bunch of extra damage from a really good hit) and Fatebinding (did you roll a godly power? Make a roll to see if a mortal assumes a role in the story, but probably only for twenty four hours and while in your presence. By endgame you're doing this at least every turn in combat).

Segev
2021-01-31, 11:20 AM
There is a relatively common claim that gets named "the guy at the gym fallacy." That is, it doesn't count as nonmagical if it's too awesome. This leads to a claim that casters cannot be balanced against nonmages because players are expecting too much from casters and are by implication wanting to be too powerful.

This is an incorrect characterization of the situation.

What is being described as overpowered is high level play. What those saying they don't want their guy at the gym to have abilities they characterize as "too magical" is that they don't want to play in high level games. This is not a problem until they insist that the system is failing because it has levels above 5 or 10 or wherever they set the breakpoint.

The proper solution is to play games in the level range that gives them the power level they want. And to buff non-casters at higher levels without worrying that it is "magic" just because it's too over the top for a guy at the gym. Balance the levels of the classes and you can play your guy who is not too fantastic for your taste in games of a power level appropriate for them without demanding that the game simply not have more fantastic and powerful options.

JoeJ
2021-01-31, 12:47 PM
Magic doesn't have to be superior to non-magic. You could make magic weaker than or balanced with non-magic. But what you can't do is the reverse. There are magical characters that are balanced with non-magical ones. But there are also magical characters for which there aren't balanced non-magic characters. If your party is Doctor Strange, Caladan Brood, and Zorian, you're not going to fill in slot four with a non-magical character and get a balanced party.

Non-magical characters do not have to be ordinary. "Batman is just dead weight on this team alongside Green Lantern, Zatana, and Superman," said no comic writer ever. Just the opposite in fact - Batman is frequently going to be the one who actually ends the threat while the others run intereference. This is due to a combination of Batman being awesome, and the universe being such that any team of superheroes whatsoever will repeatedly find itself confronted by problems that require the abilities of all of them to resolve. Both of those factors can be present in a game just as easily as they can in a comic.

Pex
2021-01-31, 01:19 PM
4E having attacker always rolls is part of how classes seemed samey. Yes, even in 3E and 5E spellcasters have spells that you roll to hit, but having the defender make a saving throw is a change of mechanics that makes a difference. Having different mechanics for things is what makes classes different. Everyone using the same mechanic all the time every time is the sameness. Labels may be different (fire damage, martial damage, radiant damage), but that's cosmetics. Everything is roll to hit to do damage. That's being samey. That's what was boring, to me.

Segev
2021-01-31, 01:26 PM
Actually it's because the writers wrote it that way.

RPGs (ideally) don't depend on the DM writing them so that the less powerful are as useful as the overly powerful.

There's also a tendency for highly powerful supers to still have relatively narrow competencies. Dr. Strange can't hack a computer, or buy a space station, or deduce the key weakness to Darkseid's plan.

NigelWalmsley
2021-01-31, 01:44 PM
Also, unpopular opinion: I know people who enjoy Monopoly, therefore Monopoly is not a bad game. I don't like Monopoly and so will ask not to pay it, but that doesn't mean I should tell them that Monopoly is broken.

Why not? No one is saying "don't play Monopoly" or "don't play 4e". They're saying "these games have flaws". You know what? People say that about most games! People say 3e has flaws. 3e fans do not respond by loudly wondering why everyone spends so much time hating on 3e. They just continue liking 3e, because 3e is a good game and they don't feel the need to silence any haters to continue enjoying it. Similarly, if you tell a Shadowrun fan "hey, the Matrix rules are kind of a mess", the response is going to be "yeah, but the game is still worth playing", not "how dare you imply that the Matrix rules are bad!".


There is a relatively common claim that gets named "the guy at the gym fallacy." That is, it doesn't count as nonmagical if it's too awesome. This leads to a claim that casters cannot be balanced against nonmages because players are expecting too much from casters and are by implication wanting to be too powerful.

I think that's misstating things slightly. It's not that "it doesn't count as non-magical". It's not that "cut a hole into the faerie realm and use it to infiltrate the lich's fortress" is actually a non-magical ability and the people who think that getting it would change the Fighter are being unreasonable. That's totally a magical ability. You can call it something else, but that's just semantics. The people who want to play Fighters who do not get these kinds of abilities are not wrong when they say these abilities are magical. They are wrong when they insist that non-magical characters are viable in high-level play.


The proper solution is to play games in the level range that gives them the power level they want. And to buff non-casters at higher levels without worrying that it is "magic" just because it's too over the top for a guy at the gym. Balance the levels of the classes and you can play your guy who is not too fantastic for your taste in games of a power level appropriate for them without demanding that the game simply not have more fantastic and powerful options.

This is absolutely correct. The solution to the problem, fundamentally, is to only allow character concepts that are viable in whatever environment you're working in. If you're running a gritty noir game, don't let someone be Superman. If you're running an epic fantasy game, don't let someone be Conan. This, incidentally, was a problem that 4e actually had a very good idea for solving: tiers. If you require that people upgrade their character concept from "Fighter" to "Angelic Champion" at the level where it stops being viable to rely on hitting people with sticks, you solve a huge portion of the problems people attribute to casters.


Non-magical characters do not have to be ordinary. "Batman is just dead weight on this team alongside Green Lantern, Zatana, and Superman,"

Batman is not a non-magic character. Batman is an Artificer//Rogue gestalt. Again, you can totally have characters that use abilities that are not called "magic". They can have technological powers, or psionic powers, or any number of other things. But they have to have some kind of powers. Also: Batman absolutely does receive massive power boosts in teamup comics relative to his abilities in solo stories. Batman doesn't break out the Hellbat (https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Hellbat) when he's trying to take down the Riddler.

JoeJ
2021-01-31, 01:48 PM
RPGs (ideally) don't depend on the DM writing them so that the less powerful are as useful as the overly powerful.

What an odd idea. Why would you not expect the GM to create/choose adventures that are good fits for the people at their table? An adventure that is too easy, or too hard, or that doesn't allow all the players a roughly equal chance to shine is a bad adventure for that particular group (although it might be an ideal adventure for a differerernt group).



There's also a tendency for highly powerful supers to still have relatively narrow competencies. Dr. Strange can't hack a computer, or buy a space station, or deduce the key weakness to Darkseid's plan.

In a well designed game, that should naturally happen during character creation.

NigelWalmsley
2021-01-31, 01:56 PM
What an odd idea. Why would you not expect the GM to create/choose adventures that are good fits for the people at their table? An adventure that is too easy, or too hard, or that doesn't allow all the players a roughly equal chance to shine is a bad adventure for that particular group (although it might be an ideal adventure for a differerernt group).

The ability of the DM to tailor adventures to the PCs is not infinite. It's like the Simpsons Knightboat joke: yes, you can put a challenge that is reverse-engineered for every PC in every adventure. But it's better for everyone if PCs simply have ability sets that don't require you to do that. The game works better if the party is Superman, Doctor Strange, Green Lantern, and Iron Man than if it's Superman, Doctor Strange, Green Lantern, and Daredevil.

JoeJ
2021-01-31, 02:12 PM
The ability of the DM to tailor adventures to the PCs is not infinite. It's like the Simpsons Knightboat joke: yes, you can put a challenge that is reverse-engineered for every PC in every adventure. But it's better for everyone if PCs simply have ability sets that don't require you to do that. The game works better if the party is Superman, Doctor Strange, Green Lantern, and Iron Man than if it's Superman, Doctor Strange, Green Lantern, and Daredevil.

Um... no it doesn't. Neither one works better than the other. Wait. Which game do you mean, because I guess in some systems that would be true, but it's by no means a universal principle.

NigelWalmsley
2021-01-31, 02:34 PM
Um... no it doesn't. Neither one works better than the other. Wait. Which game do you mean, because I guess in some systems that would be true, but it's by no means a universal principle.

Why don't you tell me what system you think allows a character that requires contrived circumstances to be useful to not require contrivance to be useful. Don't make me tell you why you're wrong, tell me why you're right. Remember, the primary example here isn't even from a game, so it seems somewhat unlikely to me that you're going to make a compelling argument this is a system flaw.

Anonymouswizard
2021-01-31, 02:35 PM
4E having attacker always rolls is part of how classes seemed samey. Yes, even in 3E and 5E spellcasters have spells that you roll to hit, but having the defender make a saving throw is a change of mechanics that makes a difference. Having different mechanics for things is what makes classes different. Everyone using the same mechanic all the time every time is the sameness. Labels may be different (fire damage, martial damage, radiant damage), but that's cosmetics. Everything is roll to hit to do damage. That's being samey. That's what was boring, to me.

Because the rest of the 4e discussion is just going to go in circles:

I personally like it because 1) it streamlines mechanics, and 2) it makes it feel more like magic I'd based on user skill than enemy resilience, even mathematically it changes nothing. It's also just a little easier to grok for new players, which is why most games try to stick to dice+mods, try to get over TN.

On terms of variety, maybe I'm less concerned with mechanical variety because I've played multiple point but games where everybody bright a face. It's just not as important to me that my attacks work in a different to weapons.

MoiMagnus
2021-01-31, 03:23 PM
What an odd idea. Why would you not expect the GM to create/choose adventures that are good fits for the people at their table? An adventure that is too easy, or too hard, or that doesn't allow all the players a roughly equal chance to shine is a bad adventure for that particular group (although it might be an ideal adventure for a differerernt group).


Too much tailoring can be counterproductive. If the adventure is always perfectly fitted to the player's abilities, some players will feel like their choice at character creation don't matter. A player might want to be able to detect secret doors to access area he would not have access to if he didn't. But if the player doesn't take that ability, and that the DM simply make that secret doors not secret anymore to better fit the adventure to the PCs, doesn't that defeat the point of taking the ability to detect secret doors? It can last as an illusion of choice, but some players are particularly good at seeing through those illusions, and realise for example than taking a proficiency in disarming traps is actually a downgrade, as a tailor-DM will conveniently add traps that would not be there otherwise. Tailoring "on-the-fly" is even worse on this point, as the players might feel that winning or losing a battle is meaningless as the following one gets easier/harder to compensate.

It follows that some DMs will overcompensate, and flee away from tailoring the adventure to the table like if it was the plague.

Balance has too be found, and some DMs will inevitably fall to one of the extremes, or vehemently disagree on what is the good point of balance.

[EDIT: Note that in open-world kind of RPGs, the tailoring is done in part by the players themselves, that chose to engage with quests that they see fit to them, possibly investigating the available quests before accepting them to make sure they have a reasonable chance to win. The question of tailoring mostly happens when the players don't effectively chose the quests they engage on past session 0 where they agreed to join the campaign.]

Telok
2021-01-31, 04:14 PM
That still strikes me as absolutely terrible design. Having a 5% lose your character roll attached to an ability isn't really an interesting cost, and psychologically makes it very likely people will under-utilize the ability.

Ad&d haste is actually an interesting set of choices once you stop assuming that it fills the same role as fireball & lightning bolt, and don't feel like you have to constantly cast spells to be useful. You have to weigh your opportunity cost of memorizing haste against other spells, if you expected magic immune or magic resist monsters, weigh the chance of pc deaths to monsters vs the shock roll (which comes after the spell runs it's duration), and choose who you're going to hit with it. The spell is definitely not for people who want to spam damage spells.

It also came from an edition that assumed henchmen, hirelings, and adventurers having reputations. Your reputation for loyalty and attracting more followers could increase if you went through the effort of raising a henchman from death, even if it was your haste spell that technically killed him. If you were the type to make golems or raise skeletons they hasted just fine and didn't suffer the drawback.

It was a strong spell with a serious potential drawback that could be reduced with proper planning. It just dosen't fit with today's paradigm of spamming damage and magic never having any drawbacks.

Lord Raziere
2021-01-31, 04:15 PM
Magic doesn't have to be superior to non-magic. You could make magic weaker than or balanced with non-magic. But what you can't do is the reverse. There are magical characters that are balanced with non-magical ones. But there are also magical characters for which there aren't balanced non-magic characters. If your party is Doctor Strange, Caladan Brood, and Zorian, you're not going to fill in slot four with a non-magical character and get a balanced party. The best you can do is play a game of semantics and have the four character be someone like Ranger, who has abilities like "can cut things by thinking about cutting them" and "can cut holes between realities", but is nevertheless "not magic" because those abilities come from something that isn't called "magic" in-setting.

I'm ignoring the middle because it doesn't matter. We could go back and forth forever arguing about the exact point where competence stops being enough to compete with magic. But unless you want to argue that the point doesn't exist, the argument isn't worth having. Maybe it's Conan. Maybe it's Aragorn. Maybe it's Captain America. Maybe it's Logen Ninefingers. But does it really matter?


1. Its not semantics. If a setting something is or isn't something, it isn't that thing. Anything else is refusing to engage with the fiction. and if your not going to engage with the fiction, why are you playing? If a setting insists that someone can be badass and work alongside magical characters without having any themselves, that is that settings rules, its your fault if you can't grok it.

2. Yes it matters. It will always matter. Because I've had it up to here with "its all magic" meme, because sometimes the wizard looks like someone who is overreliant on magic and needs someone to take them down a peg, because the best kind of rebellion against a magical tyrant is an ironic one that ends with the wizard getting killed by mundane means because for all his planning and stupid assumption that somehow his magic will allow him to do anything because they bought into the even stupider assumption that magic is everything, because utopian tippyverses make me sick from their naivete and ridiculousness, because screw 3.5 god-casters/batman wizards, and screw ever being overshadowed by anyone just because they chose a "better" class which shouldn't even be a thing, screw any nonmagical character being retconned or fanoned into being magical, screw the very basic foundations of every assumption surrounding 3.5 wizards, because the last thing I want for any character concept is to be invalidated by saying its an entirely different antithetical concept just because someone somewhere can't wrap their head around Batman succeeding without an explanation that destroys the point of Batman. I will not stop arguing that the point shouldn't exist, because our imaginations do not need to be bound by magic to achieve wonder. the conception of magic you speak of is a limiting nonsensical idea that I do not want any part of.

Mechalich
2021-01-31, 06:38 PM
I'm ignoring the middle because it doesn't matter. We could go back and forth forever arguing about the exact point where competence stops being enough to compete with magic. But unless you want to argue that the point doesn't exist, the argument isn't worth having. Maybe it's Conan. Maybe it's Aragorn. Maybe it's Captain America. Maybe it's Logen Ninefingers. But does it really matter?


It matters in a specific mechanical sense. You can take a given system and model a completely non-magical character, or more likely several completely non-magical characters with different concepts, out to the edges of their capability both as the 'average build' and as the 'ideal build' and that provides you with a baseline to compare the magical characters against. This is important because the capabilities of non-magical characters vary significantly depending on things like technology level (D&D vs. d20 modern vs. Star Wars all give very different results), overall setting grittiness, shared basic character traits (in VtM the fact that everyone is a vampire and gets a basic vampire ability package makes a considerable difference compared to assuming everyone is a puny human), and even purely mechanical factors like how the RNG functions.

This is part of the nature of TTRPGs as a model systems issues. Different model systems behave differently and the breakpoint for human competence no longer matches magical capabilities will vary, sometimes quite significantly, between model systems. I mean, just between AD&D 2e and D&D 3.5 it varies drastically even though those systems are both nominally intended to support the same type of gameplay.

NigelWalmsley
2021-01-31, 06:45 PM
If the adventure is always perfectly fitted to the player's abilities, some players will feel like their choice at character creation don't matter.

That's the big thing. If someone builds a character that doesn't work in a certain kind of adventure, they probably aren't interested in that kind of adventure. You certainly can give Daredevil a critical role in an adventure where Thanos or Darkseid is the big bad if you contort the plot enough, but that's not going to make Daredevil's player happy. He rolled a street-level hero because he wants to do street-level heroics, not because he wants whatever skill the rest of the team of S-tier supes happens to not have to be blown up to world-saving status by contrivance. You can solve these kinds of mismatches by tailoring things enough, but even you somehow manage to avoid anyone noticing what you're doing, chances are that you're not fixing the problems people actually have.


Ad&d haste is actually an interesting set of choices once you stop assuming that it fills the same role as fireball & lightning bolt, and don't feel like you have to constantly cast spells to be useful.

If the game gives you a character concept of "does magic", and then expects you to figure out that you are not supposed to use magic to solve your problems, there's a design error in there somewhere. The Wizard should be casting spells, just like the Rogue should be sneaking around that the Paladin should be smiting evil-doers.


You have to weigh your opportunity cost of memorizing haste against other spells, if you expected magic immune or magic resist monsters, weigh the chance of pc deaths to monsters vs the shock roll (which comes after the spell runs it's duration), and choose who you're going to hit with it. The spell is definitely not for people who want to spam damage spells.

I understand that's the intent, but people largely do not behave that way. People are going to treat any chance of character death as unacceptable. Humans aren't perfectly rational, so just because a spell poses an interesting tradeoff from the standpoint of perfectly optimized play does not mean it's well-designed.


1. Its not semantics. If a setting something is or isn't something, it isn't that thing.

It is semantics. What labels the setting puts on things is exactly semantics. Insisting that abilities that are manifestly supernatural are meaningfully "not magic" just because they aren't in the spells section is just making the discussion more difficult. You need some general term for those kinds of things, and "magic" is as good as we're likely to get. And, ultimately, it's not actually helpful, because the thing that the "Fighters shouldn't be magic" side of the discussion wants isn't for Fighters to have a bunch of obviously magical abilities we all loudly insist aren't magic, it's for Fighters to not have those abilities at all, regardless of what they're called. Because, again, whether or not we call the abilities magic is semantics.


screw ever being overshadowed by anyone just because they chose a "better" class which shouldn't even be a thing

The way to make that not a thing is to allow all classes the same range of tools. The reason Wizards overshadow Fighters is that Wizards are allowed to have abilities that are magic and Fighters aren't.


the conception of magic you speak of is a limiting nonsensical idea that I do not want any part of.

The conception of "magic". I'm using is literally the least limiting one it is possible to have.

Lord Raziere
2021-01-31, 07:01 PM
It is semantics. What labels the setting puts on things is exactly semantics. Insisting that abilities that are manifestly supernatural are meaningfully "not magic" just because they aren't in the spells section is just making the discussion more difficult. You need some general term for those kinds of things, and "magic" is as good as we're likely to get. And, ultimately, it's not actually helpful, because the thing that the "Fighters shouldn't be magic" side of the discussion wants isn't for Fighters to have a bunch of obviously magical abilities we all loudly insist aren't magic, it's for Fighters to not have those abilities at all, regardless of what they're called. Because, again, whether or not we call the abilities magic is semantics.

The way to make that not a thing is to allow all classes the same range of tools. The reason Wizards overshadow Fighters is that Wizards are allowed to have abilities that are magic and Fighters aren't.

The conception of "magic". I'm using is literally the least limiting one it is possible to have.

1. No. It isn't. Whether something is supernatural is entirely setting dependent, and again if your denying that, your not respecting the setting. Magic is not a universal term, it refers to spellcasting, and continuing to insist that everything is magic will only continue to ensure wizard dominance by making people think only wizards have the right to define things in their favor, thus continuing to keep wizards strong in comparison to everyone else. it enforces the status quo that you claim to be against.

2. While I agree the same range of tools is needed, erasing the badass normal is no way to solve it.

3. No, superpowers is a much better term as it covers things outside magic. Its much more general.

NigelWalmsley
2021-01-31, 07:36 PM
1. No. It isn't. Whether something is supernatural is entirely setting dependent, and again if your denying that, your not respecting the setting.

Again, you are missing the point. You can call things whatever you want in-setting. That doesn't change the argument at hand, because the objection people have is not actually that these things are called "magic". The objection people have to giving the Fighter high-level abilities is what those abilities do, not what they are called.


Magic is not a universal term, it refers to spellcasting, and continuing to insist that everything is magic will only continue to ensure wizard dominance by making people think only wizards have the right to define things in their favor, thus continuing to keep wizards strong in comparison to everyone else. it enforces the status quo that you claim to be against.

What? I don't understand what you think the mechanism here is at all.


2. While I agree the same range of tools is needed, erasing the badass normal is no way to solve it.

The badass normal is the problem. There is no amount of "badass" your normal can be that beats The Lord Ruler, or Nicol Bolas, or whatever your favorite high-end villain is. At a certain power level, you need magic. It's fine to not want to play at that power level, but if you're going to do it, you need to have the tools to do so, and those tools are magic.


3. No, superpowers is a much better term as it covers things outside magic. Its much more general.

It's also from an entirely different genre, and would also exclude the badass normal by any reasonable definition of either term.

Pex
2021-01-31, 07:42 PM
Call it superpowers, but the argument remains. Some people don't want fighters to have superpowers, to always be Guy At The Gym, yet be the same game as the wizards who do and then complain the fighters can't keep up. Some people want the solution to be punish wizards for their super powers, such as a 5% chance your character dies every time you cast a particular spell, or otherwise make you wish you never casted the spell at all. The better solution is to give the fighter superpowers of his own and accept the concept at some point he's no longer just a Guy At The Gym. If you maintain you only ever want Guy At The Gym, then play the game where Someone Else also doesn't get super powers instead of playing the game Someone Else does and complaining about how dare that player have BadWrongFun of superpowers the game sucks.

Telok
2021-01-31, 07:55 PM
If the game gives you a character concept of "does magic", and then expects you to figure out that you are not supposed to use magic to solve your problems, there's a design error in there somewhere...

...understand that's the intent, but people largely do not behave that way. People are going to treat any chance of character death as unacceptable. Humans aren't perfectly rational, so just because a spell poses an interesting tradeoff from the standpoint of perfectly optimized play does not mean it's well-designed.

There aren't design errors in AD&D wizards or AD&D Haste, you just don't like that style of play. It's a "use the right spell in the right way at the right time = win" style, where you want a "all spells all the time" style. That's fine, it's different styles of play is all. But it's not any sort of error.

Anonymouswizard
2021-01-31, 08:09 PM
Some of us want hard caps on magicians' powers so that they don't outshine GymBro fighters. If there's no spell to control the weather then wizards just can't control the weather.

Another option is to let relatively reliable, cost-free spells be easy to access. I like the way Advanced Fighting Fantasy does this, just a single stat point and skill point gives you access to Minor Magic which gets a +6 bonus to casting, letting them easily grab a few utility spells. It doesn't help with the sheer power aspects, but can help mitigate some of the utility imbalances.

One thing that really annoys me are miscast tables, and how they tend to include results that'll kill the caster or worse the whole party. I'm fine with inconvenient, change my hair colour to neon pink, alter my sex, turn me into a toad for 2d6 minutes, but don't put in results that kill the caster, deal insane amounts of damage, or summon end game enemies. Yes, even Warhammer RPGs, because once I got a player to reroll because a) it would cause a TPK and b) I didn't have time to actually generate the daemonhost. And no I didn't have an unbound daemonhost lying around, the party were nowhere near that level.

Mechalich
2021-01-31, 08:14 PM
The badass normal is the problem. There is no amount of "badass" your normal can be that beats The Lord Ruler, or Nicol Bolas, or whatever your favorite high-end villain is. At a certain power level, you need magic. It's fine to not want to play at that power level, but if you're going to do it, you need to have the tools to do so, and those tools are magic.

I broadly agree. More specifically, the Badass Normal is sometimes useful as a literary device but doesn't function properly in the framework of a TTRPG. For example, the Badass Normal is useful to point out some sort of strategic oversight made by an entire mystical society because everyone is used to using their powers to solve problems in a specific way and they've collectively misses some alternative that's obvious to someone with a different approach. It's also a useful way to point out how a society might be overvaluing the capabilities of certain powers versus commonly available technology (for example, the ability of firearms to kill people compared to magical spells). However this sort of thing is based on leveraging oversights or misconceptions in a setting that a TTRPG cannot reasonably expect other players to have.

After all, one of the major reasons caster vs. non-caster balance issues are so severe is that the design team overvalued direct damage magic and undervalued certain utility and SoS/SoD spells. 'Blaster' wizards actually are marginally balanced against fighters, it's only when people reach into the rest of the toy box that everything falls apart. But, of course, people actually do that in play.

It's also important to differentiate between the actual Badass Normal (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassNormal) a character who legitimately does not have any abilities outside actual human limitations, and the character who claims to be normal but in fact has Charles Atlas Superpowers (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharlesAtlasSuperpower) out the wazoo (cough, Batman, cough). That's a ploy narrative works can pull, and in fact the average action movie is a master class in 'just how superhuman can we get away with making our protagonist without it becoming obvious' but TTRPG's can't do that because character abilities have to be represented on character sheets and a PC cannot do what they don't have the points/dots/skills to actually do.


Call it superpowers, but the argument remains. Some people don't want fighters to have superpowers, to always be Guy At The Gym, yet be the same game as the wizards who do and then complain the fighters can't keep up. Some people want the solution to be punish wizards for their super powers, such as a 5% chance your character dies every time you cast a particular spell, or otherwise make you wish you never casted the spell at all. The better solution is to give the fighter superpowers of his own and accept the concept at some point he's no longer just a Guy At The Gym. If you maintain you only ever want Guy At The Gym, then play the game where Someone Else also doesn't get super powers instead of playing the game Someone Else does and complaining about how dare that player have BadWrongFun of superpowers the game sucks.

What people want is a quasi-medieval fantasy world where wizards have phenomenal cosmic power. The problem is that those two things aren't really compatible, because if you give PCs phenomenal cosmic power they proceed to change the world, and if NPCs are assumed to have the same range of power as PCs, then they changed the world eons ago and you never had a quasi-medieval fantasy world in the first place. It's ultimately a world-building issue.

Now, it is absolutely acceptable - I cannot ever stress this enough - to say 'screw world-building consistency, this world works the way it does because it does, that's fantasy, GTFO!' There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, such settings, like the MCU, are among the most popular ever imagined. In tabletop the settings that are more or less willing to admit this, such as Planescape, are just fine too. Sure, you need to boost the Fighter's numbers for things to work, but you can ignore any downstream consequences from doing so.

A big part of the issue involves cognitive dissonance. For reasons that have to do with how the human brain works people are generally willing to accept completely made-up rules governing the blatantly impossible, but significantly less willing to understand made-up rules for phenomena they are nominally familiar with (here's Schlock Mercenary (https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2012-04-01) making this point with more humor than I can). So we get scenarios where you can allow a wizard enough power to effortlessly massacre an army of millions of guys with spears and no one bats an eye, but if you let a guy with a sword effortlessly do the same thing, people say 'hey wait a minute' and start thinking about the consequences.

NigelWalmsley
2021-01-31, 08:35 PM
Some of us want hard caps on magicians' powers so that they don't outshine GymBro fighters. If there's no spell to control the weather then wizards just can't control the weather.

Sure. As noted, it's totally fine to solve the problem by capping what magic can do. There are absolutely balance points where magic and non-magic are equal, and if you want the kinds of stories Lord Raziere appears to want, you can just play at those balance points. Conan is perfectly capable of beating up magic users and taking their lunch money, provided they're the magic users from Conan stories and not the magic users from elsewhere in the genre.


However this sort of thing is based on leveraging oversights or misconceptions in a setting that a TTRPG cannot reasonably expect other players to have.

It goes the other way too. It's not just that you can't expect the Wizard to misunderstand how good mundane options are, it's that you can't expect the Fighter to MacGyver together the right mundane fix. The things Badass Normals do are, largely, not things TTRPGs role-protect. In Avatar, you can have Sokka contribute by coming up with better plans than the rest of the Gaang. But in a TTRPG, there's no guarantee that the guy who played Sokka is going to have a better strategic mind than whoever's playing Aang or Katara or Toph.


After all, one of the major reasons caster vs. non-caster balance issues are so severe is that the design team overvalued direct damage magic and undervalued certain utility and SoS/SoD spells.

That's broadly correct, but I think you're misrepresenting the process a bit. It's less that they overvalued those things, and more that they didn't understand how hard HP bloat hit those characters. If HP/damage ratios were closer to what they are in AD&D, the imbalance (at least in combat) would be a lot less stark. You can see this at low levels, when HP numbers have not yet started to diverge from what they were in AD&D.

zlefin
2021-01-31, 09:42 PM
Reading this thread makes me ponder what the possible 'costs' of magic are in a gamist sense, and how best to classify those. i.e. setting aside the role-playing issues and world-building, and solely focusing on what costs can apply to the player that affect the utility of magic. perhaps building a tree that shows such, though I don't know how to code that here, and it's probably not optimal for readability. at any rate:

Loss of character - whatever the fluff reason, there's a drawback which means their char is gone. Typically a point-based accumulation or decline one when used.

Permanent penalty to char - net effect depends heavily on how character growth works and rubber-banding, eg in DnD 3.5, XP costs, while permanent, often aren't quite so bad due to increased xp gain for lower level chars.

Real world cost - not used in rpg rules; may appear in highly monetized videogames, and even then rarely.

Resource pool - depletes when used, various refill mechanisms exist with some quite significant gameplay differences.

Temporary penalty to char - lots of varieties again, with very different effects in practice.

opportunity cost - most notably the build costs, wherein getting magic takes up build resources which limit your ability to do other things. can also be about the degree to which it takes up turns in combat or other such things.


what am I missing, even with braod categories I doubt these cover everything.

Mechalich
2021-01-31, 10:09 PM
Reading this thread makes me ponder what the possible 'costs' of magic are in a gamist sense, and how best to classify those. i.e. setting aside the role-playing issues and world-building, and solely focusing on what costs can apply to the player that affect the utility of magic. perhaps building a tree that shows such, though I don't know how to code that here, and it's probably not optimal for readability. at any rate:

Loss of character - whatever the fluff reason, there's a drawback which means their char is gone. Typically a point-based accumulation or decline one when used.

Permanent penalty to char - net effect depends heavily on how character growth works and rubber-banding, eg in DnD 3.5, XP costs, while permanent, often aren't quite so bad due to increased xp gain for lower level chars.

Real world cost - not used in rpg rules; may appear in highly monetized videogames, and even then rarely.

Resource pool - depletes when used, various refill mechanisms exist with some quite significant gameplay differences.

Temporary penalty to char - lots of varieties again, with very different effects in practice.

opportunity cost - most notably the build costs, wherein getting magic takes up build resources which limit your ability to do other things. can also be about the degree to which it takes up turns in combat or other such things.


what am I missing, even with braod categories I doubt these cover everything.

The big ones that I would see as having the highest viability are Temporary Penalties and Opportunity Costs. Resource pools work well to measure the effects of magic but aren't a cost in themselves. They may be a mechanism for opportunity cost though. For example, if using magic requires you to spend points to buy up a 'mana pool' or something of that nature. Loss of character doesn't really work, it's far too costly to the player - the exception being allowing a character to nova in some act of massive self-sacrifice, but that's probably better handled as a fluff thing or GM ruling rather than part of the system. Permanent penalties are messy because they can create temporary inequalities and are generally difficult to balance or make relevant and they are also likely to produce choice paralysis in play.

I generally feel Opportunity Cost works best as a balance measure on the lower end of the magical power scale. The more powerful and flexible magic is in a given system the more likely it is to simply replace all other means of doing everything which tends to render any opportunity cost irrelevant. Any magical form that enables minionomancy, in particular, tends to override opportunity costs because minions can mitigate any deficiencies in builds. Opportunity Costs as bans are also an option, though they're tricky. D&D, for example, has long strictly limited the weapons available to wizards. However, this ban turns out to not be very useful because casting a spell is almost always a better option than using a weapon and tabletop struggles to facilitate enough encounters between rests to really run out the spell pool. Still there are cases were it could work. One could imagine an urban fantasy system were magic was opposed to technology and a 'wizard' couldn't use phones or the internet, which would be a truly substantial cost in the 21st century.

That leaves temporary penalties, which are going to be system specific because they depend on what sort of pools and stats and metagame currency a character has that can be manipulated in a temporary fashion.

NichG
2021-01-31, 10:10 PM
Reading this thread makes me ponder what the possible 'costs' of magic are in a gamist sense, and how best to classify those. i.e. setting aside the role-playing issues and world-building, and solely focusing on what costs can apply to the player that affect the utility of magic. perhaps building a tree that shows such, though I don't know how to code that here, and it's probably not optimal for readability. at any rate:

Loss of character - whatever the fluff reason, there's a drawback which means their char is gone. Typically a point-based accumulation or decline one when used.

Permanent penalty to char - net effect depends heavily on how character growth works and rubber-banding, eg in DnD 3.5, XP costs, while permanent, often aren't quite so bad due to increased xp gain for lower level chars.

Real world cost - not used in rpg rules; may appear in highly monetized videogames, and even then rarely.

Resource pool - depletes when used, various refill mechanisms exist with some quite significant gameplay differences.

Temporary penalty to char - lots of varieties again, with very different effects in practice.

opportunity cost - most notably the build costs, wherein getting magic takes up build resources which limit your ability to do other things. can also be about the degree to which it takes up turns in combat or other such things.


what am I missing, even with braod categories I doubt these cover everything.

One that can be important is meta-agency cost, which is that there are side-effects that remove future control of the direction of the story from the player in exchange for control in the present. For example, to cast magic you need to make a deal with a spirit or demon to do a favor for them, so as a consequence of what you do now there are future things you will have to do. Another example would be the defiler mechanics in Dark Sun - killing plant life around you may not have immediate mechanical harm, but it does limit your ability to pursue a goal of making a green Athas.

This can be game-mechanical if controlling the direction of evolution of the story or setting is something that is part of gameplay. Gain magic, but you may never aid the interests of Lord Sedgwick for the insults he committed against the spirits of hospitality. Now you can't pursue that faction, etc. Another example might be something like a Wish effect where it will not be genied at all and you get exactly what you intend without limits, but your greatest antagonist immediately receives a Wish of exactly the same level of power as whatever it is you asked for and a knowledge of the circumstances of that exchange.

It's a kind of opportunity cost I suppose, but it feels distinct in that you're losing agency over something outside of the character, rather than balancing a character budget.

Cluedrew
2021-01-31, 10:14 PM
I use fantastic abilities as opposed to superpowers or magic as it holds the least amount of genre connotations. Admittedly the reason it does is because it isn't a popular term.


what am I missing, even with braod categories I doubt these cover everything.Only thing I can think of right now are partial "Loss of character" where you don't loose the character but some restrictions are placed on them. Of course you could think of it as opportunity cost or a non-numerical penalty but I feel it doesn't quite fit those groups either.

Quertus
2021-01-31, 11:22 PM
Johnny, Timmy, and Spike encounter the 2e Haste spell.

Timmy: wow, this is so powerful! Yeah, there's a chance of failure, but when it works, it works *big*! What's not to love?

Spike: A chance to just die? This spell is simply unplayable.

Johnny: man, that's terrible to cast on your party. But it goes great with Undead or summons!

Quertus: what would it take to create a safe version of that spell?
Read the spell, you get actual, if bland, food items. Probably along the lines of some bread, unseasoned meat, and boiled vegetables. Or a bland stew and some bread.

Touché.


Yes. I'm humourously suggesting that 5e had no design goals.


Remember the discussion about how Skill Challenges meant that 4e was more broken than Scion 1e? I do, mainly because I got to laugh at how Eric Donner is a hilariously badly built gunfighter again. But yeah, apparently Skill Challenges are worse than Epic Attributes (max Epic Dexterity. Nobody will be able to hit you and you'll get a bunch of extra damage from a really good hit)

I'm glad that was good for a laugh. The world could use more laughter these days.

Now, you've used the words "design goals", so you presumably understand that basic concept, but do you grasp context? If I say, "this child's drawing fits better in an envelope than the original Sistine Chapel", you understand that as a different statement than, "this child's drawing is a better piece of art than the Sistine Chapel", right? You see that there's more words in that sentence than "child's drawing", "better", and "Sistine Chapel", right?

Because the point of that old conversation was responding to sometime who said, "4e met its design goals" with an example explicitly about how 4e had actual stated design goals, which they demonstrable failed to meet.

Scion Epic Dexterity is supposed to make you harder to hit. It succeeds at that goal.

4e skill challenges are supposed to get everyone to play the game. The Determinator says you're dumb if you allow anyone but the character(s) with the highest bonuses to touch the dice.

Thus, 4e skill challenges - by encouraging the exact opposite behavior from what they were intended to encourage - fail to meet their stated design goal much harder than Scion Epic Dexterity does.

For Epic Dexterity to fail that hard, it would need to read something like, "whenever you are attacked, get hit one additional time per point of Epic Dexterity".

There. Now, hopefully, we've shared a laugh in this thread, too.

However, my point in this thread wasn't to hate on 4e, but to see if the 4e fans could explain the beauty in 4e that I don't see. Sure, 4e fans have had their hands cut off (their edition killed off and laughed at), but that doesn't mean that the emperor can't ask them to explain the beauty of Jade when they keep going on about it.

But the response of "uh, I really can't" isn't exactly encouraging. It doesn't facilitate me liking Jade, or thinking that I was in any way wrong to reject it.


But while it's legitimate to dislike a game, I don't know why it gets so stereotyped with so many attempts made to lump it into 'not a working RPG'.

Have you considered, "because it's not an RPG"? :smalltongue:

Ogun
2021-02-01, 12:23 AM
I favor a system where spell effects cost fatigue or hit points.
The bigger the effect, the bigger the cost.
To add more uncertainty,instead of flat costs make use various sized dice.



I think the best kind if epic magic is the summoning of a thunderstorm or the release of demons or other things simply not explicable,nor inherently controllable.
These effects should cost more than any single caster can usually pay, leading to voluntary or involuntary cooperation, or ways to bolster aginst or mitigate the cost.

Below that scale, magic should offer something mundane methods do not, or it shouldn't cost anything.
If it's an offensive spell it should offer subtlety, range ,damage type or certainty that an arrow or a blade cannot.
Same goes for transportation or defenses.
Where it really should shine is in utility.
Becoming invisible or conversing with animals is beyond the bounds of reality.

I think mundane warriors should flex their epic via skill.
An arrow that fells a dragon is epic.
A rogue that scales a castle wall is epic.
A bard that sooths a savage beast is epic.
A ranger tracking a man across bare stones is epic.
Should a spell caster be able to duplicate these things?
Maybe, at a cost, one that keeps them from doing every shtick at once.

Should a barbarian be able to drop a meteor on a castle?
No, but if spell casters can do this,it better take all they got ,meaning they need their mundane allies to cover their ass afterwards.
You could give the barbarian hulk level strength and say its natural, but that sticks in a lot of craws, including mine.
Conan is strong enough to topple stone idols and burst free from chains, and that is plenty.
Hercules can divert rivers(how does being strong do that?)but he is demigod.
Most mundane heros are tricky, lucky and have a lot of mundane and/or supernatural help.
Actually thats covers most heros really.

Satinavian
2021-02-01, 02:41 AM
what am I missing, even with braod categories I doubt these cover everything.
There is also the use of rare ingredients you can only get via plot and GM.

It is not something to power everyday magic or basic character abilities, but some systems use it for all of the more powerful or longer lasting rituals. The idea is that you get a very limited, not refilling supply of potentially gamechanging magical moments and have to think very hard where to use it. Is the current plot even worth it ? Aree there other options ? Maybe you don't to use it for plot at all, but for downtime stuff and character background ?

One example that sits a bit on the line between this and resource pool is the Vis of Ars Magica, because you are expected to have sources for it.


Of course you could just say that falls under opportunity cost.

MoiMagnus
2021-02-01, 02:52 AM
I
No, but if spell casters can do this,it better take all they got ,meaning they need their mundane allies to cover their ass afterwards.


I'd add that this kind of "your turn to shine, my turn to shine" only works on TTRPGs that are fast paced enough. Rare are peoples willing to sit through a 2 hours long combat where they are useless because they expanded all their magic in the 5min scene just before.

Part of the problem of "the cost of magic" in DnD like games is that it mixes very badly with the long tactical fights some tables have.

Anonymouswizard
2021-02-01, 04:17 AM
Have you considered, "because it's not an RPG"? :smalltongue:

Yeah, if 4e isn't an RPG than no edition of Dungeons & Dragons is.

And despite what people like to claim, a clear focus on miniatures combat does not stop you from being an RPG. Especially when you also give more concrete mechanics (broken though they may be) for out of combat interactions than the next edition that doesn't get this claim made about it.

You don't like 4e, that's fine. But you don't have to complain about it's entirety whenever one mechanic is brought up. The parts of 4e we should be discussing in this thread should be rituals, the cost of combat powers (little beyond 'rest to recharge') and practically nothing else.

Ogun
2021-02-01, 11:02 AM
MoiMagnus, excellent point..

I think I would put the nova moment twards the end of a combat for that reason.
The best comparison I can make off hand is the stereotypical shadowrun.
The street samurai get the decker into position for the hack and protect him during it.
A decker can use a gun, wear armor ,etc, but increasing his combat skills has to mean reducing his decking skills, to maintain balance.
In the case if a spellcaster, if you nova as an alpha strike, you should be prepared to be underpowered in the rest of the battle.

I would say a lot of people who play noncasters don't really want to bring massive destruction in a single fell swoop.
Fight off an army?
Yeah.
Blow up an army with your sword?
No.
Those that do want to destroy an army with their sword or balance on clouds or stealth so hard they can walk right past the guards are already wanting to play magical characters, even if they don't want to play spellcasters.

If this is your style of play, spellcasters usually become a "more flexible at the cost of limited use" choice.
A ninja can disappear at will.
A spellcaster can make the entire party invisible, x number of times, at the cost of not doing something else with those resources.
If the spell caster can do anything anyone else can, without limitation, he is Superman and everyone else is Flash.
I think that's bad for cooperative storytelling.



I think spellcasters with costly magic work alongside mundane characters.
I think they work alongside fantastically powered characters, if you reduce their costs a bit.
DnD could make warriors, rogues , paladins, barbarians monsters, etc, magically powerful, but not nessisarily spellcasters.
A ranger talking to animals needn't be a modeled as him casting a spell.
Paladins calling mounts should be a thing, but not a spell.
Maybe druidical shape shifting shouldn't be a spell, ah wait it isn't, not by default.
Often spells already do something that we want non spellcasters to do, so we give them the spell along with the times per day limitations.
Invisibility for instance, is given to sneaky characters.
What if we reversed this?
Instead of giving the ninja type limited access to the Invisibility spell, what if the Invisibility spell made the target(s) as sneaky as a ninja, but only for a limited time?


Start with the noncasters, give them cool abilities , without spells, then let the spellcaster imitate, enhance, share or alter those abilities, along side magical effects that are unique to spells, if indeed there are any.
Its up to the creators, official and tableside to decide their own limits.
I don't want to play in a game where fighters can punch a hole into another dimension, but I can get behind ninja that walks through walls, if its a high level ability.

Side note on clerics and druids.
I think they shouldn't cast spells.
Prayers and blessings, curses, invocations, whatever but not casting spells.

Max_Killjoy
2021-02-01, 12:39 PM
Theme is difficult to enforce. The oWoD was supposed to be all about personal horror and degradation and the rode to destruction and so forth, but what people actually played was street-level supers who carried katanas under their trenchcoats. The design staff at WW got particularly cheesed about this and ended up in an active fight with a significant portion of the fanbase to the point of blowing up the setting and subsequently losing a very substantial portion of said fanbase in perpetuity, to the point that they went bankrupt in a very short timeframe thereafter.


Can confirm -- I was one of the those players who directly engaged with and infuriated the White Wolf crew with how I approached the game and a habit of laughing off their direct decrees that if we didn't munch on "personal horror" angstburgers we were "doing it wrong".




And it's hard to prevent subversion, of anything, in the TTRPG environment. Ironclad rules are difficult to write, especially as games continue to publish and rules accrete over time and interact with each other in various complex ways. 3.X D&D isn't supposed to have stacking metamagic reducers that allow the reduction of essentially all metamagic costs to nothing so casters can infinitely power-up their spells, but it does.

The cost of magic is an excellent device in storytelling, as it ties in with themes of sacrifice and scarcity and unwinnable conflicts. However such stories are difficult to tell in games, which tend to focus on escapist melodrama. Also because the distance between a player and PC is usually lower than that of a reader and a fictional character created by a third party the ability to actually make PCs suffer in meaningful ways while keeping the game going is limited.

You can design a game that explores these themes, but it's going to be very niche and require very mature players. That may be worth doing, certainly (in fact it's probably been done, effectively, in some game that hardly anyone knows), but it's a very specialized goal. Applying costs to magic is going to be ineffective in typical gameplay systems because it doesn't align with the actual goals of play and the actual maturity level people bring to the table (even very mature players often deliberately game in a distinctly childish fashion because they find it fun, sometimes to the point of outright trolling). So if you want to do a system that applies significant costs to the use of magic, and utilizes magic as a significant part of gameplay, you have utilize this as a central focus of the overall design.


One of the things that's bugged me about trends in RPGs for a while is this idea that they can be just like authorial fiction, despite being a very different medium. (See also, so many video game designers clearly being frustrated wannabe screenplay writers, directors, etc.)

Different media do different things better or worse, and trying to force an RPG to do what authorial fiction does is just a mistake.

As you say, unless a game is specialized, and the players all agree that they want what that game is offering, attempts at enforcing theme won't survive contact with actual gamers.

kyoryu
2021-02-01, 12:46 PM
One of the things that's bugged me about trends in RPGs for a while is this idea that they can be just like authorial fiction, despite being a very different medium. (See also, so many video game designers clearly being frustrated wannabe screenplay writers, directors, etc.)

Different media do different things better or worse, and trying to force an RPG to do what authorial fiction does is just a mistake.

As you say, unless a game is specialized, and the players all agree that they want what that game is offering, attempts at enforcing theme won't survive contact with actual gamers.

100%. Play to the strengths.

I do think RPGs can present things moment-to-moment like authorial fiction, but trying to get the same narrative arcs/etc. of them is difficult as best because... well, multiple people pursuing individual goals vs. a single author (or even a group of people working on a shared piece of fiction), not to mention the very linear RPG process compared to non-linear writing processes.

Max_Killjoy
2021-02-01, 01:12 PM
100%. Play to the strengths.

I do think RPGs can present things moment-to-moment like authorial fiction, but trying to get the same narrative arcs/etc. of them is difficult as best because... well, multiple people pursuing individual goals vs. a single author (or even a group of people working on a shared piece of fiction), not to mention the very linear RPG process compared to non-linear writing processes.


Yeap.

If the writer realizes that they've written themselves into a corner, or that their idea had unforeseen implications / consequences, they can go back and change other things, go in a different direction, etc. Changes are not retcons until the work has been published.

In RPG play, there are no drafts, it's on the table the moment it's done, and retroactive changes can't be hidden in the drafts.


Specific to this thread, that means RPG magic needs a lot more forethought and an established framework -- freeform magic runs the dual risks of "mother may I?" and establishing game-breaking precedents accidentally.

kyoryu
2021-02-01, 01:53 PM
Yeap.

If the writer realizes that they've written themselves into a corner, or that their idea had unforeseen implications / consequences, they can go back and change other things, go in a different direction, etc. Changes are not retcons until the work has been published.

In RPG play, there are no drafts, it's on the table the moment it's done, and retroactive changes can't be hidden in the drafts.

Specific to this thread, that means RPG magic needs a lot more forethought and an established framework -- freeform magic runs the dual risks of "mother may I?" and establishing game-breaking precedents accidentally.

First off, I really don't worry about "mother may I". If your table is reasonable, it's not a concern. If it is a concern, fix your table.

That said, a good example is the usual trope of meeting the bad guy early in some way shape or form. It works in fiction for a great number of reasons. It doesn't work in RPGs because if the players think that it's the bad guy they'll try to kill them early on - especially if it's a mastermind and not a combat monster.

In RPGs, the general best advice is "don't put anything on the board that you're not willing to use." And that's horrible advice for fiction.

Max_Killjoy
2021-02-01, 04:34 PM
First off, I really don't worry about "mother may I". If your table is reasonable, it's not a concern. If it is a concern, fix your table.

That said, a good example is the usual trope of meeting the bad guy early in some way shape or form. It works in fiction for a great number of reasons. It doesn't work in RPGs because if the players think that it's the bad guy they'll try to kill them early on - especially if it's a mastermind and not a combat monster.

In RPGs, the general best advice is "don't put anything on the board that you're not willing to use." And that's horrible advice for fiction.


Great example.

I don't want to go total derail, so... how to tie this back to the "cost of magic"...

kyoryu
2021-02-01, 04:53 PM
Great example.

I don't want to go total derail, so... how to tie this back to the "cost of magic"...

One of the interesting costs in fiction for magic is plot costs in some way.... you make some agreement that screws you down the road.

This is really hard to do in an RPG because of pesky agency concerns :)

Mechalich
2021-02-01, 06:05 PM
One of the interesting costs in fiction for magic is plot costs in some way.... you make some agreement that screws you down the road.

This is really hard to do in an RPG because of pesky agency concerns :)

It's also tricky because of continuity and attendance concerns. It cannot be assumed, in tabletop, that any given character will show up to any given session. The number of tables where every player makes every session is minute (in my experience the average table will be lucky to hit 80% attendance). Additionally, characters die and are replaced during campaigns even when their players make it to every session. Tagging a consequence for Act III of the campaign on character who is by no means guaranteed to even make it out of Act I is pretty pointless.

Games with significant power ramps, like D&D, also have the problem that any long-term consequence has a tendency to be grown out of relevance. 'The Half-Ogre crime lord vowed to take revenge upon us' might be a problem for a group of level 4 characters, but if they go to the dungeon and come back at level 8 (which could conceivably take under a week in in-universe time), suddenly that crime lord isn't a threat any more.

MoiMagnus
2021-02-02, 03:48 AM
It cannot be assumed, in tabletop, that any given character will show up to any given session. The number of tables where every player makes every session is minute (in my experience the average table will be lucky to hit 80% attendance).


That's very population dependent, and my experience strongly goes against it.

IME, you can assume that everyone will be there 80% of the sessions. Most tables I've been in would very rarely continue the campaign without everyone being present. Only exception being when one of the player is late but will eventually make it to the session, or when someone is known to be most likely absent for months in a row.

That does not mean that everyone will be there each time we say we meet, but we have plenty of other activities to do (boardgames, experimental one-session-TTRPGs, etc) if not everyone is here.

ezekielraiden
2021-02-02, 05:45 AM
My experience is the same as MoiMagnus'. As a DM, particularly for a small group of deeply narratively-important characters, if we have someone missing I'm very likely to just call the session off. If we do proceed, I try to keep it a shorter session that focuses on just what those two can do. There have been times where we simply, flat, could NOT continue without a specific player present, and I'm okay with that. We're still able to have consistent sessions; we've had a couple weeks of absences recently due to the political turmoil here in the US, but prior to that it had been months since we'd skipped a single week.

Quertus
2021-02-05, 04:08 PM
First off, I really don't worry about "mother may I". If your table is reasonable, it's not a concern. If it is a concern, fix your table.

Less than 1% of the GMs I've played with (ie, exactly 1 out of more than 100) would I trust to handle "mother may I" situations well. Granted, that's because I have high standards, and not all of those GMs have been *tested* yet.

Point being, "fixing" GMs to live up to my standards is hard!


One of the interesting costs in fiction for magic is plot costs in some way.... you make some agreement that screws you down the road.

This is really hard to do in an RPG because of pesky agency concerns :)

I mean, you borrow money from / get a favor from Vinnie. Later on… maybe you can pay him back, maybe you can't. Agency to tell the story of it causing you problems… or not. More possible stories, not less.

So, for this thread, the "cost" of magic would be *either* the bad thing that happened, *or* the steps that the character took to prevent those consequences.

Or both. Care for an egg?


It's also tricky because of continuity and attendance concerns. It cannot be assumed, in tabletop, that any given character will show up to any given session. The number of tables where every player makes every session is minute (in my experience the average table will be lucky to hit 80% attendance). Additionally, characters die and are replaced during campaigns even when their players make it to every session. Tagging a consequence for Act III of the campaign on character who is by no means guaranteed to even make it out of Act I is pretty pointless.

Don't build such fragile plots. If you know that a player might be absent, either don't build an encounter that requires them, or don't have that encounter only able to trigger at one specific place & time. Devil's in the details, but Devils could show up *any time* to collect.

Although… "it's a good thing that my <absence> corresponds with the session that we're returning to Waterdeep - my character owes some people there some money. Just have her… off in the woods, pretending to be a Druid or something." … is a pretty good way to act in character while not sitting out a session.


Games with significant power ramps, like D&D, also have the problem that any long-term consequence has a tendency to be grown out of relevance. 'The Half-Ogre crime lord vowed to take revenge upon us' might be a problem for a group of level 4 characters, but if they go to the dungeon and come back at level 8 (which could conceivably take under a week in in-universe time), suddenly that crime lord isn't a threat any more.

I can just picture it: the PC "Warlock 1 / 'Cleric of my own awesomeness' 42" pats the devil on the head. "You may have wanted my soul last year in exchange for that initial power boost that let me kill the goblins to kill orcs to kill Ogres to kill… to kill Dragons to kill gods to kill Titans, but, clearly, one doesn't need a soul to conquer heaven, Hell, and everything in-between, and become the god of Monotheism and awesomeness."

Democratus
2021-02-08, 03:21 PM
Less than 1% of the GMs I've played with (ie, exactly 1 out of more than 100) would I trust to handle "mother may I" situations well.

That is very sad.

But I guess most of us have little control of the gamers in our local community.

kyoryu
2021-02-09, 10:17 AM
Less than 1% of the GMs I've played with (ie, exactly 1 out of more than 100) would I trust to handle "mother may I" situations well. Granted, that's because I have high standards, and not all of those GMs have been *tested* yet.

Point being, "fixing" GMs to live up to my standards is hard!

I suspect that's due to where you set the bar.

Is the bar "the GM comes up with a reasonable ruling that is not insane?" or is the bar "the GM always comes up with the ruling I would have?"

If the latter, then yes, you should avoid games that rely on GM adjudication and are more mechanically driven.

If the former, I find the vast majority of GMs do a decent job.

If you think the two are basically the same, then DEFINITELY play a game where as much is hard-ruled as possible.

Telok
2021-02-09, 11:15 AM
I suspect that's due to where you set the bar.

Is the bar "the GM comes up with a reasonable ruling that is not insane?" or is the bar "the GM always comes up with the ruling I would have?"

Two of the former, one of which is sometimes in the latter. Out of... ten-ish in my local area? So what's a 1 in 5 chance of not having npcs getting to vert jump their movement from a standing start when pcs have to use the rules, or stealth, or climbing, or roll for pants, or loot retcons, or speed of plot, or.....

On the plus side, it's definitely better odds of decent games than Quertus has.

Quertus
2021-02-09, 02:33 PM
I suspect that's due to where you set the bar.

Is the bar "the GM comes up with a reasonable ruling that is not insane?" or is the bar "the GM always comes up with the ruling I would have?"

If the latter, then yes, you should avoid games that rely on GM adjudication and are more mechanically driven.

If the former, I find the vast majority of GMs do a decent job.

If you think the two are basically the same, then DEFINITELY play a game where as much is hard-ruled as possible.

Hmmm… how's this: "less than 1% of the GM's I've gamed with do I trust to reasonably consistently return results that are not insane". Even that 1 GM I don't guarantee will *always* return results that are not insane.

My players often praised my ability to handle extemporaneous play, but they were wrong. I am *not* that 1 GM. Ask me for a ruling on something that I haven't studied (say, human insanity, or the results of sudden shifts in markets on unrelated industries), and I will likely either return an insane result, or, worse, an insidious one, the faults in which will not be noticed until much later, by which point they have likely poisoned the physics and the game.

Which is why I try not to make rulings. I try to follow the rules, and, if people think outside the box, I ask *them* what they hope to accomplish, how *they* think it will work… nudge them in the direction of the pattern and game balance of existing rules… and then inform them of things that they know that will make it work differently, and, if they still attempt, results that they notice that are different from their expectations based on unknowns that they couldn't directly observe. (Sometimes gated behind skill checks)

I crowd-source rulings outside my domains, and provide as much feedback as I can reasonably get away with.

I've only met one GM whom I trust to make rulings on their own with an acceptable degree of non-insanity and non-insidiousness.

I set the bar of "you didn't just make the world pants-on-head" pretty high.


Two of the former, one of which is sometimes in the latter. Out of... ten-ish in my local area? So what's a 1 in 5 chance of not having npcs getting to vert jump their movement from a standing start when pcs have to use the rules, or stealth, or climbing, or roll for pants, or loot retcons, or speed of plot, or.....

On the plus side, it's definitely better odds of decent games than Quertus has.

This is but one example of the type of thing that provokes my "distrust" response, yeah. But also things like "no, the multi-ton dragon doesn't sink your rowboat when it lands on it" or "the sweat from his feet allow him to walk on the hot lava without getting burned" (never mind that IRL that's 'coals', or that the lava was *flowing*, or…).

Note: even GMs who cannot handle sanity are still capable of fun games - especially if you either a) challenge their rulings, or b) keep them from making rulings in the first place.

Don't let them get away with breaking the rules - inform them in the clearest, strongest possible terms that such behavior as you described is unacceptable, and some can be taught to run decent games in spite of themselves.

Also note that not every GM I've had has been tested to produce my "trusted" status. For example, one GM (who knew the rules much better than I did - it was a point of pride for me the one (and only) time I was able to correct him on the rules) ran a great group where the table was always open for anyone to quote the rules on a subject… and I don't recall anyone doing anything truly "outside the box" in any of his games to actually *require* a ruling.

Actually… I used the 3.0 rules for mounted combat in one of his games. After the session, he asked me about it, and showed me how the 3.5 rules for mounted combat differed. I won't say that it completely ruined my character, but… I definitely needed to rework some of my strategies.

And, especially as a player, he often wouldn't bother correcting rules mistakes that he noticed, unless it happened repeatedly (3+ sessions). So I *suspect* that, if he ran a "mother may I" game, that he would rule as… inconsistently with reality as he thought he could hey away with in order to facilitate game play… until the lack of structure either drove him mad, or drove him to the dark side of railroad plots.

Anyway, yes, lots of terrible games, but also some good GMs, even if only 1 ever responded to being tested with sufficient sanity to be trusted to handle making rulings.

Segev
2021-02-09, 02:47 PM
"Not insane" generally means "not so blatantly wrong or flawed that your average movie-goer would immediately recognize it as wrong or game-breaking."

Quertus
2021-02-10, 01:44 AM
"Not insane" generally means "not so blatantly wrong or flawed that your average movie-goer would immediately recognize it as wrong or game-breaking."

I edited my post, adding in new terms (like "insidious") to clarify my actual meaning.

Better?

Segev
2021-02-10, 12:36 PM
I edited my post, adding in new terms (like "insidious") to clarify my actual meaning.

Better?

A bit. I still think you're confusing what a ruling is. A ruling is a call made when the rules don't cover something, or when the rules are leading to a seemingly-oddball result that doesn't match what they're trying to model. Your notion of asking players what they're trying to do is a good one, but in the end, you'll ultimately have to rule as to whether it's possible and how to achieve it, even if that's just saying, "Ah, the rules for that are...."

Quertus
2021-02-10, 06:46 PM
A bit. I still think you're confusing what a ruling is. A ruling is a call made when the rules don't cover something, or when the rules are leading to a seemingly-oddball result that doesn't match what they're trying to model. Your notion of asking players what they're trying to do is a good one, but in the end, you'll ultimately have to rule as to whether it's possible and how to achieve it, even if that's just saying, "Ah, the rules for that are...."

You've lost me. Or I've lost you. So let me try again, in a different format, and see where that gets us.

1)

A "ruling" includes creating new rules to handle situations not explicitly covered by the rules, or applying existing rules to situations that they were not explicitly created to cover. This generally comes from "outside the box" thinking / play.

"Trust" is a condition that has a prerequisite "tested".

Not all GMs I've played with have I observed "outside the rules" thinking from the players; thus, not all have I observed to make rulings.

Not all those GMs whom I have observed to make rulings have made a statistically significant number of rulings from which for me to discern a pattern.

Nonetheless, many GMs *have* made either numerous rulings, or, in making only a few rulings, have have demonstrated sufficient truly boneheaded rulings for me to classify them.

Of the over 100 GMs I've gamed with, exactly 1 has the "trusted" status with regards to rulings.

2)

I count myself among the 100+, not the 1.

Explicitly, I trust myself to *frequently* make bad rulings (at least outside my areas of expertise).

These bad rulings may be "insane" (immediately noticeable by unskilled individuals) or "insidious" (likely to go unnoticed until they poison the well).

Thus, I have developed elaborate rituals to *avoid* making rulings.

These rituals include "crowd sourcing the act" and "acting as 'the voice of the system' (or 'the advocate of the system')" during such scenarios.

3)

Rambling story about one of my GMs.

Attempts to predict how they *might* handle rulings based on their other behaviors.

-----

So… how about now? Hmmm…

4?) 2.5?)

Once a ruling has been created in committee and ratified by me, it is simply another rule, and I can, as a glorified rules engine, parse that rule in accordance with the game state.

-----

So, where does it feel like I am failing to understand the meaning of rulings now?

PhoenixPhyre
2021-02-10, 07:07 PM
Rulings involve all "does this apply here?" decisions, not just the "what do we do because there isn't a clear rule here. Some rulings are trivial. But games without rulings are board games. Or video games. And these only avoid it by having closed scenarios with "everything not explicitly allowed is forbidden." Which is a form of developer-set ruling. All other RPGs (at least) require active involvement of somebody. May not be a single "GM", but somebody has to say "this is the rule that matches these scenarios". Where those rules come from is rather irrelevant here--they could come from group consensus, they could come from some printed source, they could come ex nihilo. But rulings are applications of rules. All applications of rules.

kyoryu
2021-02-11, 11:17 AM
You've lost me. Or I've lost you. So let me try again, in a different format, and see where that gets us.

1)

A "ruling" includes creating new rules to handle situations not explicitly covered by the rules, or applying existing rules to situations that they were not explicitly created to cover. This generally comes from "outside the box" thinking / play.

I'm going to disagree.

In Fate, there are four actions - Attack, Defend, Create Advantage, and Overcome.

The results of these actions are never specified, though they have constraints on them. If you succeed at your defense, the opponent doesn't get what they want. If you succeed at an Overcome, some problem is removed at least at some level. If you succeed at Create Advantage, you somehow make the situation better for you.

These are all exceedingly vague, and can't be played "as-is".

Yet the game works, because the reality is that the "rules" there aren't rules - they're templates for rulings. Given an action (defined in the game world), the GM is supposed to tell the player what will happen on success or failure, determine the difficulty (if unopposed) and then let the dice decide (though there's slightly more than that).

There is no presumption that these will be codified, because the presumption is the next time a similar situation comes up it will be different enough to warrant another ruling.

And yet the game works. Maybe not for everyone, but a number of people really, really, really like it.

The "rules" that exist are explicitly created to handle categories of situations, yet they also require a certain amount of customization to actually be applied to any specific situation. But even then, the basic structure of the "templates" is expected to be followed.

I don't think this neatly fits into the "follow the rules until we find something we can't cover with the rules" scenario.

Quertus
2021-02-11, 03:25 PM
Rulings involve all "does this apply here?" decisions, not just the "what do we do because there isn't a clear rule here. Some rulings are trivial. But games without rulings are board games. Or video games. And these only avoid it by having closed scenarios with "everything not explicitly allowed is forbidden." Which is a form of developer-set ruling. All other RPGs (at least) require active involvement of somebody. May not be a single "GM", but somebody has to say "this is the rule that matches these scenarios". Where those rules come from is rather irrelevant here--they could come from group consensus, they could come from some printed source, they could come ex nihilo. But rulings are applications of rules. All applications of rules.

Player: "I attempt to grapple him."

GM: "that's clearly the 'ramming space ships in the warp' and 'spell research' rules. Roll 'Dex+pilot', and, after 2 weeks per CR, I'll tell you the result."

Player: "… you're insane."

I don't think that that GM would make my "Trusted" list. :smallamused:


I'm going to disagree.

In Fate, there are four actions - Attack, Defend, Create Advantage, and Overcome.

The results of these actions are never specified, though they have constraints on them. If you succeed at your defense, the opponent doesn't get what they want. If you succeed at an Overcome, some problem is removed at least at some level. If you succeed at Create Advantage, you somehow make the situation better for you.

These are all exceedingly vague, and can't be played "as-is".

Yet the game works, because the reality is that the "rules" there aren't rules - they're templates for rulings. Given an action (defined in the game world), the GM is supposed to tell the player what will happen on success or failure, determine the difficulty (if unopposed) and then let the dice decide (though there's slightly more than that).

There is no presumption that these will be codified, because the presumption is the next time a similar situation comes up it will be different enough to warrant another ruling.

And yet the game works. Maybe not for everyone, but a number of people really, really, really like it.

The "rules" that exist are explicitly created to handle categories of situations, yet they also require a certain amount of customization to actually be applied to any specific situation. But even then, the basic structure of the "templates" is expected to be followed.

I don't think this neatly fits into the "follow the rules until we find something we can't cover with the rules" scenario.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that either of you *disagree* with me - you may, however, both *misunderstand* me.

"A "ruling" includes creating new rules to handle situations not explicitly covered by the rules, or applying existing rules to situations that they were not explicitly created to cover."

Allow me to restate that thusly: "there are numerous possible types of rulings. One type - the type that I am discussing - involves creating new rules to handle situations not explicitly covered by the rules, or applying existing rules to situations that they were not explicitly created to cover."

As described, I would consider Fate to require constant rulings - and thus would feel uncomfortable playing it with a GM who was not Trusted to make good rulings.

Granted, Fate rulings might be easy mode rulings compared to the challenges my GMs typically face, like deciding the DC to notice obvious plot-centric features of the room that the PCs are actively searching for, or the DC to notice the Dragon right in front of them actively talking to the party, or how "Immunity to Fire" interacts with *this* fire damage, or deciding whether possessing the spheres listed in the rote are sufficient to allow a character to perform a spell straight out of the rule book.

And don't get me started on the GM who made a creature's Touch AC *better* than its regular AC.

I've… had a lot of really bad GMs. :smallfrown:

Pex
2021-02-12, 12:41 PM
My 2E days self puts a hand on your shoulder.

Lacco
2021-02-12, 03:37 PM
Player: "I attempt to grapple him."

GM: "that's clearly the 'ramming space ships in the warp' and 'spell research' rules. Roll 'Dex+pilot', and, after 2 weeks per CR, I'll tell you the result."

Player: "… you're insane."

GM: "You started it!"


And don't get me started on the GM who made a creature's Touch AC *better* than its regular AC.

A guy who never had to try touch a spear-wielding maniac, I'd guess...?

But I'd guess the correct answer is "the guy who thought armor makes you evade blows", because Touch AC - in this logic - serves to bypass the armor.

That has nothing to do with RL. But trying to apply RL to D&D, while definitely entertaining, is an exercise in futility - mainly due to the way it models combat.

And now back to the theoretical topic that existed aeons pages ago.



What should be the cost of magic?

I like to think about it in two separate parts - the price you pay for acquiring magic (not applicable for all systems - some allow magic without any additional price) and the cost of using it.

My rule of thumb on price is: "Anything the player is willing to pay". Market mechanism in its finest.

When you think about it, what would you - the player - sacrifice to be able to cast 1st level spell in real life? What about 5th level spells? At-will cantrips? Now, I know - the characters live in a different world. So the corrolary to the rule of thumb is "Whatever is appropriate for the world, especially when taking into account the overall power level". There needs to be a cost/price vs benefit ratio. The price you pay should provide you with advantage.

In a way, it seems easier to balance this in level-based systems, but I would disagree. We see the linear warriors/quadratic wizard issue in many level-based games. But I digress: balancing the martials with the magic users is a separate discussion.

Now back to the advantage provided: your investment should bring you ( = your character) a tangible benefit when compared against other characters that did not invest as much. How much should the difference be? This one depends mainly on the aesthetic/theme/setting/ruleset - oftentimes, rarity of such ability is used as balancing, although that is not the case of later editions of D&D as played (which basically is one of main reasons why "low magic" games have a stable demand). The price of gaining magic is equal to theoretical cost of other abilities in other classes - however, the curve of "price/benefit" ratio gets rather steep after few levels.

And this is still fine - even though I'd argue that the steeper the price/benefit curve increases, the higher the price should be.

An example of a really steep curve: a game where one character simply swings a sword and the other rearranges the alignment of stars to erase a whole country from the face of the world and its history. While I assume it is possible to maybe make such a game enjoyable, you would need a very interesting mechanic/world and rather tolerant group of players. But a steep price/benefit curve is not a problem by itself - because the weights can still be balanced using the cost of casting.

BTW, I think this is where many systems fall apart. Traditionally, a magic user comes with the baggage of not being able to handle a fight, being a glass cannon (until they become a mobile magical nuke launcher), with limited amount of spells and certain probability of failure. As we have seen in the past, not being able to actually cast the spell is not a cost - but it is a major point of contempt. Mainly due to player psychology - you do not want to fail at the one thing your character should do. Which is a good advice for game designers: failing should not lead to just "poof, nothing happens". But I digress again.

Many people here provided very nice ideas for costs that are not equal to these traditional four disadvantages, however, many of those could be tied to them (e.g. fatigue based systems are a variant for limiting amount of spell; casting times are limiting amount of spells that can be cast during one round + limiting the per-round-efficiency of a character in combat). Still, any cost that provides the tangible benefit to the player is widely acceptable - but as that often depends on subjective view of the world, communication, internal logic and consistency are key factors.

What the cost of magic definitely should bring to the table is the opportunity for in-character decisions. We see this with in D&D with the meticulous picking of correct spells. Is it a cost? Definitely - it provides limits & challenge - but players often do not see it as "punishment" or "cost" - but it is a cost for the character, while masquerading as a puzzle made for specific type of player (that is mostly drawn to the type of character). This is - in a way - cost done right. The player considers it an added value - and if not, they have the choice of going sorcerer!

So to provide a playable and enjoyabe magic with a cost, we need to provide the challenge/cost in such way, the player will get a choice, and provide alternatives. And while there needs to be a limit also to the choices (to keep the game from stopping completely every time the guy with spellbook has the initiative), the decision itself should have several levels (example: what to memorize, when to cast) - and while some may disagree with me, spells that contain additional choices in them (e.g. Summon Monster, Polymorph) seem to be rather popular (as they provide also versatility) kind.

What cost should there be? Now depending on mainly the aesthetic you are going for (e.g. high-magic-everybody-slings-fireballs-while-eating-magically-prepared-breakfast, low-magic-"there's almost no magic left", or something in between, to the left, or whatever) and the overall power level you are aiming with, I'd suggest not going with the "fluff only" approach. Not because it's "badwrongfun", but mainly because you are throwing away interesting decision point every time you avoid the cost itself.

To keep this at least partially readable, my personal favourites (for cost!) are:
- you need to balance your spellcasting and ability to suck enough mana from the surroundings (splitting a dice pool into two separate rolls - provides you with the option of casting carefully, going nova, or pacing yourself), or you end up taking Taint, which works as fatigue mechanic, but may - if you get enough of it - also provide some painful wounds, temporary disfigurement and worse,
- magic causes corruption, which - in the end - turns you into power-hungry-magic-infused-maniac (read: NPC) or destroys you; you can avoid it by limiting the power of your spells and casting slowly, but it also provides you with additional power the closer you get to the endgame - so there is actual incentive on going full on;
- words of power, which are dangerous on their own - speak them wrongly and the spell goes off in unpredictable, but mostly dangerous manner, the words themselves need to be found (rarity principle), and while stating them takes almost no time, if you want to do it proper, you need time and power - which can be provided either by having the word etched into a surface ('prepared') or siphoning mana for a long time; the words also need experimentation (because each word on their own works differently than when combined with other words into a sentence) and can not be easily formalized (inspired by the Correspondence from Fallen London, they burn anything they are etched in, so only rock & metal withstand the words); the system is inspired by this article (https://tsojcanth.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/whitebox20s-kinds-of-magic-eclectism-and-disciplines/) and is very WIP.

Anonymouswizard
2021-02-12, 06:32 PM
I've been reading Jackals, a game where cultures have a couple of mystic traditions who mostly don't have cross compatible spells, and the brief description of one tradition mentioned that as it's practitioners search for more and more knowledge they start to be pressured to leave, because the tradition's knowledge seeking philosophy is at odds with their rigid caste system. It got me thinking about if social stigmas (with associated penalties) could be a decent cost for magic.

I mean, the actual magic system isn't that interesting. Spells are learnt as skills, you can't poach spells from other traditions, and you have a relatively small number of magic points with which to fuel your spells (as well having to go up some of your ability to retaliate to attacks if casting in combat). Oh, and you have to give up two Traits to get access to it, which is a price but not a massive one. There's some twists in there, but it's all pretty standard. Just this one tradition and the note about how, unlike the others mentioned so far, they aren't actually liked and suggest from discrimination.

Pex
2021-02-13, 12:50 AM
I've been reading Jackals, a game where cultures have a couple of mystic traditions who mostly don't have cross compatible spells, and the brief description of one tradition mentioned that as it's practitioners search for more and more knowledge they start to be pressured to leave, because the tradition's knowledge seeking philosophy is at odds with their rigid caste system. It got me thinking about if social stigmas (with associated penalties) could be a decent cost for magic.

I mean, the actual magic system isn't that interesting. Spells are learnt as skills, you can't poach spells from other traditions, and you have a relatively small number of magic points with which to fuel your spells (as well having to go up some of your ability to retaliate to attacks if casting in combat). Oh, and you have to give up two Traits to get access to it, which is a price but not a massive one. There's some twists in there, but it's all pretty standard. Just this one tradition and the note about how, unlike the others mentioned so far, they aren't actually liked and suggest from discrimination.

That's world building which can work but not foolproof. The DM has a delicate balance to work with. The discrimination can't be so oppressive the player is frustrated and angry playing in the world, yet if there's no discrimination the player is casting his spells willy nilly with no cost at all. In game mechanics this is restrictive magic. Knowing and casting these spells means you may never know and cast other spells. That's what they did in 2E. A wizard specializing in Illusion could never cast Necromancy or Evocation spells. If that's acceptable then you can take out worldbuilding oppression of stigma as a means of balance. You can put it back in as a matter of culture. Now it's no longer a problem Country A hates you forever for casting specific spells while you remain in Country B where people like you and you're casting spells willy nilly. Going to Country A for a specific adventure arc is just play.

Mechalich
2021-02-13, 02:29 AM
I've been reading Jackals, a game where cultures have a couple of mystic traditions who mostly don't have cross compatible spells, and the brief description of one tradition mentioned that as it's practitioners search for more and more knowledge they start to be pressured to leave, because the tradition's knowledge seeking philosophy is at odds with their rigid caste system. It got me thinking about if social stigmas (with associated penalties) could be a decent cost for magic.

I mean, the actual magic system isn't that interesting. Spells are learnt as skills, you can't poach spells from other traditions, and you have a relatively small number of magic points with which to fuel your spells (as well having to go up some of your ability to retaliate to attacks if casting in combat). Oh, and you have to give up two Traits to get access to it, which is a price but not a massive one. There's some twists in there, but it's all pretty standard. Just this one tradition and the note about how, unlike the others mentioned so far, they aren't actually liked and suggest from discrimination.

Use of social stigma as a cost only works so long as said stigma doesn't cripple the society practicing it, because then it gets obliterated by some other culture that does not hold such prejudices (unless the culture exists in isolation or is global in scope, but those are special cases). Rejecting the practice of magic, in a fantasy scenario where magic is the primary path to power, is a great way to get your culture consigned to the dustbin of fictional history posthaste. This is a regrettably common worldbuilding error.

As such social stigma against magic users is only a truly useful mechanism if the magic system in question is either quite weak or has some other cost that actually serves to generate the stigma in the first place - like causing massive environmental degradation or swarms of demons to emerge from the earth or something.

Sneak Dog
2021-02-13, 10:12 AM
I've been reading Jackals, a game where cultures have a couple of mystic traditions who mostly don't have cross compatible spells, and the brief description of one tradition mentioned that as it's practitioners search for more and more knowledge they start to be pressured to leave, because the tradition's knowledge seeking philosophy is at odds with their rigid caste system. It got me thinking about if social stigmas (with associated penalties) could be a decent cost for magic.

I mean, the actual magic system isn't that interesting. Spells are learnt as skills, you can't poach spells from other traditions, and you have a relatively small number of magic points with which to fuel your spells (as well having to go up some of your ability to retaliate to attacks if casting in combat). Oh, and you have to give up two Traits to get access to it, which is a price but not a massive one. There's some twists in there, but it's all pretty standard. Just this one tradition and the note about how, unlike the others mentioned so far, they aren't actually liked and suggest from discrimination.

Given the original post's intentions, this requires a quote of Grod's Law:


Grod's Law: You cannot and should not balance bad mechanics by making them annoying to use.

Social stigmas are a nice aspect, but I wouldn't call it a cost. Just an interesting opportunity.

Segev
2021-02-13, 12:38 PM
One approach to "magic is exhausting" as a cost in 5e could be to make classes with the spellcasting feature have to use "gritty" rest rules, while everyone who has no Spellcasting feature can use normal rest rules. You can tweak this by deciding if half and third casters (e.g. rangers and eldritch knights) can bypass this, or Pact Magic makes you suffer this.

I don't know if it solves balance problems or makes a good and coherent setting, but it does make a "cost of magic" that is real but doesn't make it impossible to play.

Lacco
2021-02-13, 12:38 PM
Given the original post's intentions, this requires a quote of Grod's Law:

Social stigmas are a nice aspect, but I wouldn't call it a cost. Just an interesting opportunity.

I'd like to hear Grod's opinion, but I think this is not a correct application.

While social stigmas may be used as annoyance (almost anything can be used as annoyance when you put your mind to it), social stigma as a price tag attached to magic creates many opportunities for both roleplaying and interesting decisions - will you risk alienating your allies by using magic in front of them? Or will you keep your powers secret, possibly with further consequences (e.g. not using healing magic).

I'd assume "annoyance" would mean that if you have a feat that allows a 1st Level Character to cast Wish, but only if they sing a certain song (both player and character) without interruption, during full moon, while covered in nothing but blue paint and spending an extremely rare ingredient (GM fiat).

I'd go so far to state that any price/cost you attach to magic can be viewed by players as "annoyance" - after all, shouldn't everybody be allowed to cast all the spells they want at any time? Isn't "cost" of magic working as deterrent, costing the players their agency?

I do not think so. I still think it's a matter of price/cost versus benefit issue, which can also be a roleplaying boon, but for that it requires options and decisions.

Anonymouswizard
2021-02-13, 01:30 PM
Given the original post's intentions, this requires a quote of Grod's Law:



Social stigmas are a nice aspect, but I wouldn't call it a cost. Just an interesting opportunity.

As has been said, not really Grid's Law. Grid's Law would be having to roll dice equal to the spell level and determine the cube root of the total or else the spell doesn't work.

So yeah, what I'm getting is that social stigmas aren't worthwhile as a cost, but might be worthwhile as a differentiator of different magical styles, which is cool.

As to the 'it goes away if you leave', my view is that if you left you're now suffering from discrimination, as well as issues with the local mages (who's magic you might not even be able to learn). So you'd still have some kind of disadvantage.

But yeah, it's issues is probably that it's dependent on roleplay, and all the issues that come up there. As I learnt when I made a character who has to roll a 12 or less on 3d6 in order to lie.

Lacco
2021-02-14, 02:24 AM
I would say it's a worthwhile cost, but not a mechanical one unless you use social mechanics (e.g. each NPC has a relationship level - hatred/hostility/unfriendly/wary/neutral/interested/friendly/loving) and using magic without their previous knowledge makes you drop by two levels automatically unless you make a good case (and roll).

So definitely not a full cost for some games - but even the main cost for D&D magic (limited amount of spells & preselection) is not a full cost for games that use 5 minute adventuring day.

Also: all countries should have some negative results - seen a game which had setting with most countries sharing dislike/fear of magic. There were few that openly invited mages: one had a mandatory draft (especially for mages as special strike force), one put you into rigid hierarchy of druidic faith and required you use your abilities for their goals and one was basically a large magocratic cult focused on darker sides of magic and wanted to use you as a fuel.

One that had no strings attached was basically a region of anarchy with rule of strongest.

The cost was across the board but you had possibility to make a decision.

Leon
2021-02-14, 04:01 AM
It should have a failure state, much of the god like power that spells provide in a typical game of D&D have no negative to them aside from using a renewable over time slot. The two games I am in currently both have magic of sorts in them and its very powerful but it can go horribly wrong when you least need it to because the sources are fickle (the Warp and the Kami). In both having those "magic" users has overall been a boon but each time they cast you have to think is it worth the chance that this could go badly although even in failure its sometimes still helpful.

Pex
2021-02-14, 06:46 AM
It should have a failure state, much of the god like power that spells provide in a typical game of D&D have no negative to them aside from using a renewable over time slot. The two games I am in currently both have magic of sorts in them and its very powerful but it can go horribly wrong when you least need it to because the sources are fickle (the Warp and the Kami). In both having those "magic" users has overall been a boon but each time they cast you have to think is it worth the chance that this could go badly although even in failure its sometimes still helpful.

D&D spells have a failure state. You miss the attack roll or the monster makes its saving throws. That's all that is necessary. "Going horribly wrong" is vague. What exactly counts as going horribly wrong? Making you wish you never tried to cast the spell is not balancing.

Anymage
2021-02-14, 08:07 AM
D&D spells often have partial successes if the enemy saves, not to mention all the spells that simply work without any extra checks. The reliability of D&D magic is one of the things that makes it so troublesome.

Having said that, there's a lot of ground between "this should be able to fizzle more often so that magic is not more reliable than mundane means" and "your character can die/cause a TPK just because of one bad roll through the normal practice of what they're built to do".

Leon
2021-02-14, 08:38 AM
D&D spells have a failure state. You miss the attack roll or the monster makes its saving throws. That's all that is necessary. "Going horribly wrong" is vague. What exactly counts as going horribly wrong? Making you wish you never tried to cast the spell is not balancing.

A Miss is merely a miss, a minor inconvenience, going horribly wrong is a spell effect applying to the Whole area friend or foe or summoning a out of control creature at worst and on the lower end of the scale being an inconvenience a temporary debuff or affect or some other minor thing. Making you wish that you never cast the spell should be a worry that tampering with these forces could have consequences other than oh bugger a spell slot just got wasted.

InvisibleBison
2021-02-14, 08:42 AM
A Miss is merely a miss, a minor inconvenience, going horribly wrong is a spell effect applying to the Whole area friend or foe or summoning a out of control creature at worst and on the lower end of the scale being an inconvenience a temporary debuff or affect or some other minor thing. Making you wish that you never cast the spell should be a worry that tampering with these forces could have consequences other than oh bugger a spell slot just got wasted.

If your magic system is such that in the long run the party would be better off with no magic users, why don't you just not have a magic system at all?

Lord Raziere
2021-02-14, 10:09 AM
If your magic system is such that in the long run the party would be better off with no magic users, why don't you just not have a magic system at all?

Try telling that to any Rogue Trader campaign: those magic users are baked into the 40k setting and are vital to FTL travel and interstellar communication. even if you have no PCs that use that magic, you still need to have npc's that serve the function of navigator and astropath if your playing rogue trader, and the npcs are always weaker than your PC's, so the GM is under no obligation to make optimized versions of those characters that can make sure such vital roles are safe as possible. at least with PC casters in Rogue Trader you have control over the stats so you know how to minimize the chances of failure and can command anything truly important to be left to you so that some npc doesn't have to do it.

(of course such things are less of a concern in things that are not Rogue Trader: Dark Heresy is about as zero-to-hero as you get in 40k so your psyker is going to suck too much to be an astropath anyways, and is about the Inquisition so that psyker stuff is only your concern if the plot of week is investigating the ship your on, when your organization can pretty much commander/requisition any ship they want so its not as if you care if that specific ship gets blown up in the process of getting rid of heresy. Deathwatch is about space marines so you can ignore having a librarian because you'll probably be going around doing nothing but killing things like badasses anyways, Only War is about the ground-pounder efforts of the Imperial Guard so the Imperial Navy screwing up their job so you end up on a different warfront than your supposed to do is just tuesday, and if your playing Black Crusade your already crazy Chaos cultists out to destroy the Imperium, you don't care about protecting yourself from warp nonsense. you can still be a psyker in all of these however and they still provide some measure of utility, you just have to be sure to boost that willpower up as much as you can.)

Pex
2021-02-14, 10:38 AM
Try telling that to any Rogue Trader campaign: those magic users are baked into the 40k setting and are vital to FTL travel and interstellar communication. even if you have no PCs that use that magic, you still need to have npc's that serve the function of navigator and astropath if your playing rogue trader, and the npcs are always weaker than your PC's, so the GM is under no obligation to make optimized versions of those characters that can make sure such vital roles are safe as possible. at least with PC casters in Rogue Trader you have control over the stats so you know how to minimize the chances of failure and can command anything truly important to be left to you so that some npc doesn't have to do it.

(of course such things are less of a concern in things that are not Rogue Trader: Dark Heresy is about as zero-to-hero as you get in 40k so your psyker is going to suck too much to be an astropath anyways, and is about the Inquisition so that psyker stuff is only your concern if the plot of week is investigating the ship your on, when your organization can pretty much commander/requisition any ship they want so its not as if you care if that specific ship gets blown up in the process of getting rid of heresy. Deathwatch is about space marines so you can ignore having a librarian because you'll probably be going around doing nothing but killing things like badasses anyways, Only War is about the ground-pounder efforts of the Imperial Guard so the Imperial Navy screwing up their job so you end up on a different warfront than your supposed to do is just tuesday, and if your playing Black Crusade your already crazy Chaos cultists out to destroy the Imperium, you don't care about protecting yourself from warp nonsense. you can still be a psyker in all of these however and they still provide some measure of utility, you just have to be sure to boost that willpower up as much as you can.)

In GURPS rolling three sixes when casting a spell can summon a demon to kill you. 5E Wild Magic Sorcerers can randomly cast Fireball with the caster at ground zero. 2E Psionic characters can Disintegrate themselves to death at 3rd level and Metamorphose themselves to death at a later level. Magic systems exists where casting a spell risks killing yourself and/or party members. That doesn't make them a good idea.


A Miss is merely a miss, a minor inconvenience, going horribly wrong is a spell effect applying to the Whole area friend or foe or summoning a out of control creature at worst and on the lower end of the scale being an inconvenience a temporary debuff or affect or some other minor thing. Making you wish that you never cast the spell should be a worry that tampering with these forces could have consequences other than oh bugger a spell slot just got wasted.

A miss is not a minor inconvenience. It's a failure to affect the bad guys allowing them that one more round to hurt you and your party. That miss can be the death consequence of a character or the bad guy achieving the goal you're trying to prevent. You don't add insult to injury by punishing the player playing the game wishing he never bothered having a turn at all to play doing what he's supposed to be doing. If you absolutely can't stand a PC doing a Thing then don't have the Thing at all, not let the player do it and smack him around for the audacity of doing what you said he could.

Anonymouswizard
2021-02-14, 11:06 AM
To be fair to Warhammer RPGs, they A) make magic users a small proportion of the presenters character options, and B) hide the 'you are dead' type results in the latter half of a seconds table. Oh, and C) more recent versions tend to include the option to trade raw power for no chance of demons. It's fairly easy to get through a campaign without killing yourself than manyv attempts at such a system.

Magic Misfires should be related to the individual spell, and 'you die' style Misfires only at those spells which make sense. If I lose control of magic lightning then I'd fully believe it might ground itself through my heart.

Lord Raziere
2021-02-14, 11:20 AM
In GURPS rolling three sixes when casting a spell can summon a demon to kill you. 5E Wild Magic Sorcerers can randomly cast Fireball with the caster at ground zero. 2E Psionic characters can Disintegrate themselves to death at 3rd level and Metamorphose themselves to death at a later level. Magic systems exists where casting a spell risks killing yourself and/or party members. That doesn't make them a good idea.


Okay.

That doesn't matter. My point is that the magic system in question is apart of the setting, the fluff that the system is supposed to represent. you pick Rogue Trader that is what your signing up for. If you don't want magic systems that can kill you, don't play in settings that can have them kill you or don't select them as choice at character creation. Rogue Trader I'm just pointing out, is a case where the potential kill you wild magic is vital and baked into the setting and the two ship roles of Navigator and Astropath are vital components of being 40k space privateer because the first makes you get anywhere accurately, and the second makes sure you can send messages to the wider world. if the system didn't include the possibility of your character dying to magic system that canonically might kill them, you have to answer what makes the character so special as to be the exception in 40k, when no one is special or the exception in 40k, except the God-Emperor of Mankind.

like I'm not debating the bad idea part, because Warhammer 40k is a universe of bad ideas only getting progressively worse, but people choosing a bad idea and playing it out because they find it fun is something I'll defend, because the safe option isn't always the most fun or interesting one. not all of us like playing caution games where we have to keep checking each step for traps before we take them.

Lacco
2021-02-14, 03:12 PM
Making you wish you never tried to cast the spell is not balancing.

It's not, I agree.

That's why it's more about making a decision, not only about the one unlucky roll for the thing you do all the time.


If your magic system is such that in the long run the party would be better off with no magic users, why don't you just not have a magic system at all?

We are discussing folks that regularly dwelve into deadly, dangerous ruins that may or may not contain world-ending devices and artifacts, terrible monsters, horrifying adversaries and possibly an elder god or two. In the long run, they are doomed.

Now, sarcasm aside: it's a matter of personal preference. Do you make all decisions with the long run in view? I know I don't. But there may be such people. Those would not be mages - they would be druids. (Joooke!)

Let's assume that you have a character that wants power. Pure power, magic power, doesn't care where it comes from, how it looks like, just pure power. No care about the bystanders, safety or anything else, just the power. Would they be satisfied with 20% chance of blowing themselves up if they can 80% of the time blow half of the city up?

It's a personal preference.


A miss is not a minor inconvenience. It's a failure to affect the bad guys allowing them that one more round to hurt you and your party. That miss can be the death consequence of a character or the bad guy achieving the goal you're trying to prevent. You don't add insult to injury by punishing the player playing the game wishing he never bothered having a turn at all to play doing what he's supposed to be doing. If you absolutely can't stand a PC doing a Thing then don't have the Thing at all, not let the player do it and smack him around for the audacity of doing what you said he could.

I feel like you are looking at it from the viewpoint of D&D spellcasting system, where ther is almost no decision about the power of the spell once you cast it.

Like, you can't make your fireball smaller. Or bigger. It's just the way it is for your caster level (correct me if I'm wrong). And you can't cast "safer".

Imagine that you could - from a spell slot equal to 1 fireball spell - cast 3 smaller fireballs, 9 firebolts (no AOE)... or one meteor swarm - but for the last one you'd have to roll extremely well or it would be off its target (and if you roll badly, it'd land exactly on you). It would be your decision, with calculated risk. Maybe you'd play it safe most of the time, but you'd go for the "big bang" once in a while, especially when TPK is on the line.

The idea is not about punishment. It's about more choices, but for a price, instead of always going for the "most powerful".


people choosing a bad idea and playing it out because they find it fun is something I'll defend, because the safe option isn't always the most fun or interesting one. not all of us like playing caution games where we have to keep checking each step for traps before we take them.

I absolutely agree.

It's not "instult to injury" - it's the price you pay for all the times when you make their skeletons disappear out of their bodies, when you turn them to silly little squirrels and then turned yourself into a wolf to devour them, all the times when you wiped out sun from the sky and wiped cities out of existence.

It's your decision to go "all in" instead of taking the "safe way".

If the system doesn't give you this option, I think it's losing something.

Kapow
2021-02-15, 06:20 AM
First,
Sorry, that I started this thread and than didn't participate.
Life just hit me hard.

Second,
Lots and lots of really good arguments and ideas here, even in the derails. I can't possibly react to everything.


Back to the topic,

I realized early in the discussion, that, what I consider a cost of magic, may be hard to implement in a class- and level-based system.
All systems (with the exception of the Warhammer systems) I had in mind are point-buy and organic leveling.
So perhaps that's a big part of it?!

What I don't really get is the argument, that, if magic has a chance of failure, it makes mages "un-fun" to play, because the core-ability of the Archetype should just work.
The thief can fail at picking locks, the warrior can fail at hitting enemies, the face can fail at influencing people... Why should the mage be an exception?
Now, I don't say, that death, crippling injury and/or madness should be common consequences (or even at all).

That's why I do agree with the last few posts, that the possibility of balancing risk and result is needed, if you want to implement more serious costs.
In my experience, in most games, that is the case. You can find ways around the consequences like death, but at a cost.
That may be lower power, it may be investing more resources, e.g. skill points, or...
And here I think, that organic/point-buy leveling has it easier.
The cost of magic will be manifest, by either a great risk or by having not being able to invest in all the other stuff (skills, feats, special abilities...) you could get for your character building/developing ressources.

InvisibleBison
2021-02-15, 08:36 AM
What I don't really get is the argument, that, if magic has a chance of failure, it makes mages "un-fun" to play, because the core-ability of the Archetype should just work.
The thief can fail at picking locks, the warrior can fail at hitting enemies, the face can fail at influencing people... Why should the mage be an exception?
Now, I don't say, that death, crippling injury and/or madness should be common consequences (or even at all).

I think it's fine for magic to have a chance of failure. I just don't like the failure to be failing to actually cast the spell. The rogue can fail to pick locks, but she never fails to attempt to pick locks; the warrior can fail to hit enemies, but he never fails to swing his sword, the face can fail to influence people, but he never fails to speak with them. If the mage isn't to be an exception, his magic should always work, but sometimes fail to have the desired effect.

Xervous
2021-02-15, 10:12 AM
I think it's fine for magic to have a chance of failure. I just don't like the failure to be failing to actually cast the spell. The rogue can fail to pick locks, but she never fails to attempt to pick locks; the warrior can fail to hit enemies, but he never fails to swing his sword, the face can fail to influence people, but he never fails to speak with them. If the mage isn't to be an exception, his magic should always work, but sometimes fail to have the desired effect.

And by fail you mean come up short rather than take MightAsWellRerolld6 damage because lolrandom?

InvisibleBison
2021-02-15, 10:24 AM
And by fail you mean come up short rather than take MightAsWellRerolld6 damage because lolrandom?

Yeah, magic failing should be "The enemy dodged your firebolt" or "He resisted the mind control", not "You accidentally set yourself on fire" or "A giant demon appears and eats your face". Just like how a fighter failing is "You missed the enemy" and not "You accidentally stab yourself".

Max_Killjoy
2021-02-15, 11:43 AM
Yeah, magic failing should be "The enemy dodged your firebolt" or "He resisted the mind control", not "You accidentally set yourself on fire" or "A giant demon appears and eats your face". Just like how a fighter failing is "You missed the enemy" and not "You accidentally stab yourself".


Agreed.

To me, D&D doesn't feel like it has a good unified system for resisting / defending against magic. Saving throws are kinda a thing, but it feels like every spell has its own little ruleset including maybe rules for resisting or partially resisting.

Segev
2021-02-15, 12:27 PM
Agreed.

To me, D&D doesn't feel like it has a good unified system for resisting / defending against magic. Saving throws are kinda a thing, but it feels like every spell has its own little ruleset including maybe rules for resisting or partially resisting.

Eh. It uses one of three rule sets, all of which are pretty well-defined:

Attack roll
Save for none
Save for partial

At its most complex, it might have an attack roll with an additional save for another effect riding on it if the attack roll hits.

Composer99
2021-02-15, 01:40 PM
First,
Sorry, that I started this thread and than didn't participate.
Life just hit me hard.

Second,
Lots and lots of really good arguments and ideas here, even in the derails. I can't possibly react to everything.


Back to the topic,

I realized early in the discussion, that, what I consider a cost of magic, may be hard to implement in a class- and level-based system.
All systems (with the exception of the Warhammer systems) I had in mind are point-buy and organic leveling.
So perhaps that's a big part of it?!

What I don't really get is the argument, that, if magic has a chance of failure, it makes mages "un-fun" to play, because the core-ability of the Archetype should just work.
The thief can fail at picking locks, the warrior can fail at hitting enemies, the face can fail at influencing people... Why should the mage be an exception?
Now, I don't say, that death, crippling injury and/or madness should be common consequences (or even at all).

That's why I do agree with the last few posts, that the possibility of balancing risk and result is needed, if you want to implement more serious costs.
In my experience, in most games, that is the case. You can find ways around the consequences like death, but at a cost.
That may be lower power, it may be investing more resources, e.g. skill points, or...
And here I think, that organic/point-buy leveling has it easier.
The cost of magic will be manifest, by either a great risk or by having not being able to invest in all the other stuff (skills, feats, special abilities...) you could get for your character building/developing ressources.

So I think it might be helpful to try to define what sort of costs there might be to learning or using magic, in as system- and setting-agnostic a manner as we can.

Learning magic has, or can have:
- An opportunity cost, in the form of in-game time or system-level build resources your character spends learning how to use magic instead of learning how to do something else.
- An in-game resource cost - spending money to go to a magical academy, say,
- An in-game social cost - people known to be magic-users might be viewed with suspicion or hostility.

Using magic has, or can have:
- An opportunity cost. You used your game-mechanic time or activity unit to cast this spell, instead of casting that one or doing something non-magical, no backsies!
- An in-game or system-level resource cost, such as money spent on components, spell slots, and the like.
- Edit to add: A cost for overuse, insofar as this is distinct from a resource cost. (Overuse by running out of spell slots or going "OOM" (out of mana/magic points) is running out of resources, for instance.) This could be Strain/Drain/Taint, some sort of burn-out, all the way up to some kind of nasty end.
- A chance of failure or of an adverse effect, whether that's you missing your attack roll, your targets shrugging off the effect of your spells, you turning into a potted plant for 10 minutes, all the way up to your mind shattering, you exploding as a rift to another reality opens up, or you inadvertently summoning a TPK monster.
- An in-game social cost - people known to be magic-users might be viewed with suspicion or hostility, or casting particular spells or from particular categories of spell might be grounds for imprisonment or execution or tend to bring out torch-and-pitchfork-wielding mobs.

Depending on the game system and/or the setting/game world, these costs may or may not come across as "real" costs (which I started to try to define but struggled sufficiently with that I'm resorting to "you'll know them when you see them"). Also, I am sure there are other possible costs that I have left out.


When we start looking at different RPG systems and different settings with magic that have been represented in RPGs, we can see that there really is no sensible way to say what ought or ought not to be with respect to the costs of magic writ large, not only because of the enormous diversity of systems and settings, but also because different players and tables might have very different preferences.

Imagine a game using the magic of, say, the Harry Potter stories, contrasted with Call of Cthulhu. In one, magic is really quite ordinary in application, with a well-suited wand being all you need for almost all magic, both great and small. In the other, using magic means tinkering or playing with Things That Mortals Were Not Meant To Know, with almost inevitable mind-shattering results. In a Harry Potter game, you're meant to be a magic-user, and in Call of Cthulhu, you really shouldn't be messing with Things That Mortals Weren't Meant To Know at all, and the game rules are there to tell you what horrors lie in store for you if you do. In either game, it kind of defeats the purpose of playing in that setting to change the way magic works.

In a game like D&D 5e, most (all?) settings assume costs somewhere in between Harry Potter and Call of Cthulhu. Spell slots (or, in 4e, usage limits on powers) ensure that you can't spam insta-kill spells in D&D 5e the way you could spam the Killing Curse, and the base rules don't expect casting a spell entails risking permanent madness - mostly, there's a chance the spell will fail if you miss your attack or a target makes its save, and it's only when you're playing with wild magic that there's an off chance you'll blow up or whatnot (some specific spells, such as haste, contact other plane, or wish, notwithstanding).

Unlike Harry Potter or Call of Cthulhu, a game such as D&D encompasses a wide variety of settings. It would be nice if the game included more official support for different "cost structures", as it were, for learning or using magic, in the form of optional/variant rules in a DMG or supplement. Some settings in the game formally include alternate "cost structures", either intermittently (the occasional "dead magic" or "wild magic" zone in post-Time-of-Troubles Forgotten Realms, for instance) or permanently (Dark Sun). Or you could go the other way, much as 4e's at-wills and PF/5e's cantrips are less costly compared to older editions (Prestidigitation was once a 1st-level spell, for instance, and even in 3.X when it was a cantrip, you still had a slot cap). The default can't really be said to be either good or bad, as such - only satisfactory or unsatisfactory for players depending on their preferences.

Now, on top of all that, there's also the matter of how magical and non-magical characters and their capabilities, taken together, fit in with the game setting, or how they compare to one another with respect to game mechanics. In a Harry Potter game, playing a non-magical character is an intentional step down. In Call of Cthulhu, it's the other way 'round (there are enough ways for your sanity to be shattered without layering on trying to cast a spell on top of it, thank you very much!). In D&D 5e, I would say that the design intent is broadly (a) for a mix of magical and non-magical characters to form an adventuring party, with each member contributing roughly equally to the success of the group as a whole over a sufficiently large period of time, all else being equal, and (b) in any given formally-published module, for a mix of magical and non-magical characters whose exact composition cannot be guessed in advance to be able to successfully complete the module. How well 5e fulfills this intent is up for debate, and one's view on the matter might colour whether or how one thinks the D&D magic "cost structure" ought to be modified.

Pex
2021-02-15, 01:48 PM
First,
Sorry, that I started this thread and than didn't participate.
Life just hit me hard.

Second,
Lots and lots of really good arguments and ideas here, even in the derails. I can't possibly react to everything.


Back to the topic,

I realized early in the discussion, that, what I consider a cost of magic, may be hard to implement in a class- and level-based system.
All systems (with the exception of the Warhammer systems) I had in mind are point-buy and organic leveling.
So perhaps that's a big part of it?!

What I don't really get is the argument, that, if magic has a chance of failure, it makes mages "un-fun" to play, because the core-ability of the Archetype should just work.
The thief can fail at picking locks, the warrior can fail at hitting enemies, the face can fail at influencing people... Why should the mage be an exception?
Now, I don't say, that death, crippling injury and/or madness should be common consequences (or even at all).

That's why I do agree with the last few posts, that the possibility of balancing risk and result is needed, if you want to implement more serious costs.
In my experience, in most games, that is the case. You can find ways around the consequences like death, but at a cost.
That may be lower power, it may be investing more resources, e.g. skill points, or...
And here I think, that organic/point-buy leveling has it easier.
The cost of magic will be manifest, by either a great risk or by having not being able to invest in all the other stuff (skills, feats, special abilities...) you could get for your character building/developing ressources.

There's nothing wrong with magic failing. In D&D that's missing the attack roll or opponent makes the saving throw. In GURPS it's rolling above the target number. In Ars Magica it's rolling below the target number. That's not unfun. What's unfun is making the player miserable for doing what you said he could do. Cast a spell you die is not a fair balancing factor. Doesn't matter how mitigating you can make it by lowering the power. You said the player can do that high power big boom spell, he does it, and now he has to make a new character. That's the adding insult to injury. That's the unfun. If you don't want the player to do that high power big boom spell, then don't have it in the game at all.

Telok
2021-02-15, 02:24 PM
Yeah, magic failing should be "The enemy dodged your firebolt" or "He resisted the mind control", not "You accidentally set yourself on fire" or "A giant demon appears and eats your face". Just like how a fighter failing is "You missed the enemy" and not "You accidentally stab yourself".

I dunno. What's the difference between fighters missing a 2d6 attack 20% of the time and mages failing to cast a 2d6 damage spell 20% of the time?

Maybe you object to the mage only being able to cast 5/day and a 20% fail casting check and a 20% miss attack roll and a 20% save-negates from the target. But isn't that the same as fighters only getting to swing 5/day and miss 20% and armor negates it 20% and the opponent parries 20%?

D&D says something like "fireball 3/day, 8d6, about 4 targets, save for half", tho 4e was more like "fireball 1/fight, 6d6, about 4 targets, make attack rolls". Fireball vs. swording balance in D&D is predicated on fewer fireballs than swordings. If a game system is all at-will magic and no save for half how are you balancing fireballs against swords? Going "fireball at-will, 8d6, about 4 targets, no save" has obvious issues (not including stuff like 'Mage: the foo' games where everyone is a super powered caster). Trying to balance that against fighter 2d6 on 1 foe at a time calls for something like only being able to cast it once every 9 rounds or something. In that case the "roll to cast" is just shifting the fiction layer description without changing the mechanical outcome.

If there's no difference in the mechanics of effect between "roll skill to cast damage", "roll attack to inflict damage", and "roll save to avoid damage" then where's the issue? Is it just people wanting one style of fiction rather than the other?

Obviously a side effect system is different from this. I'm just talking the "roll to cast" bit here.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-02-15, 03:33 PM
I dunno. What's the difference between fighters missing a 2d6 attack 20% of the time and mages failing to cast a 2d6 damage spell 20% of the time?

Maybe you object to the mage only being able to cast 5/day and a 20% fail casting check and a 20% miss attack roll and a 20% save-negates from the target. But isn't that the same as fighters only getting to swing 5/day and miss 20% and armor negates it 20% and the opponent parries 20%?

D&D says something like "fireball 3/day, 8d6, about 4 targets, save for half", tho 4e was more like "fireball 1/fight, 6d6, about 4 targets, make attack rolls". Fireball vs. swording balance in D&D is predicated on fewer fireballs than swordings. If a game system is all at-will magic and no save for half how are you balancing fireballs against swords? Going "fireball at-will, 8d6, about 4 targets, no save" has obvious issues (not including stuff like 'Mage: the foo' games where everyone is a super powered caster). Trying to balance that against fighter 2d6 on 1 foe at a time calls for something like only being able to cast it once every 9 rounds or something. In that case the "roll to cast" is just shifting the fiction layer description without changing the mechanical outcome.

If there's no difference in the mechanics of effect between "roll skill to cast damage", "roll attack to inflict damage", and "roll save to avoid damage" then where's the issue? Is it just people wanting one style of fiction rather than the other?

Obviously a side effect system is different from this. I'm just talking the "roll to cast" bit here.

I don't "roll to cast" IFF all of the following are true
* The number of rolls-to-resolve (per target) is similar to doing something non-magical. If martials get "roll to attack", but on a success they deal damage, while casters get "roll to cast" + "enemy rolls to avoid", that's a problem. Or vice versa. Current D&D has a single roll-to-hit, so if you went all 4e and said that the attack rolls-to-hit on spells as well, I'd be ok with that.
* The resource usage is similar, modulated by effect size. If a caster has to roll to cast his basic attack spell plus using a resource on success or failure, while the martial only has to roll to hit (but doesn't spend a resource), both for similar effect sizes, that's a problem. And vice versa. So being able to cast at will (modulo rebalancing effect sizes) gated behind a skill check to cast might be ok. Or a spell slot + roll to cast, except you only spend the slot if you actually cast it successfully.
* Failure doesn't mean anything more than failure to get the result you want (and potentially burning a resource and/or time). Actively punishing the caster or especially the party for failing to cast means that the whole mechanic will either not get used or will get optimized to a binary--you only cast the spells you're guaranteed to succeed on. And in any case, table lookups are slow. Please don't make me do contingent lookups[1] every time someone casts a spell!

[1] ie doing different things based on the roll, such as "failed to cast == roll on table ABC to see what consequences happen", while "successfully cast == roll damage XYZ/impose effect ABC". That kind of flow-chart based logic burns table time and annoys me like nothing else.

Xervous
2021-02-15, 03:45 PM
[1] ie doing different things based on the roll, such as "failed to cast == roll on table ABC to see what consequences happen", while "successfully cast == roll damage XYZ/impose effect ABC". That kind of flow-chart based logic burns table time and annoys me like nothing else.

So something like PF2’s degrees of success on spells is a no go for you?

InvisibleBison
2021-02-15, 03:57 PM
I dunno. What's the difference between fighters missing a 2d6 attack 20% of the time and mages failing to cast a 2d6 damage spell 20% of the time?

There's no difference between these two mechanics. What you're describing is fine. What I've been objecting to is when failing to cast a spell has additional bad consequences beyond the spell not working.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-02-15, 05:13 PM
So something like PF2’s degrees of success on spells is a no go for you?

Depends on the simplicity. If it's written into the spell , then it's (mostly) ok, if limited to a few branches without further rolling (determined entirely by result - TN). But if I have to go find a table and roll on it, especially if there are modifiers to that roll or other mechanics that interact with that secondary roll, no thanks.

So "missed? Q. over by X? a. Over by Y > X? B. Over by Z or more, C", where A, B, C, and Q are things that don't need separate resolution is marginally ok. Annoying and slow, but I can tolerate it.

But "missed? Go roll on table 42-a, using A and B as modifiers, and if they did PDQ, add 3 and if Jupiter is in Sagittarius, take the square root of the result, coercing to integer" is very much not ok. At least if that instruction comes up more than about 1x per campaign and isn't the result of an intentional, plot important choice.

Quertus
2021-02-15, 05:58 PM
I think it's fine for magic to have a chance of failure. I just don't like the failure to be failing to actually cast the spell. The rogue can fail to pick locks, but she never fails to attempt to pick locks; the warrior can fail to hit enemies, but he never fails to swing his sword, the face can fail to influence people, but he never fails to speak with them. If the mage isn't to be an exception, his magic should always work, but sometimes fail to have the desired effect.


Yeah, magic failing should be "The enemy dodged your firebolt" or "He resisted the mind control", not "You accidentally set yourself on fire" or "A giant demon appears and eats your face". Just like how a fighter failing is "You missed the enemy" and not "You accidentally stab yourself".

If 4e taught us anything, it's that "rolling dice" is synonymous with "playing the game".

So, the Fighter should have to…

Roll to unsheathe their sword.

Roll to grip the sword.

Roll to remember the correct forms in the heat of battle.

Roll to perform the maneuver.

Roll to choose targets (a botch here could result in hitting themselves or an ally).

Then, finally, get to roll to hit.

Personally, I don't have anything against TPK demons eating the party's face after the wizard miscasts, or after the Fighter miss-swings. I think it's great to have the Fighter have to ask if it's really worth it to swing that sword, or whether maybe they shouldn't give Diplomacy one more chance.

But if you're playing a Fighter because you enjoy swinging a sword, *and* don't like to take such risks, well, maybe that's not the game for you.

Telok
2021-02-15, 07:12 PM
Depends on the simplicity. If it's written into the spell , then it's (mostly) ok, if limited to a few branches without further rolling (determined entirely by result - TN). But if I have to go find a table and roll on it, especially if there are modifiers to that roll or other mechanics that interact with that secondary roll, no thanks.

So "missed? Q. over by X? a. Over by Y > X? B. Over by Z or more, C", where A, B, C, and Q are things that don't need separate resolution is marginally ok. Annoying and slow, but I can tolerate it.

But "missed? Go roll on table 42-a, using A and B as modifiers, and if they did PDQ, add 3 and if Jupiter is in Sagittarius, take the square root of the result, coercing to integer" is very much not ok. At least if that instruction comes up more than about 1x per campaign and isn't the result of an intentional, plot important choice.

Ah, I think I see. Extra penalty on failure and bad tables, right?

How about failure to cast having no penalty, a 100% safe lower power casting option, regular casting having 1/1000 or less chance of the penalty plus only happening on extra good rolls and ways to mitigate even that, and a high power "overcharge" casting option that did invoke the penalty? Couple it to something where "saves", when they came up, were rolled against the "to cast" total (incentive to sometimes want to keep the high rolls but not a need to), and the bad effect tables are a button built into the game book pdf with results that never make you do more rolls or look-ups. More acceptable?

Really it's OK to not like a particular balancing set up. I'm not a fan of what D&D 4e did. But I try to assess the magic systems based on the game they're part of. D&D is a very "no drawbacks" system, CoC is all "magic bad, but you might use it once an adventure", WH40K is "dangerous but powerful", and most supers systems are "build your own casting system". So D&D 4e succeeded in it's mechanical goals, I just don't like what I see as it's making magic into another way to sword things.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-02-15, 08:44 PM
Ah, I think I see. Extra penalty on failure and bad tables, right?

How about failure to cast having no penalty, a 100% safe lower power casting option, regular casting having 1/1000 or less chance of the penalty plus only happening on extra good rolls and ways to mitigate even that, and a high power "overcharge" casting option that did invoke the penalty? Couple it to something where "saves", when they came up, were rolled against the "to cast" total (incentive to sometimes want to keep the high rolls but not a need to), and the bad effect tables are a button built into the game book pdf with results that never make you do more rolls or look-ups. More acceptable?

Really it's OK to not like a particular balancing set up. I'm not a fan of what D&D 4e did. But I try to assess the magic systems based on the game they're part of. D&D is a very "no drawbacks" system, CoC is all "magic bad, but you might use it once an adventure", WH40K is "dangerous but powerful", and most supers systems are "build your own casting system". So D&D 4e succeeded in it's mechanical goals, I just don't like what I see as it's making magic into another way to sword things.

Personally, still WAY too much mechanics for me. And anything that requires tool assistance is a non-starter for me. Because I'd much prefer if the books (including the pdfs) stayed away from the table entirely. And electronics especially. If players have to have electronic devices with particular versions of the thing up just to run their character, no thanks. And inevitably it's one more thing I'd have to juggle as DM. Especially since those tables strongly constrain the acceptable worldbuilding.

Hot-path (ie the ones you do multiple times per session) resolution mechanics IMO should be dead simple, even if that means you sacrifice some fidelity or precision. One roll against a static TN (I don't care as much the details of that roll, whether dice pool, roll and keep, or flat dice + modifier) or at most an opposed roll. And preferably any modifiers are written down and only change when the character gains power (ie between levels or on buying new stuff in a point-buy). Everything that can be precalculated should be. Anything requiring multiple rolls or chained logic/decisions during resolution itself is right out.

And honestly, I'd prefer just flat out reducing the power of spells/magic straight up, at least in a D&D context, rather than bodging on some kind of penalty and adding to the cognitive load that a spell-caster has to juggle. Because that kind of load makes their turns (already the longest turns generally, due to the plethora of options) exponentially longer and makes playing them even less new-player-friendly. And D&D spells are already too strong/versatile in many cases IMO.

In a game where magic was the exception (ie no caster "classes", magic is not assumed), there might be some wiggle room. Because then spells wouldn't be a hot-path issue. They'd be effectively a plot point. Do you do this ritual (which is its own part of the adventure with multiple steps and choices that everyone gets involved in)? What steps do you take to keep it safe? Do you just wing it? What kinds of collateral damage are you willing to accept? Etc.

Anymage
2021-02-15, 09:06 PM
In a game where magic was the exception (ie no caster "classes", magic is not assumed), there might be some wiggle room. Because then spells wouldn't be a hot-path issue. They'd be effectively a plot point. Do you do this ritual (which is its own part of the adventure with multiple steps and choices that everyone gets involved in)? What steps do you take to keep it safe? Do you just wing it? What kinds of collateral damage are you willing to accept? Etc.

I really want to second this.

Casting spells is your main shtick and you're expected to do it regularly during every play session? The worst sort of backlash system I can get behind is Shadowrun, where you might get a bit winded and can risk an injury to push through more power. Spellcasting might be more or less reliable, but any harm from failure should be pretty token.

Big plot spells? We had the talk about Ritual Caster quite a few pages back, and here I'm okay with high risks and high costs. You want to summon and bind a powerful demon to serve you? I'm totally okay with that demon coming out to eat your face if you bung the binding roll. That's not regretting having taken an action when your turn in combat came around, that's taking a plot risk and finding that it isn't guaranteed to go your way.

Duff
2021-02-15, 09:48 PM
For D&D, there are costs to most magic. But in most D&D the costs are "off screen".
For better and for worse.
Wizards spend years training to learn their art
Warlock mortgage their soul with the posability that their patron will demand things of them
Clerics must do their duties to their god (spread the word, lead the rituals in temple etc)

Sorcerers don't have any of those costs.

So ...
If you wanted to play D&D but have costs, the least work option would be to simply bring those costs onto the stage. Wizards need to get their down time before they can learn new spells, Warlocks patrons tell them to do things - maybe errands, maybe things they don't want to, maybe plot related.
Clerics loose time and or money on their religious duties.

Maybe have sorcerers pay the price through a complicated family life - You're family has history and you have to deal with that.

If you want to balance that, it might be as simple as "full casters have an advantage anyway, no change made" or might be some extra spells/uses/powers.

For other games theres the whole gamut available - cost can be consistant or variable and can be always paid in the same "currency" or it might be different for every single casting.

Telok
2021-02-15, 11:16 PM
Personally, still WAY too much mechanics for me.

Yeah, sounds like D&D magic is pushing the limits of your preferences for complexity and rolls. That's fine, those are your preferences. I've taken the magic system I described and had it run faster and slicker than any D&D magic but 4e. But that's also because I've worked to streamline it a bit and rewrote the bad effects tables to be more in tune with the game flow and less random chaos instant death. It's not something I would ever try to stick into a D&D game because D&D doesn't do "cost of magic" any more.

Perhaps the important thing is it's a magic costs system fit to the game system and setting (plus my version is now set up so the player says "I overcast by 40" and I punch 4-0-enter on a tablet then read off the result, less work than some D&D saves+resists). I mean, personally I'm no longer sold on D&D magic simply because the "cost" of phenominal cosmic power is having 2/3rd the hit points of a fighter and not using a two handed sword (and even that's negotiable with multiclass/magic items).

However that's just a preference. The D&D magic system works (in general, outside of specific spells and occasional gaps in the casting rules) for D&D. The CoC magic system works for CoC. The WH40K magic system works in those games (with a few similar issues to D&D of course). I wouldn't try swapping the magic systems without expecting massive shifts in the tone and style of the games. Which, naturally, some people won't like because they play those games for that style of play.

Pex
2021-02-15, 11:26 PM
I dunno. What's the difference between fighters missing a 2d6 attack 20% of the time and mages failing to cast a 2d6 damage spell 20% of the time?



In D&D, the %miss chance of spellcasting is missing the attack roll or opponent making the save. It already exists as equivalent %miss chance as the warriors. What you're asking for is an additional miss chance of the spell not working at all and then if it does work the miss chance of it working comes into play. That's not fair. The warrior doesn't have to roll first to see if he could swing a weapon before swinging his weapon.


I really want to second this.

Casting spells is your main shtick and you're expected to do it regularly during every play session? The worst sort of backlash system I can get behind is Shadowrun, where you might get a bit winded and can risk an injury to push through more power. Spellcasting might be more or less reliable, but any harm from failure should be pretty token.

Big plot spells? We had the talk about Ritual Caster quite a few pages back, and here I'm okay with high risks and high costs. You want to summon and bind a powerful demon to serve you? I'm totally okay with that demon coming out to eat your face if you bung the binding roll. That's not regretting having taken an action when your turn in combat came around, that's taking a plot risk and finding that it isn't guaranteed to go your way.

That's why I never cast Planar Binding in D&D. I don't like such drawbacks, but I can get over it if it's for very specific niche spells that are more often BBEG plot devices. My character never casts such spells and plays normally, but I'll continue to grumble about those spells. When such drawbacks of similar effects based on the spell is a possibility for every spell you attempt to cast that's where it's punishing the player for doing what he's supposed to be doing. That is not a fair balancing factor.


For D&D, there are costs to most magic. But in most D&D the costs are "off screen".
For better and for worse.
Wizards spend years training to learn their art
Warlock mortgage their soul with the posability that their patron will demand things of them
Clerics must do their duties to their god (spread the word, lead the rituals in temple etc)

Sorcerers don't have any of those costs.

So ...
If you wanted to play D&D but have costs, the least work option would be to simply bring those costs onto the stage. Wizards need to get their down time before they can learn new spells, Warlocks patrons tell them to do things - maybe errands, maybe things they don't want to, maybe plot related.
Clerics loose time and or money on their religious duties.

Maybe have sorcerers pay the price through a complicated family life - You're family has history and you have to deal with that.

If you want to balance that, it might be as simple as "full casters have an advantage anyway, no change made" or might be some extra spells/uses/powers.

For other games theres the whole gamut available - cost can be consistant or variable and can be always paid in the same "currency" or it might be different for every single casting.

So the cost of playing a spellcaster is not being able to play the game because you have to study or deal with endless frustrations. That's unfun.

However, that is what Ars Magica allows for. Everyone actually has two characters - their Magus and their Companion who is not a spellcaster. The idea is you play your Companion for a while because your Magus is studying. Out of all the party only one player plays a Magus, and you take turns who plays their Magus. If the game system is built around this it may work, but not for people who want to play a spellcaster all the time and they're not having BadWrongFun for wanting that. Ars Magica doesn't have to play this way. When I played it everyone was a Magus, and a player played his Companion when he felt like it.

Satinavian
2021-02-16, 03:26 AM
In D&D, the %miss chance of spellcasting is missing the attack roll or opponent making the save. It already exists as equivalent %miss chance as the warriors. What you're asking for is an additional miss chance of the spell not working at all and then if it does work the miss chance of it working comes into play. That's not fair. The warrior doesn't have to roll first to see if he could swing a weapon before swinging his weapon.That only works for damage spells and debuffs. Utility, buffs, healing, summoning etc. don't have such opposition.

Pex
2021-02-16, 08:03 AM
That only works for damage spells and debuffs. Utility, buffs, healing, summoning etc. don't have such opposition.

Yes, and nonspellcasters have their own autosuccess Nice Things such as Advantage when you want it, can't roll below 10, gain two extra attacks, and take another Action in addition to healing yourself.

Max_Killjoy
2021-02-16, 08:58 AM
I really want to second this.

Casting spells is your main shtick and you're expected to do it regularly during every play session? The worst sort of backlash system I can get behind is Shadowrun, where you might get a bit winded and can risk an injury to push through more power. Spellcasting might be more or less reliable, but any harm from failure should be pretty token.

Big plot spells? We had the talk about Ritual Caster quite a few pages back, and here I'm okay with high risks and high costs. You want to summon and bind a powerful demon to serve you? I'm totally okay with that demon coming out to eat your face if you bung the binding roll. That's not regretting having taken an action when your turn in combat came around, that's taking a plot risk and finding that it isn't guaranteed to go your way.

Even if casters are a player thing, I think scaling the effort and cost in proportion to the spell's power is worthwhile.

Everyday spells vs big plot spells should, IMO, be a dividing line in many more settings/systems than it is right now.

Glorthindel
2021-02-16, 09:21 AM
I fall very much on the side that having serious (and potentially character-ending) drawbacks can be very fun, and certainly enough systems are out there do it, and are highly successful (WFRP / Dark Heresy are successful games and lean heavily on this for their casters).

In my mind, there has to be three specific elements that make such a system work.

- Spellcasters cant just spellcast. If spellcasting carries a potential risk to the character, they can't just be relegated to torchbearer and battlefield scenery when they aren't casting. If they have negligible hit points, cant wear armour, or weild a decent weapon, then of course the only thing they can do is cast, and if casting continually shafts them, then they aren't gonna have fun.

- Mitigation Measures. Flat "every cast has the same chance of backfiring" sucks, since there is no incentive to restrain yourself for safety. Being able to reign the power in to mitigate most (if not all) the risk, whilst being able to crank up the firepower for a commesurate increase in risk allows the player to make a balanced decision, and makes the game more fun than "shall I cast: yes/no". The risk has to be in proportion with what the character is trying to do - lighting a bonfire with a six-inch long tongue of flame shouldn't carry the same risk as bombarding a football-pitch sized area in hellfire.

- Got to be worth the effort. If you are going to risk your characters life with a cast, it better be worth the risk, the damage level and effects have got to be game-changingly powerful, because the law of averages says that some day those big casts are gonna catch up with you.

I have a story of a Psyker death in my Dark Heresy campaign, that highlights some of the potential fun to be gained out of the sort of system, but which also highlights some of the drawbacks:

My Dark Heresy cabal was storming the hideout of a coven of Witches. Going in, the party knew they were facing likely 4-5 enemy Psykers, and the party Psyker knew from past experience that the more powers going off in a close proximity, the thinner the veil got, and the more likely things would go sideways, and that in particular, Witches tended to exude a (un)natural aura that thinned the veil in their proximity. So going in to the fight, he knew this was a very high risk situation (and furthermore, something he was aware of, but was unknown to the rest of the party, a few sessions previously a Psychic mishap had 'broken' his own Imperial Psyker conditioning, so he also gave off the same veil-thinning aura as the enemy Witches). One of the other party members botched a door breach, and walked into a force-lightening storm that took him straight out of play, so the Psyker decided 'gloves off', and went in full lightening hellstorm. For several rounds the game was chaos, the veil was getting shredded to pieces, and random psychic effects accompanied nearly every cast for the last few rounds, but the party Psyker accepted that the encounter was just too dangerous, and he was willing to run the (increasing) risk of sacrificing himself to prevent the party suffering any other losses. However, luck was on his side, the party won through, the enemy Witches were wiped out, and the rend in the veil restored. However, that first character taken out had been bleeding to death all fight, and with the background psychic effects receded, the party Psyker walked over to him, and used his weakest power, on possibly its lowest strength to stop the bleeding long enough for proper medical attention to be provided, and with a pop, he was sucked screaming into the warp, never to return.

While the player couldn't stop laughing for several minutes due to the absurdity, the encounter highlighted both how such a system can go so right, and how it can go so wrong. He walked into that fight as death incarnate, pulled out all the stops, and accepted the risk of doing so. It was glorious to watch. He was convinced he was going to die during that fight, and had made peace with that. However, while the system definitely allowed him to increase his risk, it clearly didn't sufficiently allow him to mitigate it, as the spell cast that killed him was at the power level of something that could have been achieved with a skill check (indeed, another character who was unconscious a couple of rooms away had something like a 90% chance to stop bleeding on a Medicine skill check), and the result was way out of proportion with what he was trying to achieve.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-02-16, 11:29 AM
Even if casters are a player thing, I think scaling the effort and cost in proportion to the spell's power is worthwhile.

Everyday spells vs big plot spells should, IMO, be a dividing line in many more settings/systems than it is right now.

I agree and try to do this even in D&D.

I'm working on a system where most of the "utility" and many of the "non-combat" spells aren't spells anymore. They're on no-one's list. Instead, they're what I'm calling incantations. Ritual performances that anyone (of the appropriate level) can do, given knowledge, time, and the appropriate components. Certain spell casters get bonuses to conducting certain incantations--a cleric of a life god can do Restoration (all the Lesser/Greater restoration spells rolled into one multi-faceted incantation) faster than most...at the cost of a spell slot. A wizard might be able to cast a different incantation cheaper (but at the same time cost) OR faster (at the cost of a spell slot).

So what makes spellcasters special is that they're the only ones who can do quick magic. Want someone blown up? Spellcaster. But your friendly neighborhood priest can cure that disease, given plenty of time and cash, despite not being able to cast any real spells.

IMO, that's way better for worldbuilding (gating things on knowledge, time, and money for the most part) while still letting the spellcasters feel special and cast their spells.

And even grander magics are actual plot points. I had a quest that involved gating in a meteor (like a real one, not that mediocre meteor swarm, but a significant asteroid) to drop on a temple way over there that was infested by something real nasty. The party ended up protecting the NPCs who did the ritual while hordes of demon creatures attacked and even fought off a (weakened) avatar of a demon prince who tried to stop them. I had the NPCs do the ritual so that the PCs weren't stuck doing nothing while I played NPCs protecting them. In a different circumstance I might have had one of them be doing the ritual while the rest of the party did the fighting.

Max_Killjoy
2021-02-16, 11:58 AM
I agree and try to do this even in D&D.

I'm working on a system where most of the "utility" and many of the "non-combat" spells aren't spells anymore. They're on no-one's list. Instead, they're what I'm calling incantations. Ritual performances that anyone (of the appropriate level) can do, given knowledge, time, and the appropriate components. Certain spell casters get bonuses to conducting certain incantations--a cleric of a life god can do Restoration (all the Lesser/Greater restoration spells rolled into one multi-faceted incantation) faster than most...at the cost of a spell slot. A wizard might be able to cast a different incantation cheaper (but at the same time cost) OR faster (at the cost of a spell slot).

So what makes spellcasters special is that they're the only ones who can do quick magic. Want someone blown up? Spellcaster. But your friendly neighborhood priest can cure that disease, given plenty of time and cash, despite not being able to cast any real spells.

IMO, that's way better for worldbuilding (gating things on knowledge, time, and money for the most part) while still letting the spellcasters feel special and cast their spells.

And even grander magics are actual plot points. I had a quest that involved gating in a meteor (like a real one, not that mediocre meteor swarm, but a significant asteroid) to drop on a temple way over there that was infested by something real nasty. The party ended up protecting the NPCs who did the ritual while hordes of demon creatures attacked and even fought off a (weakened) avatar of a demon prince who tried to stop them. I had the NPCs do the ritual so that the PCs weren't stuck doing nothing while I played NPCs protecting them. In a different circumstance I might have had one of them be doing the ritual while the rest of the party did the fighting.

In general I prefer that, if a system has classes, those classes are about being better at doing certain things, rather than about whether a character can do those things at all -- so I back that approach.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-02-16, 12:07 PM
In general I prefer that, if a system has classes, those classes are about being better at doing certain things, rather than about whether a character can do those things at all -- so I back that approach.

A place we (mostly) agree. I don't have a problem with classes who aren't spellcasters not casting spells. That does not mean that they can't do fantastic things (via incantations, rituals, just sheer awesomeness, burning martial spirit, or whatever), just that they're not casting spells. But the vast majority of things should be "anyone can try it, you can do it better/faster/cheaper/etc".

Pex
2021-02-16, 01:57 PM
I agree and try to do this even in D&D.

I'm working on a system where most of the "utility" and many of the "non-combat" spells aren't spells anymore. They're on no-one's list. Instead, they're what I'm calling incantations. Ritual performances that anyone (of the appropriate level) can do, given knowledge, time, and the appropriate components. Certain spell casters get bonuses to conducting certain incantations--a cleric of a life god can do Restoration (all the Lesser/Greater restoration spells rolled into one multi-faceted incantation) faster than most...at the cost of a spell slot. A wizard might be able to cast a different incantation cheaper (but at the same time cost) OR faster (at the cost of a spell slot).

So what makes spellcasters special is that they're the only ones who can do quick magic. Want someone blown up? Spellcaster. But your friendly neighborhood priest can cure that disease, given plenty of time and cash, despite not being able to cast any real spells.

IMO, that's way better for worldbuilding (gating things on knowledge, time, and money for the most part) while still letting the spellcasters feel special and cast their spells.

And even grander magics are actual plot points. I had a quest that involved gating in a meteor (like a real one, not that mediocre meteor swarm, but a significant asteroid) to drop on a temple way over there that was infested by something real nasty. The party ended up protecting the NPCs who did the ritual while hordes of demon creatures attacked and even fought off a (weakened) avatar of a demon prince who tried to stop them. I had the NPCs do the ritual so that the PCs weren't stuck doing nothing while I played NPCs protecting them. In a different circumstance I might have had one of them be doing the ritual while the rest of the party did the fighting.

Devil in the details, but I have no issue with this. I like you're allowing for rituals to be done quickly in one round, accepting depending on class and the ritual. That was 4E's mistake not allowing that. It was fine havng the rituals and anyone can do them, but sometimes you needed a ritual Now! It's fine for a remove poison ritual to take a bit of time given a non-fatal debilitating poison, but when it happens in combat you want the victim to be cured immediately.

In any case, the opposite of not wanting a player punished for playing a spellcaster is not having no retrictions on magic at all.

Satinavian
2021-02-16, 02:15 PM
Yes, and nonspellcasters have their own autosuccess Nice Things such as Advantage when you want it, can't roll below 10, gain two extra attacks, and take another Action in addition to healing yourself.
The most proper equivalence would be skill use. Which has a chance to fail.

But that was not really my point. I don't need a chance for magic to fail. I just wanted to highlight that does not count as already having such a chance, just because there are defenses against magic.

Anonymouswizard
2021-02-16, 06:52 PM
Even if casters are a player thing, I think scaling the effort and cost in proportion to the spell's power is worthwhile.

Everyday spells vs big plot spells should, IMO, be a dividing line in many more settings/systems than it is right now.

I've been growing to like how Advanced Fighting Fantasy handles magic. Outside of combat your actual skill in magic basically only matters of you're on a really tight timeframe, taking a minute to cast a spell will give you +5 to your casting, so even the weakest magician only fails outside of combat one time in thirty six. Then magic is split into five types. Minor Magic is just basic utility stuff. Wizardry and Sorcery are two different flavours of spellcasting more suited to spellcasting, and there are significant differences (Sorcerers just know all their spells and cast from hp, while Wizards omit begin with a handful but get a separate MP stat). Priestly powers are just a handful of big effects you can pull out one a day (mostly). Arcane magic is narrative scale rituals.

Arcane magic is interesting. Spellcasters can already do rituals to make their spells easier to cast, but if those are taking longer than two minutes then something is very wrong. Arcane magic creates effects that change the narrative for everybody in the area, it's what you need if you're summoning a storm, imploding a city, calling Azatoth so that he may step through into our realm, or draining a sea so that you can cross safely. I'm AFB, but being able to take a single rank in the skill requires you to be a very powerful mage (6 MAGIC and 6 Wizardry or Sorcery), I believe the spells are very hard to cast, and at this point the book gives up on providing spells and tells you to work it out.

So yeah, despite the lack of spells it's a cool idea.

Cluedrew
2021-02-20, 11:02 AM
I think I have already said everything on the costs of magic itself earlier in the thread. For me it all really depends on what you are going for.

On Mishaps: Oddly enough I have often found out that "mishaps" if used well can actually speed things up because they fold both an attempt and the response into a single check. So you don't have an attack roll, you have a combat roll that determines the outcome of the exchange for both sides.

On Utility: I never quite gathered why utility magic was such a big deal. Not that all casters should be battle-mages exclusively so there is plenty of magic that could be used out of combat, but there are many other skills for that. (In fact in D&D and other combat focused systems that treat fighting as a special case that is all skills.) The skill system level fix would be separating out action resolution from... efforts that take up whole scenes if you went over them in detail but you can also just cut to the end. Montage resolution systems?

So for magic it would be a spell vs. a ritual. For survival it would be checking if something's poison vs finding a safe campsite. In a social context are you trying to persuade someone over the next few minutes or change a group's opinion over several days. Anyways this is veering further from the main topic, its just an observation that that split is actually pretty broad.

JoeJ
2021-02-22, 03:12 AM
One cost that's easy to implement in games with point-based chargen is versatility (in fact, it should already be built into any reasonably balanced point system). That is, every point you spend on magic is a point you didn't spend on ability scores, skills, advantages, or gear.

Herbert_W
2021-02-28, 09:31 AM
I've been lurking in this thread for a while, and I think there's an important point that's been alluded to but which ought to be called out explicitly: every ability should have a cost of appropriate magnitude for the power which that ability grants the character. Magical power is just another form of power, which differs in flavor and mechanics, but which has the same ultimate effect on the game: characters who poses it can do more. The fact that something is impossible in the real world or is called "magic" in the lore of a game does not alter the way that this principle applies.

The difference between magic and nonmagic is one of degree, not of kind. We've talked about magic having an opportunity cost - how someone with levels of wizard didn't take levels of fighter. The reverse also holds. That fighter didn't take levels of wizard, or a vast array of other classes, thus forgoing all of the other abilities that they could have acquired. We've talked about magic being risky - but all adventuring is risky. Getting close enough to someone to hit them with a sword means getting close enough that they could hit you with a sword.

The real crux of the problem that we face here IMO is that magic is too strong, so that the appropriate magnitude of cost is more than we can expect a character to pay. There's only so much opportunity cost that a character can bear, as there's only so much XP, levels, points, gold, etc. that they have. There's only so much risk that a character can bear before the game becomes prohibitively unfun for both themselves and everyone around them.

There's only a few ways around this problem:


Make magic weaker. That's not a very fun solution, but it is an option, so I mention it for completeness.
Increase the cost of magic by requiring co-operation from other party members. Spells that enable a wizard to do something by themselves are rare and limited; most spells allow a wizard to enhance or expand the abilities of other characters.
Increase the cost of magic in other ways. Perhaps taking full advantage of a spell requires a skill check - say for example, any wizard can cast fly but flying with good maneuverabiluty requires ranks in climb or swim.

I'd prefer to see a mixture of the last two points. One cautionary note here is that we don't want to have a caster drain resources from other characters in order to "pay" for casting their own spells. Being overshadowed by a caster is bad enough when they aren't draining your blood too! Instead, the contributing character should have agency in how the spell is used so that they can feel good about its use. They should feel like they did something and the caster helped rather than the other way around. (At least, most of the time. A mage draining a fighter's blood isn't usually a good game mechanic, but sometimes it's really really thematically appropriate.)

For example, let's suppose that knock has an expensive material component but allows for a check using the "open lock" skill; the lock opens regardless of the result but the material component is not consumed if it succeeds. A rogue could open a lock by themselves, but this is time-consuming and might fail. A wizard could cast knock by themselves, but they'd be almost guaranteed to burn an expensive material component every time. The best way to open a lock would be to have a wizard cast imbue with spell ability at the start of the adventuring day to enable a rogue to cast knock once they reach it. Now, the lock can be opened quickly, with no chance of failure and with only a low chance of consuming a material component. Most importantly of all, both players can feel good about having their character contribute to making this possible.

Quertus
2021-02-28, 09:41 AM
I've been lurking in this thread for a while, and I think there's an important point that's been alluded to but which ought to be called out explicitly: every ability should have a cost of appropriate magnitude for the power which that ability grants the character. Magical power is just another form of power, which differs in flavor and mechanics, but which has the same ultimate effect on the game: characters who poses it can do more. The fact that something is impossible in the real world or is called "magic" in the lore of a game does not alter the way that this principle applies.

The difference between magic and nonmagic is one of degree, not of kind. We've talked about magic having an opportunity cost - how someone with levels of wizard didn't take levels of fighter. The reverse also holds. That fighter didn't take levels of wizard, or a vast array of other classes, thus forgoing all of the other abilities that they could have acquired. We've talked about magic being risky - but all adventuring is risky. Getting close enough to someone to hit them with a sword means getting close enough that they could hit you with a sword.

The real crux of the problem that we face here IMO is that magic is too strong, so that the appropriate magnitude of cost is more than we can expect a character to pay. There's only so much opportunity cost that a character can bear, as there's only so much XP, levels, points, gold, etc. that they have. There's only so much risk that a character can bear before the game becomes prohibitively unfun for both themselves and everyone around them.

There's only a few ways around this problem:


Make magic weaker. That's not a very fun solution, but it is an option, so I mention it for completeness.
Increase the cost of magic by requiring co-operation from other party members. Spells that enable a wizard to do something by themselves are rare and limited; most spells allow a wizard to enhance or expand the abilities of other characters.
Increase the cost of magic in other ways. Perhaps taking full advantage of a spell requires a skill check - say for example, any wizard can cast fly but flying with good maneuverabiluty requires ranks in climb or swim.

I'd prefer to see a mixture of the last two points. One cautionary note here is that we don't want to have a caster drain resources from other characters in order to "pay" for casting their own spells. Being overshadowed by a caster is bad enough when they aren't draining your blood too! Instead, the contributing character should have agency in how the spell is used so that they can feel good about its use. They should feel like they did something and the caster helped rather than the other way around. (At least, most of the time. A mage draining a fighter's blood isn't usually a good game mechanic, but sometimes it's really really thematically appropriate.)

For example, let's suppose that knock has an expensive material component but allows for a check using the "open lock" skill; the lock opens regardless of the result but the material component is not consumed if it succeeds. A rogue could open a lock by themselves, but this is time-consuming and might fail. A wizard could cast knock by themselves, but they'd be almost guaranteed to burn an expensive material component every time. The best way to open a lock would be to have a wizard cast imbue with spell ability at the start of the adventuring day to enable a rogue to cast knock once they reach it. Now, the lock can be opened quickly, with no chance of failure and with only a low chance of consuming a material component. Most importantly of all, both players can feel good about having their character contribute to making this possible.

1) "you failed your roll, and lost me my expensive focus" is not conducive to getting along.

2) giving the OP Fighter a limited number of swings per day, *and* making them use those swings to ensure that the DPS Evocation Wizard (who, in this example, can use their abilities at will) successfully hits their target? Are you *sure* that that will make the Fighter feel good?

3) you missed the option of improving the non-contributing party members up to par.

Herbert_W
2021-02-28, 12:03 PM
1) "you failed your roll, and lost me my expensive focus" is not conducive to getting along.

Why are we assuming that it's the wizard's expensive component that gets lost, rather than the rogue paying for it, or a shared "necessary expenditures" budget?

There's a number of ways that players could make this combination work, and since it's an advantageous combination, they have a motivation to try to find a way to make it work.


2) giving the OP Fighter a limited number of swings per day . . .

Your analogy here is a bit unclear. I take it that the "OP fighter" is an analogy for a spellcaster and the "DPS evocation wizard" is an analogy for the martial classes, right?

I agree that there's a balance to be struck here. While (as I pointed out) you don't want the caster to steal the limelight at the expense of other characters, you also (as I think you're trying to argue here) don't want the caster to be entirely subservient to the martial characters.

I do agree that casters should have some ability to shine on their own. What I am suggesting is that the big show-stopping spells, the ones that give casters a reputation for being OP and make people dream up exorbitant "costs of magic" to balance them, should be tweaked in a way that shares both the cost and the limelight.


3) you missed the option of improving the non-contributing party members up to par.

You're right, that's also an option - although arguably that's just another way of weakening magic's relative strength by increasing the power level of the rest of the game. It'd also require abandoning any pretense of verisimilitude, although that's a sacrifice that many would be willing to make.

Satinavian
2021-02-28, 12:23 PM
Personally i prefer making magic schools into skills. To get rid of universal casters in favor of more specialized, themed ones because you can't pay for all schools or not for all schools maxed out. And that would also allow other people dabbling in a bit of magic without inventing whole new classes everytime.

Of course even better would be getting rid of classes altogether and make everything point buy. And to rework the spells to be more balanced and the schools to make more sense. But then there is a reason i don't actually play any D&D.

MoiMagnus
2021-02-28, 12:30 PM
You're right, that's also an option - although arguably that's just another way of weakening magic's relative strength by increasing the power level of the rest of the game. It'd also require abandoning any pretense of verisimilitude, although that's a sacrifice that many would be willing to make.

Sometimes, I feel that one of the problem with magic is that peoples tries to keep the same "solution" from low level to high level.

In 5e, between peoples that play from level 1 to level 6, those that play from 4 to 10, those that consider that the game truly start around level 8 or 12, etc, I think there is room for the approach to magic to evolve through the different Tiers.

Tier 1 can probably keep its pretence of verisimilitude, while high tiers could probably accept that every class should be raised to the powerlevel of "(almost) constrain-free spellcasting", with Tier 2 as a transition Tier from vision to another.

JoeJ
2021-02-28, 12:45 PM
Personally i prefer making magic schools into skills. To get rid of universal casters in favor of more specialized, themed ones because you can't pay for all schools or not for all schools maxed out. And that would also allow other people dabbling in a bit of magic without inventing whole new classes everytime.

Of course even better would be getting rid of classes altogether and make everything point buy. And to rework the spells to be more balanced and the schools to make more sense. But then there is a reason i don't actually play any D&D.

If you're going to do that much work, you should also include enough abilities/skills/spells/hardware to enable games in any genre, not just fantasy. It would be sort of a generic, universal role-playing system. Or something.

Satinavian
2021-02-28, 12:57 PM
If you're going to do that much work, you should also include enough abilities/skills/spells/hardware to enable games in any genre, not just fantasy. It would be sort of a generic, universal role-playing system. Or something.If I were looking for a customizable system for something where i don't have a good fit, i might have a deeper look at GURPS, yes. But as it stands, there are dozens of other skill-based magic systems, out there so that i haven't needed to use it for fantasy so far.

Anonymouswizard
2021-02-28, 01:06 PM
Personally i prefer making magic schools into skills. To get rid of universal casters in favor of more specialized, themed ones because you can't pay for all schools or not for all schools maxed out. And that would also allow other people dabbling in a bit of magic without inventing whole new classes everytime.

Of course even better would be getting rid of classes altogether and make everything point buy. And to rework the spells to be more balanced and the schools to make more sense. But then there is a reason i don't actually play any D&D.

So the ideal for you is.... not D&D, got it. Might I recommend The Dark Eye? It's a German game that takes the same basic starting point as D&D but has now developed into an in-depth point buy system.

Like, your main problem really does seem to be 'I want to play something else', and even if you don't want a true universal system like GURPS there are many games that'll fit the bill,from The Fantasy Trip to RuneQuest to maybe even Exalted.


But D&D really could do with enforcing more specialisation for magic users.

Kapow
2021-02-28, 01:12 PM
Personally i prefer making magic schools into skills. To get rid of universal casters in favor of more specialized, themed ones because you can't pay for all schools or not for all schools maxed out. And that would also allow other people dabbling in a bit of magic without inventing whole new classes everytime.

Of course even better would be getting rid of classes altogether and make everything point buy. And to rework the spells to be more balanced and the schools to make more sense. But then there is a reason i don't actually play any D&D.

As I can see from your nick.
TDE (DSA) has IMHO a fairly good balance between magic and mundane (and is point buy)

It is also REALLY crunchy - at least the last editions I played.
Every spell and every magic traditions base for ritual magic is an extra skill and every skill/spell needs 3 rolls + math is hard for a lot of people
And then there are all the special abilities and features that change how you improve and use those skills/spells

Kapow
2021-02-28, 01:15 PM
So the ideal for you is.... not D&D, got it. Might I recommend The Dark Eye? It's a German game that takes the same basic starting point as D&D but has now developed into an in-depth point buy system.

Like, your main problem really does seem to be 'I want to play something else', and even if you don't want a true universal system like GURPS there are many games that'll fit the bill,from The Fantasy Trip to RuneQuest to maybe even Exalted.


But D&D really could do with enforcing more specialisation for magic users.
Kind of ninja'd
Satinav being the entity/deity/demon of time in DSA I suspect Satinavian knows the game ;)

Satinavian
2021-02-28, 04:55 PM
Yes, thank you both.

DSA/TDE is not actually my favorite game (that honor goes to Splittermond), but the one i started with and have played the most over the decades.

I was just a bit frustrated that the thread always circles back to D&D and always tries to reinvent the wheel. The only reason why we still endlessly discuss caster/martial disparity in D&D is not for lack of solutions. It is because a lot of players don't want a change and any compromise can only be table based.

Anonymouswizard
2021-02-28, 06:00 PM
Kind of ninja'd
Satinav being the entity/deity/demon of time in DSA I suspect Satinavian knows the game ;)

Yeah, I just don't get to play it so the details slip to the back of my mind. Maybe I should move to Germany. Definitely one of the best games to draw descent from D&D, even if in practice I'm much more likely to run Advanced Fighting Fantasy (which is as close an answer to D&D as the UK will ever get).

I do like how AFF balances magic though. Wizardry requires you to spend XP to learn new spells, Sorcery RAW starts you off with every spell but sucks hp instead of mp, priestly magic is just four abilities per god that are mostly oncea day (which I think I got wrong earlier in the thread), and everybody suffers from lower SKILL and LUCK from having to bump MAGIC.

Everybody just gets one skill for all their magic (mostly), but other drawbacks mean that;s not a massive issue.

Then there's Herb Lore, which isn't magic but does have more unique rules than other Special Skills. Also like magic it lets you pull out a lot of weird effects. But it's primarily time-limited, you've got to gather (or buy) your herbs, preserve them, and for some even spend time preparing and combining them. Which means it's main cost is opportunity, preparing herbs for adventuring takes up your downtime.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-02-28, 07:46 PM
Yeah, I just don't get to play it so the details slip to the back of my mind. Maybe I should move to Germany. Definitely one of the best games to draw descent from D&D, even if in practice I'm much more likely to run Advanced Fighting Fantasy (which is as close an answer to D&D as the UK will ever get).

I do like how AFF balances magic though. Wizardry requires you to spend XP to learn new spells, Sorcery RAW starts you off with every spell but sucks hp instead of mp, priestly magic is just four abilities per god that are mostly oncea day (which I think I got wrong earlier in the thread), and everybody suffers from lower SKILL and LUCK from having to bump MAGIC.

Everybody just gets one skill for all their magic (mostly), but other drawbacks mean that;s not a massive issue.

Then there's Herb Lore, which isn't magic but does have more unique rules than other Special Skills. Also like magic it lets you pull out a lot of weird effects. But it's primarily time-limited, you've got to gather (or buy) your herbs, preserve them, and for some even spend time preparing and combining them. Which means it's main cost is opportunity, preparing herbs for adventuring takes up your downtime.

And what do magic users (especially priests) do the rest of the time during the session? Yay. You cast your one spell. Now you get to sit there and be the Load, because it took all your build resources to get even enough magic to do anything that you don't have enough for mundane stuff? How is that fun for anyone, let alone the priest? That paints magic as being an utter trap.

Honestly, I'd much rather have magic be something that anyone can (in principle do) but is only a tiny part of any character (or is entirely ritual and not tied to a character at all) than have a character mostly defined by their magic...who can't actually do magic. Or anything else. You hand me a "magic user" character and I expect to be, well, using magic for most things. Not doing my best to avoid it at all costs.

Anonymouswizard
2021-02-28, 08:02 PM
And what do magic users (especially priests) do the rest of the time during the session? Yay. You cast your one spell. Now you get to sit there and be the Load, because it took all your build resources to get even enough magic to do anything that you don't have enough for mundane stuff? How is that fun for anyone, let alone the priest? That paints magic as being an utter trap.

Use mundane skills? You're exchanging raw proficiency in your mundane skills, but they're not useless. It's not a choice between 'use magic' and 'do nothing'. You're not going to be as good as somebody who invested in SKILL, but they have no ability to break the laws of physics.

Especially for priests, who have less raw need for MAGIC.

Yes, investing in magic means that your mundane skills are less effective. No, it does not create an arbitrary case of 'useless without magic'. Plus that's leaving out the variety of ways to have reliable magic with low investment (focus on Minor Magic, or take primarily noncombat magic and just cast a bit longer) so that you can have on-par mundane skills.


Honestly, I'd much rather have magic be something that anyone can (in principle do) but is only a tiny part of any character (or is entirely ritual and not tied to a character at all) than have a character mostly defined by their magic...who can't actually do magic. Or anything else. You hand me a "magic user" character and I expect to be, well, using magic for most things. Not doing my best to avoid it at all costs.

Oh wow, two options that don't fit 90% of games. Where did this idea that magic users only do magic come from? (Oh right, D&D.) Now sure, your preference is a valid style for magic, but so is one where complete mundanes get more mundane skill.

Telok
2021-02-28, 08:28 PM
And what do magic users (especially priests) do the rest of the time during the session? Yay. You cast your one spell. Now you get to sit there and be the Load, because it took all your build resources to get even enough magic to do anything that you don't have enough for mundane stuff? How is that fun for anyone, let alone the priest? That paints magic as being an utter trap.

Honestly, I'd much rather have magic be something that anyone can (in principle do) but is only a tiny part of any character (or is entirely ritual and not tied to a character at all) than have a character mostly defined by their magic...who can't actually do magic. Or anything else. You hand me a "magic user" character and I expect to be, well, using magic for most things. Not doing my best to avoid it at all costs.

See, this is where it gets weird to me. Its like you have this expectation that if your character sheet says "magic user" then your character can't do anything but magic. Your priest only has two spells? What's the game? Ad&d? You're also a better warrior than everyone except the actual fighter. Any game point buy or skill based? Use your other abilities. Something WH or 40K descended? Why aren't you carrying grenades and/or a big honking sword? D&d 4e or 5e? The infinite "Crossbow: the Refluffing" cantrips are the band-aid over reducing all encounters to hit point attrition. No game I know of makes magic users useless after one or two spells, not even old d&d when a low level caster only had one or two spells.

Its just alien to me that a character having the ability to use magic would be useless if their magic wasn't directly applicable to everything all the time. Its like a warrior character being able to do nothing outside of combat because swinging a sword at a social encounter doesn't work. Some sort of assumption that a character has a special role in the game and they aren't allowed to do anything but that role. Where did this "the character is a pathetic loser if i can't cast spells every round for everything" thing come from?

Quertus
2021-02-28, 08:41 PM
Why are we assuming that it's the wizard's expensive component that gets lost, rather than the rogue paying for it, or a shared "necessary expenditures" budget?

Am excellent question! How to answer…

Are you familiar with "Let's Make a Deal" math?

Imagine that there's 1,000,000 different classes, and you'll be in a party of 4, chosen at random from that pool.

You have built 2 characters (you'll only play one at a time): a Wizard, and a Rogue.

Which of them do you equip with this expensive Knock focus?


There's a number of ways that players could make this combination work, and since it's an advantageous combination, they have a motivation to try to find a way to make it work.

Sure, but… if the Rogue is already hurt over losing *their* role, we've moved past reason and into hurt feelings already.


Your analogy here is a bit unclear. I take it that the "OP fighter" is an analogy for a spellcaster and the "DPS evocation wizard" is an analogy for the martial classes, right?

In effect, yes. (I don't think of it as an "analogy", but let's pretend)


I agree that there's a balance to be struck here. While (as I pointed out) you don't want the caster to steal the limelight at the expense of other characters, you also (as I think you're trying to argue here) don't want the caster to be entirely subservient to the martial characters.

I do agree that casters should have some ability to shine on their own. What I am suggesting is that the big show-stopping spells, the ones that give casters a reputation for being OP and make people dream up exorbitant "costs of magic" to balance them, should be tweaked in a way that shares both the cost and the limelight.

Solo, Shine, Contribute, and Twiddle Thumbs. That's the levels I break spotlight into.

Traditionally, the epic challenge of the locked door is one that someone (usually the Rogue, occasionally the Wizard) will Solo.

Afaict, the Rogue just has sour grapes that, as systems give Wizards more staying power, and GMs shy away from the 50 encounter megadungeon adventuring day, the Wizard is better positioned to handle certain roles that were traditionally better handled by the Rogue.

Rather than evaluating, honestly, "what is my role in this setup", the Rogue is whining that their role is not what they *want* it to be.

Now, I'd love to be a famous quadstalt (book) writer / movie writer / director / actor. But that's just not a reasonable expectation for someone with my… stats. So I became a software developer instead.

If the honest answer to, "what role can a muggle have" is "none" or "caster fanboy", then there's a problem (unless the system was billed accordingly).

However, that is *not* the case for the traditional complaint source on this forum (ie, 3e D&D).

But your idea to move it from a "solo" activity to a *somewhat* shine+ participate scenario is interesting. Unfortunately, it has the side effects of a) further enforcing to almost mandating a cookie cutter party; b) greatly reducing the ability of the party to function "a man down". "A" is bad; I'm not sure about "B".

But let's see how your ideas work when the shoe is on the other foot: in 3e, you can't really take a low-level Wizard, and make them the party's primary DPS. Suppose the Wizard player is grouchy about that. How would you recommend changing other classes such that they shared the love with the poor, underpowered Evoker?


You're right, that's also an option - although arguably that's just another way of weakening magic's relative strength by increasing the power level of the rest of the game. It'd also require abandoning any pretense of verisimilitude, although that's a sacrifice that many would be willing to make.

Thor can fly through space and survive blasts that would level cities. Superman… is Superman. It's not "versimilitude" that Power muggles inherently lack, but "realism".

Go thee not down that road, for that way lies "guy at the gym", and madness.

Lord Raziere
2021-02-28, 09:32 PM
See, this is where it gets weird to me. Its like you have this expectation that if your character sheet says "magic user" then your character can't do anything but magic. Your priest only has two spells? What's the game? Ad&d? You're also a better warrior than everyone except the actual fighter. Any game point buy or skill based? Use your other abilities. Something WH or 40K descended? Why aren't you carrying grenades and/or a big honking sword? D&d 4e or 5e? The infinite "Crossbow: the Refluffing" cantrips are the band-aid over reducing all encounters to hit point attrition. No game I know of makes magic users useless after one or two spells, not even old d&d when a low level caster only had one or two spells.

Its just alien to me that a character having the ability to use magic would be useless if their magic wasn't directly applicable to everything all the time. Its like a warrior character being able to do nothing outside of combat because swinging a sword at a social encounter doesn't work. Some sort of assumption that a character has a special role in the game and they aren't allowed to do anything but that role. Where did this "the character is a pathetic loser if i can't cast spells every round for everything" thing come from?

Some people want a very specific fantasy where magic can do everything but the wizard player has to be batman to use it well, preparing and planning everything in advance. its an attitude that comes from 3.5 wizard optimization where the idea is that if the wizard is out of spells, they've basically lost.

personally I just see it as a reason not to have classes and figure out a way make parties of well-rounded characters who might have focuses but can do things outside them- if you want to be prepared for everything, why not prepare for not having magic? though better made classes that actually give you all the skills that the character would logically have are a good second place.

Anymage
2021-02-28, 11:20 PM
Its just alien to me that a character having the ability to use magic would be useless if their magic wasn't directly applicable to everything all the time. Its like a warrior character being able to do nothing outside of combat because swinging a sword at a social encounter doesn't work. Some sort of assumption that a character has a special role in the game and they aren't allowed to do anything but that role. Where did this "the character is a pathetic loser if i can't cast spells every round for everything" thing come from?

Combat tends to be both rules and time intensive in games, so being combat capable is relevant. And for a lot of people in a lot of genres, being able to use magic as your main combat move does help cement your vision of your character.

Still, being able to zap with eldritch blast all day every day is not necessarily more or less powerful than shooting an arrow or swinging a sword. To the extent that magic is more impactful than basic physical actions, I fully agree that you shouldn't be reshaping the battlefield as your default move each round.

Max_Killjoy
2021-03-01, 10:00 AM
Combat tends to be both rules and time intensive in games, so being combat capable is relevant. And for a lot of people in a lot of genres, being able to use magic as your main combat move does help cement your vision of your character.

Still, being able to zap with eldritch blast all day every day is not necessarily more or less powerful than shooting an arrow or swinging a sword. To the extent that magic is more impactful than basic physical actions, I fully agree that you shouldn't be reshaping the battlefield as your default move each round.

Indeed they shouldn't -- but I get the impression that some players really want that.

As for caster using weapons, part of the problem there is D&D's history of making the Magic-user/Wizard/Mage fairly inept with weapons -- even if that's been mitigated to some degree (with cantrips and with less pathetic weapon use), decades of it has left the impression that the class might as well be out of the fight once they're out of spells.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-03-01, 10:43 AM
Indeed they shouldn't -- but I get the impression that some players really want that.

As for caster using weapons, part of the problem there is D&D's history of making the Magic-user/Wizard/Mage fairly inept with weapons -- even if that's been mitigated to some degree (with cantrips and with less pathetic weapon use), decades of it has left the impression that the class might as well be out of the fight once they're out of spells.

That latter part follows from the ability to specialize and the concomitant need to specialize. At least in earlier editions, non-specialists just weren't all that useful. And magic users rarely got any ability to specialize in weapon use, and were super fragile to boot, meaning that they were not only useless without spells, they were an active load on the party's resources (keeping them alive). For 3e specifically, they could ape that with spells, and rarely ran out (at least as played, not as designed). 4e, well, you never really ran out. 5e has cantrips, which still absolutely suck vs weapons (~50% of steady-state no-resource damage from a baseline martial) unless you're a warlock, who is more of a magic archer.

Now in a game where such specialization doesn't really matter, a magic user being 25% (numbers pulled from thin air) less effective than a "fighter" with weapons isn't as bad. And I can support such a thing--I'm not a fan of "everyone must specialize" niche-type games. I want a party of people who are 5-6/10 in most areas, but 7-8/10 in a couple. Where everyone can contribute most of the time, as long as they want to. And the scenarios are set up to encourage and even expect cooperation from multiple people (rather than being a one-man-show with a rotating spotlight, where the rest mostly just stand around and wait for the specialist to handle things).

But IMO, the more costly you make magic, the more powerful you have to make it for it to be worth the effort. And that imposes huge balancing risks, just like balancing around one-hit-kill (or one-shot situation-solver) abilities is difficult. Because it reduces the game to a simple test:

If the scenario is set up to challenge a full strength/full resources magic user, then anything else is going to be massive pain. If it's doable without that, then a full-strength caster will obliterate it.

Much like having a wide disparity in capability within a party is more difficult to balance (for the DM), having a huge swing in effectiveness for a single character is much more of a pain than it's worth (IMO).

Anonymouswizard
2021-03-01, 10:57 AM
SIts just alien to me that a character having the ability to use magic would be useless if their magic wasn't directly applicable to everything all the time. Its like a warrior character being able to do nothing outside of combat because swinging a sword at a social encounter doesn't work.

Just wanted to point out that this is a lot of the problem people have had with Fighters since 3e. Even back then they could be absolute monsters in combat, but they rarely get significant tools for outside of combat.It's gotten better, now Fighters can be somewhat competent at one or two kinds of outside of combat task, but it's still not fixed the inherent issue of 'magic is a much bigger space than sword swinging'.


Combat tends to be both rules and time intensive in games, so being combat capable is relevant. And for a lot of people in a lot of genres, being able to use magic as your main combat move does help cement your vision of your character.

Still, being able to zap with eldritch blast all day every day is not necessarily more or less powerful than shooting an arrow or swinging a sword. To the extent that magic is more impactful than basic physical actions, I fully agree that you shouldn't be reshaping the battlefield as your default move each round.

Honestly, it's rarely the 'throw all day long' spells I see people having problems with, it's the once a day 'I win' buttons that gets the worst of it. And, as for several additions dedicated blasters have been bad ways to build most magic users, generally the relatively low level non-combat 'I win button' spells that are the worst. At-will spells are generally considered fine if they're just a little bit weaker than a Fighter making a full attack, or don't give boosts so massive that they circumvent problems.

Which is, I believe, the main space where people want skill check magic, not in combat. They want magic to open newer, easier methods for completing the obstacle, but not to just bypass it with a single slot. It's why the two primary descendants of 4e, 5e and 13th Age, both kept rituals even if they changed them (5e made them more reliable, 13th Age made them more freeform). Even the relatively minor 5e cost of an extra ten minutes makes them potentially costly, there are many ways to structure an encounter where ten minutes might not an acceptable cost.

Telok
2021-03-01, 03:09 PM
Honestly, it's rarely the 'throw all day long' spells I see people having problems with, it's the once a day 'I win' buttons that gets the worst of it. And, as for several additions dedicated blasters have been bad ways to build most magic users, generally the relatively low level non-combat 'I win button' spells that are the worst. At-will spells are generally considered fine if they're just a little bit weaker than a Fighter making a full attack, or don't give boosts so massive that they circumvent problems.

I'm wondering if all this is pretty much just a bunch of issues with 3e to 5e D&Dism.

I mean, even the "magic = win" thing works as long as there's significantly less magic than stuff you need to win and your win-magic isn't applicable to absolutely everything. AD&D did that, it worked. Now that might not be the game some people want to play, but AD&D magic "balance" did work within the intended AD&D framework & game style.

Warhammer, the 40k offshoots, Hero system, M&M, Call of Cthulhu, etc., etc., pretty much every game's magic system "works" for that game. Again, it might not be a specific game system that a particular person wants to play, but their magic systems work for those games. Probably because the various games are more focused than "generic fantasy" and have a magic system built for the game system. I think you can argue that even AD&D wasn't intended as "generic fantasy" and that it's magic was originally designed for it's original intended play style.

So maybe people's issue with modern D&D magic is that it's got a half-modded magic system from an older game that was played in a different style.

Pex
2021-03-01, 05:05 PM
See, this is where it gets weird to me. Its like you have this expectation that if your character sheet says "magic user" then your character can't do anything but magic. Your priest only has two spells? What's the game? Ad&d? You're also a better warrior than everyone except the actual fighter. Any game point buy or skill based? Use your other abilities. Something WH or 40K descended? Why aren't you carrying grenades and/or a big honking sword? D&d 4e or 5e? The infinite "Crossbow: the Refluffing" cantrips are the band-aid over reducing all encounters to hit point attrition. No game I know of makes magic users useless after one or two spells, not even old d&d when a low level caster only had one or two spells.

Its just alien to me that a character having the ability to use magic would be useless if their magic wasn't directly applicable to everything all the time. Its like a warrior character being able to do nothing outside of combat because swinging a sword at a social encounter doesn't work. Some sort of assumption that a character has a special role in the game and they aren't allowed to do anything but that role. Where did this "the character is a pathetic loser if i can't cast spells every round for everything" thing come from?

Because I'd want to play a spellcaster, not fire crossbows or throw grenades. 5E Cantrips are absolutely refluffing of crossbows, and that's the whole point. It is more aesthetically pleasing to say "I cast Fire Bolt" than it is "I fire my crossbow". "I cast Fireball" is more immersive than "I throw a grenade". It's part of what makes me feel like I'm playing a spellcaster. So yes, not being able to do magic because the rules make me wish I hadn't if I did is a major problem. It's fine to be able to do some non-magical things, but if I'm playing a spellcaster I expect magic to be the majority of what I do, and there's nothing wrong with that. When I'm willing not to be so magical that's where being a "gish" comes in. Sometimes I'm fine with the majority of what I do not be magical but use magic to enhance what I do. Then there are times I don't want magic at all. When I do want magic I don't want the rules to metaphorically slap me upside the head with punishments for doing so, like lose turns, lose actions, lose sanity, lose experience points so I can't advance as fast as others, lose health to become closer to death, etc. I'm aware published game settings use those methods. That doesn't make them a good idea, and I don't play those games.

Herbert_W
2021-03-01, 08:00 PM
You have built 2 characters (you'll only play one at a time): a Wizard, and a Rogue. Which of them do you equip with this expensive Knock focus?

If I can only play one character at a time, then it makes sense to give the focus to the wizard. It's not very much use to the wizard (it'll break the first time they use it), but it's absolutely useless to the rogue (as they can't cast spells at all).

This is a bad analogy, though. The whole point of this example is that the right spell design could make it an optimal strategy for the rogue and wizard to work together, and having them be separate characters that can't be on the field at the same time precludes that. In a real game, the rogue and wizard would be played by different players, and they could be in play simultaneously and work together.


Solo, Shine, Contribute, and Twiddle Thumbs. That's the levels I break spotlight into.

That's a very helpful scale, because it illustrates a point about different types of balance.

In a balanced game, all characters will have the same average position on that scale. There's different ways that this can be achieved: a very "swingy" form of balance will see characters taking turns to solo challenges while everyone else twiddles their thumbs, while a "flat" form of balance will see everyone contributing to every encounter. Something somewhere in between would have characters taking turn to shine.

The classes from 3.X are balanced in different ways. Wizards are swingy; a wizard with the right spell can do anything while a wizard without spells is almost useless. Rogues are also a bit swingy, in that traditionally rogues solo certain skill challenges (what sort depends on the rogue, but it's often locks and traps and social) but contribute to combat.

Classes that are built around a swingy balance are more vulnerable to power creep and to optimization, because players only need to look for ways to increase the frequency of "solo" moments (through selecting the right spells) and by avoiding the situations where "twiddle thumbs" moments occur (say, by leaving when low on spells to return the next day, as high-level wizards can do). They are also more dependent on a DM who delivers the right balance of the right type of challenge where each character gets a chance to solo/shine.

Many of the "cost of magic" ideas that get thrown around as a way to compensate for the fact that casters are overpowered would have the effect of making casters even more swingy, which is ultimately going to make the root cause of this balancing issue worse rather than better.

This brings us to an important point about player expectations:

Sure, but… if the Rogue is already hurt over losing *their* role, we've moved past reason and into hurt feelings already.

The fact that out hypothetical rogue is getting upset here belies a key assumption about what it means to have a role: they expect to be soloing this challenge, and if they merely shine instead then they perceive that as loosing the role. That's not an assumption that a player of a less "swingy" class would be likely to make in the first place. Fighters almost never get to solo anything, for example. They're often the primary damage-dealer at low levels, but they're never the only damage-dealer. They're often the best tank, but they shouldn't the only character who can tank at all.

I see the assumption that a character needs to solo something in order to have a role is an insidious one. That leads to swingy balance, which leads to vulnerability to optimization and power creep and reliance on DM discretion. A flatter type of balance is much easier to maintain.

That's not to say that characters soloing challenges is necessarily bad - it's only bad if it's an expected part of how the game is balanced. Characters soloing challenges should be the exciting exception IMO, not the norm.

I think that we're mostly on the same page here:

Rather than evaluating, honestly, "what is my role in this setup", the Rogue is whining that their role is not what they *want* it to be.

To say the same thing in more words: Rather than evaluating, honestly, "what is my role in this setup", the rogue is whining that their role is a contributing or shining one, rather than the solo play that they've been conditioned to expect.


But your idea to move it from a "solo" activity to a *somewhat* shine+ participate scenario is interesting. Unfortunately, it has the side effects of a) further enforcing to almost mandating a cookie cutter party; b) greatly reducing the ability of the party to function "a man down". "A" is bad; I'm not sure about "B".

Actually, I think that this sort of system would allow for more flexibility in party composition. Remember that the wizard doesn't need the rogue to provide the skill check; cooperation saves them resources. Likewise, the rogue can still pick locks without the wizard; just not reliably or quickly. If cooportaion is the optimal strategy for reasons relating to resource conservation and expanded range of capability, but not mandatory in order to have any chance of success at all, then a party which is missing a character would be at a disadvantage but not completely disabled.


But let's see how your ideas work when the shoe is on the other foot: in 3e, you can't really take a low-level Wizard, and make them the party's primary DPS. Suppose the Wizard player is grouchy about that. How would you recommend changing other classes such that they shared the love with the poor, underpowered Evoker?

Well, the fundamental source of the issue is that evokers have swingy balance. I wouldn't fix the other classes, because they aren't what's broken.

Imagining the shoe on the other foot doesn't help when the shoe really and truly is on one specific foot.

Anonymouswizard
2021-03-02, 01:40 AM
Because I'd want to play a spellcaster, not fire crossbows or throw grenades.

And some of us think that magic is less magical if it's being used all the time, and prefer having our wizards rely on mundane skills. It's a taste thing.

But I have had wizard characters I've played go months without a spell being cast. It all depends on the game and the character how viable that is/

Yora
2021-03-02, 05:44 AM
I quite like the idea in Barbarians of Lemuria, in which there are four different levels of spells with increasing costs of Arcane Power. Power points that were spend on the first two levels return every day, but points spend on the higher level spells only return after a month, and the highest level spells make you lose a point permanently. If you only have something like 15 Arcane Power, that hurts a lot and likely leaves you powerless for the rest of the month. But it still might be worthwhile on rare occasions.

Telok
2021-03-02, 01:01 PM
Because I'd want to play a spellcaster, not fire crossbows or throw grenades. 5E Cantrips are absolutely refluffing of crossbows, and that's the whole point. It is more aesthetically pleasing to say "I cast Fire Bolt" than it is "I fire my crossbow". "I cast Fireball" is more immersive than "I throw a grenade". It's part of what makes me feel like I'm playing a spellcaster.

I think I see now. You define a caster/magic user character as one who uses magic as much as possible, where the mechanical game effects are less important than the special effects surrounding the mechanic. Yes? As long as your character is using the "cast a spell" action the actual result isn't important, but if you aren't using "cast a spell" almost all the time then the character isn't a (or doesn't feel like) a magic user.

But doesn't that require magic to be a "do everything" type of ability? Functionally supplanting nearly all other character abilities? If you want a character's attack magic to be as common and often used as a sword or pistol, or defense magic used as often as armor and shields, or charming magic used as often as social skills... Doesn't that tend to force a system into making magic just descriptive fluff on the regular abilities that all the characters use?

To me that doesn't even qualify as a magic system. It's like a supers game where one ability is a 10d6 purple magic energy zap and another is a 10d6 green quark energy blast, the difference is purely cosmetic. I would think that if your game's magic system was basically a replacement system for the majority of the character's normal abilities (attack, defend, move, discover, interact) then it would tend to have the same costs, limits, and mechanical effects as those other abilities. I'm not sure there are many games that do that beyond supers, light narrative, and D&D 4e.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-03-02, 01:13 PM
I think I see now. You define a caster/magic user character as one who uses magic as much as possible, where the mechanical game effects are less important than the special effects surrounding the mechanic. Yes? As long as your character is using the "cast a spell" action the actual result isn't important, but if you aren't using "cast a spell" almost all the time then the character isn't a (or doesn't feel like) a magic user.

But doesn't that require magic to be a "do everything" type of ability? Functionally supplanting nearly all other character abilities? If you want a character's attack magic to be as common and often used as a sword or pistol, or defense magic used as often as armor and shields, or charming magic used as often as social skills... Doesn't that tend to force a system into making magic just descriptive fluff on the regular abilities that all the characters use?

To me that doesn't even qualify as a magic system. It's like a supers game where one ability is a 10d6 purple magic energy zap and another is a 10d6 green quark energy blast, the difference is purely cosmetic. I would think that if your game's magic system was basically a replacement system for the majority of the character's normal abilities (attack, defend, move, discover, interact) then it would tend to have the same costs, limits, and mechanical effects as those other abilities. I'm not sure there are many games that do that beyond supers, light narrative, and D&D 4e.

There's a long tail effect here--some abilities get used all the time and others less so. Those "hot path" abilities should be themed, IMO, even if the mechanics aren't that much different. And which ones these are depends on the game.

In a combat focused game, simply making your basic combat action options involve casting spells (even if those are functionally very similar to more mundane actions) is enough, without handling all the cases. Note that you don't need to replace armor with magic--it's fine if a wizard is unarmored and mostly isn't in direct melee. And you don't need to replace all the everything with magic, just the things you do a lot of.

So in a social-focused game with rare non-social combat, having a wizard whose only magic was throwing fireballs would be the same as not having a wizard at all--taking that "skill" is a trap since it rarely, if ever comes up. On the other hand, having a wizard who enchants as one of his basic "social combat" techniques, even if that has similar outcomes to the schmoozer's "butter them up" move (or whatever) allows you to play a wizard even if not everything they do is magic.

Pex
2021-03-02, 02:04 PM
I think I see now. You define a caster/magic user character as one who uses magic as much as possible, where the mechanical game effects are less important than the special effects surrounding the mechanic. Yes? As long as your character is using the "cast a spell" action the actual result isn't important, but if you aren't using "cast a spell" almost all the time then the character isn't a (or doesn't feel like) a magic user.

But doesn't that require magic to be a "do everything" type of ability? Functionally supplanting nearly all other character abilities? If you want a character's attack magic to be as common and often used as a sword or pistol, or defense magic used as often as armor and shields, or charming magic used as often as social skills... Doesn't that tend to force a system into making magic just descriptive fluff on the regular abilities that all the characters use?

To me that doesn't even qualify as a magic system. It's like a supers game where one ability is a 10d6 purple magic energy zap and another is a 10d6 green quark energy blast, the difference is purely cosmetic. I would think that if your game's magic system was basically a replacement system for the majority of the character's normal abilities (attack, defend, move, discover, interact) then it would tend to have the same costs, limits, and mechanical effects as those other abilities. I'm not sure there are many games that do that beyond supers, light narrative, and D&D 4e.

No, magic doesn't have to do everything. Maybe a magic system "has a spell for that" where everything has a magical equivalent, but the individual character can't do everything. That's a fine restriction - limited knowledge/ability. Some D&D 2E restrictions were good ones. Spellcasters had limited number of spells. Wizard could only learn a certain number based on intelligence. Additionally, if you specialize in a school two schools were forbidden and could never learn or cast those spells. Clerics could only know particular spells based on spheres. If you used the Priest's Handbook you were even more limited in exchange for a few powers. In 5E Sorcerers have a limited number of spells known. I agree with many who say the number is too low, that being a matter of taste, but the concept is fine and I have no objection that a limit exists. I can agree a magic system doesn't need 8 different spells that do X dice of damage of different damage types, but that's devil in the details. That an X dice of damage spell exists is not a problem.

Not wanting to be punished for casting a spell is not the same thing as not wanting any restrictions on magic at all. Limited knowledge is a proper restriction. Devil in the details is not too restricted, i.e. no may only know 3 spells forever and ever. Limited amount of ability to cast (mana, spell slots, etc.) is fine. Devil in the details it's not too limited, i.e. no may only ever cast one spell per game day. Being able to cast these spells mean never ever being able to cast those spells is fine. There are also the standards: Need to roll to hit your opponent or the opponent gets to roll a die to ignore the spell or have a lesser effect. Needing to roll a die in order to cast the spell at all, a skill/ability/magic check is fine if and only if upon success the spell will always work without an additional chance it will fail (roll to hit, opponent gets a save). That's fairness since a warrior only has to roll to hit his opponent. He doesn't have to roll first to see if he gets to roll to hit. If a warrior did that's a poor game system with too many dice rolls.

Herbert_W
2021-03-02, 02:29 PM
You hand me a "magic user" character and I expect to be, well, using magic for most things. Not doing my best to avoid it at all costs.


And some of us think that magic is less magical if it's being used all the time, and prefer having our wizards rely on mundane skills. It's a taste thing./

You're right, it's a taste thing. DnD caters to people who have a specific expectation of what it means to be a magic user; in 3.X and prior, a caster has game-changing abilities whose use they carefully ration because they're basically a wet towel once their spells run dry. In 4e, casters use magic for everything and have the same resource management mechanics as any other class. In 5e, casters can use magic for everything and have game-changing abilities that the carefully ration because they're a bit less effective than martial classes when their non-cantrip spells run dry.

Every edition of DnD has a specific conception of what it means to be a caster built in to it. If that doesn't fit a player's concept for their character, then that player doesn't have many other options. I do wish that DnD had more flexibility in this regard, and had different spellcasting classes that properly represented different concepts instead of depicting the same basic concept in different ways. The 5e warlock was a step in the right direction on this front, but is hampered by the fact that the warlock's mechanics are tied rules-wise to a warlock's need for a patron.

I find it useful to divide magic into four kinds depending on whether the magic exists for flavor or as a game-changer, and on whether it's for use in or out of combat.


In-combat flavor serves an an alternative option to mundane attack or defense. A 5e firebolt is basically equivalent to an arrow in the grand scheme of things, and a 4e disintegrate does the same thing as the ranger power of the same level two-in-one shot. (Yes, they do slightly different amounts and different types of damage, but they still do the same kind of thing even if not exactly equally well.) These abilities mage a mage feel like a mage for players who want to play a "magic first all the time" sort of character while having little or no effect on the power level of said character. These shouldn't have any more of a resource cost than the mundane abilities that they replace - because players won't use them if they do, and players who want these abilities will want to use them a lot.
Out-of-combat flavor allows for mundane utility outside of combat. Maybe one character can cast mending while another has a knack for mundane repairs; both characters feel different but have the same overall level of capability. Once again, these shouldn't have more of a cost then the mundane skills that they replicate.
In-combat game-changers change the way that a character fights. Being able to cast a wall spell both encourages a player to think tactically about when and where to drop it, and encourages them to avoid melee so that they have a chance to cast. These abilities should have a cost. Usually, that's limited uses per day (i.e. using a spell slot) and an opportunity cost (getting that spell slot required taking a level in a class, and therefore not in another class).
Out-of-combat game-changers grant players more control over the course of the game. Resurrection is an example of a spell that's cast out of combat and can have a profound effect on the game. This sort of magic should have a cost. Limited uses aren't as meaningful if an ability can be used during downtime, so expensive components, opportunity costs to learn the ability, and risk are all viable as costs.


A player might want to play a spell caster that has any combination of one or more of these abilities - and they might want to not have one of these types of magic while having another.

This could make spellcasting classes different in interesting ways. For example, magic might always come with a great cost for a warlock - not so great that it isn't worth it, but great enough that no warlock would ever use magic frivolously. This warlock would only use game-changing powers and would rely on mundane skills for everything else. Meanwhile, a hedge mage might see nothing wrong with using prestidigitation to brush their teeth every morning.

We're wandering off-topic here. Bringing it back to the cost of magic: the main point that I think we should take away from this is that, whatever cost we attach to impactful magic spells, we don't want to attach that to all magic. Flavorful non-game-changing magic is a thing that players want and that would be severely hampered if all magic came at a great price.

Cluedrew
2021-03-02, 08:33 PM
To Herbert_W: I like that framing and am kind of kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner. (I like more general focused systems.) So in terms of game balance and fitting into the overall game I definitely agree with you. To the point I don't have much to add. But I have one counter point I would like to bring up.

On one level there is a counter argument though in that magic has some differences from other skills; all the thematic weight the idea carries. Not that mental skills and physical skills have the same connotations but magic just... I kind of like magic that feels otherworldly (not exclusively but I'm going somewhere with this) and that does kind of mean it should stand apart from the other skills in some way. What that way is completely up to the designer but unless you are going for "mundane magic" it should probably stand apart a bit. Still you can do that while still using the same structure as the other skills if you need to.
Also my thread preview right now consists exactly of the 30 posts since the restart. I think that is cool.
On Amount of Magic: It is an aside but I have a few things to say quickly A) Magic fades with overuse. B) I have very few characters who are defined by a single skill so I don't mind using more than one.

NigelWalmsley
2021-03-02, 08:58 PM
I genuinely do not understand the argument that if you use too much magic, it stops feeling like magic. Like, is anyone going to tell me with a straight face that they think that Game of Thrones is a more magical TV show than Avatar: The Last Airbender? Because that's the argument being made here, and I don't see how it holds water.

Cluedrew
2021-03-02, 09:15 PM
To NigelWalmsley: Well I said "overuse" and how much use is overuse depends on a lot of factors. For example Bending is woven into society, they are massive traditions passed down without being hidden or restricted. It also has this real physical component that makes it seem pretty natural to use consistently and continuously. On the other hand magic that is supposed to be closely guarded secrets from a previous age, learned through years of service, quests or careful trades could due with a little less ubiquity.

I realise that this sort of boils down to "sometimes it just feels like it is too much" but in the end it is a matter of feel.

Anonymouswizard
2021-03-02, 09:30 PM
You're right, it's a taste thing. DnD caters to people who have a specific expectation of what it means to be a magic user;

I should note that, while I agree with your post, I'm also fully willing to admit that I don't like D&D. The sheer prevalence of magic in later editions is one part (Eberron being an exception because I can think of the magic as alternative technology), another part is a growing love of more gritty, lower powered, and weird fantasy.

My favourite game is Unknown Armies, where magick almost always has a cost and mostly is relatively unreliable. But even with all the hassle playing an Adept causes it's still useful, because spells run on a different kind of logic to normal reality. Plus, you know, it's ripe for weird stuff even if I suck at running it as a horror game.

D&D wouldn't need flexibility if it was easier to play other games, but I'd rather not have that discussion again.


I genuinely do not understand the argument that if you use too much magic, it stops feeling like magic. Like, is anyone going to tell me with a straight face that they think that Game of Thrones is a more magical TV show than Avatar: The Last Airbender? Because that's the argument being made here, and I don't see how it holds water.

I've not read enough A Song of Ice and Fire to get to any magic, so maybe? It certainly feels less magical than The Lord of the Rings.

Well, kind of. Bending doesn't feel magical, it feels like a set of exotic martial arts. The stuff to do with the spirit world does, at least in part because it appears less and has more of an aura of mystery.

Herbert_W
2021-03-03, 07:38 AM
I genuinely do not understand the argument that if you use too much magic, it stops feeling like magic. Like, is anyone going to tell me with a straight face that they think that Game of Thrones is a more magical TV show than Avatar: The Last Airbender? Because that's the argument being made here, and I don't see how it holds water.

There's two different senses of the word "magic" being used here: something feeling special and mysterious and otherworldly, or the basic fact of something being called magic in the lore of the game.

To rephrase the argument in a less confusing way, spellcasting feels less special when it's overused.

Getting on that subject, there's a number of different forms of "overuse" and I'm concerned that we may be unintentionally equivocating between them. There's been a several four-point lists in this thread so far, so let's make another covering different ways that magic (i.e. spells) overuse can kill the magic (i.e. specialness).


Knowledge: How many people in the setting know that magic exists? How many have a basic grasp of what it requires and what it can do?
Accessibility: How many people could get magic if they wanted it? How many people have the opportunity to learn magic, and how many could hire a spellcaster?
Commonness: How many people can use magic?
Frequency: Of those people who have magic, how often do they use it?

This might be a matter of taste, but I care much more about the first three points on this list than the last one. If most people's reaction to seeing a spell cast is "Oh wow, that's a nice spell" rather than "Wait what? How? Did that actually happen?" then that kills the magic. If I can go to the nearest city, find the wizard's guild, and hire someone to cast any (legal) spell - and I know in advance how much it's likely to cost - then that kills the magic. If every major temple has at least one priest with real magical powers, then that kills the magic.

If I'm an adventurer of uncommon ability, accompanied by other adventurers of uncommon ability, and one of my buddies uses magic all day every day - that doesn't kill the magic. If anything, a character having access to minor inconsequential/flavorful magic in a setting where magic is usually powerful and costly makes that character feel more special (and it makes them feel special without increasing their power, which from a game-design perspective, is free gravy).


To Herbert_W: I like that framing and am kind of kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner. (I like more general focused systems.) . . . But I have one counter point I would like to bring up.

On one level there is a counter argument though in that magic has some differences from other skills; all the thematic weight the idea carries. Not that mental skills and physical skills have the same connotations but magic just... I kind of like magic that feels otherworldly (not exclusively but I'm going somewhere with this) and that does kind of mean it should stand apart from the other skills in some way. What that way is completely up to the designer but unless you are going for "mundane magic" it should probably stand apart a bit. Still you can do that while still using the same structure as the other skills if you need to.


I also like magic that feels weird and otherworldly - but that last sentence basically unwinds the whole counterargument. If magic replicates a mundane skill, and you can make it feel otherworldly and weird while still costing as much as the mundane skill that it replaces, then "magic should be weird" isn't an argument against making the costs the same.

There's a lot that hinges on that "if." I think it's completely possible to make magic weird through a combination of fluff and odd requirements that don't have a significant effect on the power level of the character. It does require creativity though, which might explain why DnD fails to pull this off.


My favourite game is Unknown Armies . . . it's ripe for weird stuff even if I suck at running it as a horror game.

I've heard good things about UA. I've never played it, but I've read through some rules online, and from what I can tell there's a lot of good ideas in that game. It seems like it'd be a bit hard to balance though.

One of the advantages of DnD (and I suspect the main advantage and reason why it's so popular) is that it's easy to set up and run a basically decent game. The minimum cost of entry in terms of system mastery and effort to DM a game that's fun to play is very low. Your basic plot hook is "There's gold in them thar hills. Wanna loot it?" Your basic challenge for the PCs is the monsters that they run into while looting, with a balanced and well-fleshed out tactical combat simulator. Your basic balance is having all of the PCs be close to the same level.

I'll admit that I probably ought to do some more research before I make a definitive statement, but UA seems to lack that sort of solid gameplay core. That doesn't make it not a good game, but it does make it less good for the target audience of DnD.

If a game took the weirdness of UA's magic and made it work with a DnD-style gameplay core, then that'd be a great system.

(This is a bit of a tangent, but fighting against entropomancer goblins would be fun. Horrifying, but fun.)

Cluedrew
2021-03-03, 08:31 AM
I also like magic that feels weird and otherworldly - but that last sentence basically unwinds the whole counterargument.Yes that is because leaning into expectations and subverting them have very different rules. Both are valid but not valid to do both (or at least its harder). Either way it is something one should keep in mind but there are so many things you can do with it from there trying to make hard and fast rules is pretty much doomed to failure.

Anonymouswizard
2021-03-03, 08:59 AM
Getting on that subject, there's a number of different forms of "overuse" and I'm concerned that we may be unintentionally equivocating between them. There's been a several four-point lists in this thread so far, so let's make another covering different ways that magic (i.e. spells) overuse can kill the magic (i.e. specialness).


Knowledge: How many people in the setting know that magic exists? How many have a basic grasp of what it requires and what it can do?
Accessibility: How many people could get magic if they wanted it? How many people have the opportunity to learn magic, and how many could hire a spellcaster?
Commonness: How many people can use magic?
Frequency: Of those people who have magic, how often do they use it?

This might be a matter of taste, but I care much more about the first three points on this list than the last one. If most people's reaction to seeing a spell cast is "Oh wow, that's a nice spell" rather than "Wait what? How? Did that actually happen?" then that kills the magic. If I can go to the nearest city, find the wizard's guild, and hire someone to cast any (legal) spell - and I know in advance how much it's likely to cost - then that kills the magic. If every major temple has at least one priest with real magical powers, then that kills the magic.

To me magic not being a big deal kind of kills it for me. Although that can also be done by just making wizards so rare an adventuring party doesn't have one.


I've heard good things about UA. I've never played it, but I've read through some rules online, and from what I can tell there's a lot of good ideas in that game. It seems like it'd be a bit hard to balance though.

Eh, it's balanced in different ways. Mundanes are relatively much more powerful than in D&D, due to a mixture of features such as no automatic insanity, not having to dedicate skill/identity points to magick, and not having their behaviour restricted via taboo. The last one can be a big one, I can't remember the exact wording of the mechanomancer taboo but I remember my first group decided they could down a (extremely outdated) dumb mobile phone and receive calls, but weren't allowed to call people themselves.


One of the advantages of DnD (and I suspect the main advantage and reason why it's so popular) is that it's easy to set up and run a basically decent game. The minimum cost of entry in terms of system mastery and effort to DM a game that's fun to play is very low. Your basic plot hook is "There's gold in them thar hills. Wanna loot it?" Your basic challenge for the PCs is the monsters that they run into while looting, with a balanced and well-fleshed out tactical combat simulator. Your basic balance is having all of the PCs be close to the same level.

I'll admit that I probably ought to do some more research before I make a definitive statement, but UA seems to lack that sort of solid gameplay core. That doesn't make it not a good game, but it does make it less good for the target audience of DnD.

Well, 3e adds more structure, in that the assumed default is 'the group wants something so badly they resorted to the occult to get it'. It does, however, still have the issue of requiring an (ideally) player-decided goal. But yeah, I'll admit that an often ignored aspect is that D&D is essentially designed for pick-up games, where people turn up and then decide the character they're playing. This has actually only got more pronounced since 3e, with point-buy and arcane casters whose spells-known are based entirely on their level.


If a game took the weirdness of UA's magic and made it work with a DnD-style gameplay core, then that'd be a great system.

(This is a bit of a tangent, but fighting against entropomancer goblins would be fun. Horrifying, but fun.)

Sure, but to get the same level of weirdness you'd have to essentially burn all the settings to the ground, and see 4e Forgotten Realms. Or well, limit all the weirdness to NPCs, which is very much YMMV.

Though Entropomancers are some of the best chaos mages that I've seen in a game. But it would be difficult to create many UA-style weird magick schools that would work for D&D, and one of the great things about UA is that magick schools can rise and fall fast as well as stick around for a long time. Authentic Thaumaturgy didn't rule the magick game for a century, mechanomancy might have meaningfully changed, Videomancy lost the majority of it's power in the 2010s, and while Cinemancy (movie cliche magick) is probably pushing a century itself at this point it's very concept means it has to change over time.

As a side note I love Cinemancers, partially because they combine a relatively easy time farming Significant Charges and a powerful school with a rather inconvinient Taboo.You have to do your best to fulfil every single movie cliche you see, so prey to the Invisible Clergy that you don't suffer a 'meet cute'. While other schools are great, such as the fact that gun mages can't shoot anybody, I just love the idea of a Cinemancer acting like a James Bond villain just to harvest four Sigs a day, and losing all his Charges if he doesn't have a complex but escapable deathtrap to put the PCs in.

Lord Raziere
2021-03-03, 09:13 AM
Yeah, the weirder, more esoteric and interesting the magic system, the chances that its setting specific and can't really work anywhere else reach 1.

Unless you go full superhero and allow people to create their own magic system from scratch and bring their own weirdness, but GMs are a burden-filled lot who look at such weirdness and variance and generally not want to deal too many unknown factors. it means more work for them, so....not likely.

Xervous
2021-03-03, 10:21 AM
Yeah, the weirder, more esoteric and interesting the magic system, the chances that its setting specific and can't really work anywhere else reach 1.

Unless you go full superhero and allow people to create their own magic system from scratch and bring their own weirdness, but GMs are a burden-filled lot who look at such weirdness and variance and generally not want to deal too many unknown factors. it means more work for them, so....not likely.

Mechanics can be juggled out to produce just about anything desired when you have the elusive gem of math and statistics that seems to be lacking on many mainstream design teams. It’s the flavor stuff that’s the stumbling block. Yeah I could write mechanics for it, but that’s frankly not the game we’re sitting down to play so you won’t have a cuteness attribute anal circumference stat.

Max_Killjoy
2021-03-03, 10:34 AM
Mechanics can be juggled out to produce just about anything desired when you have the elusive gem of math and statistics that seems to be lacking on many mainstream design teams. It’s the flavor stuff that’s the stumbling block. Yeah I could write mechanics for it, but that’s frankly not the game we’re sitting down to play so you won’t have a cuteness attribute anal circumference stat.

There are so many games I've picked up for the setting, atmosphere, etc... only to be utterly let down by the mechanics... either they were actually going for characters to fail at least 2/3 of the time on most tasks, or they just can't do math.

Xervous
2021-03-03, 10:43 AM
There are so many games I've picked up for the setting, atmosphere, etc... only to be utterly let down by the mechanics... either they were actually going for characters to fail at least 2/3 of the time on most tasks, or they just can't do math.

Now you have me curious. I’ve been reading a smattering of systems lately to get a better picture of various approaches and it’s often isolated failures that are more informative than the rest of the framework. Got any suggested reading?

Max_Killjoy
2021-03-03, 11:21 AM
Now you have me curious. I’ve been reading a smattering of systems lately to get a better picture of various approaches and it’s often isolated failures that are more informative than the rest of the framework. Got any suggested reading?


A couple good examples.

Fria Ligan's system for Tales From the Loop and Things From the Flood -- even average tasks will be failed almost 2/3 of the time, unless a lot of "character build" has been invested in a specific thing that applies to what's being rolled to attempt. I love the setting and atmosphere, but I could never play using their system.

Cubicle 7's Yggdrasill -- most rolls get a characteristic and a skill, but some only get the characteristic... and the target number scale is the same, meaning characters just fail those rolls more, for no particular reason other than a quirk in the mechanics.

I can't begin to think of how I'd make 12 different character-specific kinds of magic work in either of those systems.

Anonymouswizard
2021-03-03, 11:44 AM
A couple good examples.

Fria Ligan's system for Tales From the Loop and Things From the Flood -- even average tasks will be failed almost 2/3 of the time, unless a lot of "character build" has been invested in a specific thing that applies to what's being rolled to attempt. I love the setting and atmosphere, but I could never play using their system.

Sometimes that's due to unstated assumptions, such as Dark Heresy's assumptions that you'll generally have a positive bonus from taking extra time or the like. I've started to think that it's important for systems writers to state their assumptions.


Cubicle 7's Yggdrasill -- most rolls get a characteristic and a skill, but some only get the characteristic... and the target number scale is the same, meaning characters just fail those rolls more, for no particular reason other than a quirk in the mechanics.

I can't begin to think of how I'd make 12 different character-specific kinds of magic work in either of those systems.

Le 7ème Cercle. Cubicle 7 just did the translation from the original French.

Actually, Le 7ème Cercle's games have really well done historical backgrounds, but pretty poor mechanics. You've mentioned the issue with TNs not taking Attribute only rolls into account, I'd like to mention that the critical failure rules are written so that raising your Attribute above 2 increases your chance of a fumble. Qin: the Warring States doesn't have this specific issue, but it does still have the issue of not shifting target numbers to account for Attribute-only rolls.

Max_Killjoy
2021-03-03, 12:26 PM
Sometimes that's due to unstated assumptions, such as Dark Heresy's assumptions that you'll generally have a positive bonus from taking extra time or the like. I've started to think that it's important for systems writers to state their assumptions.


Agreed, I think developers become steeped in their own assumptions and often don't stop to think that a person picking up the book wasn't there for the hours and hours of discussion, and didn't sit through the playtesting sessions.

It would do a lot of good for more RPGs to be more explicit about those assumptions. Some tables consider taking extra time or having a bonus the exception, so a system that considers it commonplace needs to SAY SO.

I think the assumption in TFTL and TFTF is that few rolls are made per scene and that characters should be failing the first try so that they're pushed to take on "narrative complications" to attempt the roll again with a bonus... so... yeah. There's a lot of implicit but very little explicit to make it clear, but I think they're going for "roll a few times per scene to see who takes narrative control of that scene".




Le 7ème Cercle. Cubicle 7 just did the translation from the original French.


What must be the Le 7ème Cercle logo on the back of my copy is so dark that I can just make out the 7 and maybe a C clearly -- so I thought it was just a French and an English logo for Cubicle 7.




Actually, Le 7ème Cercle's games have really well done historical backgrounds, but pretty poor mechanics. You've mentioned the issue with TNs not taking Attribute only rolls into account, I'd like to mention that the critical failure rules are written so that raising your Attribute above 2 increases your chance of a fumble. Qin: the Warring States doesn't have this specific issue, but it does still have the issue of not shifting target numbers to account for Attribute-only rolls.

Qin's system, with taking the difference between two dice, is a bit of an oddball (IIRC).

Anonymouswizard
2021-03-03, 01:13 PM
Agreed, I think developers become steeped in their own assumptions and often don't stop to think that a person picking up the book wasn't there for the hours and hours of discussion, and didn't sit through the playtesting sessions.

It would do a lot of good for more RPGs to be more explicit about those assumptions. Some tables consider taking extra time or having a bonus the exception, so a system that considers it commonplace needs to SAY SO.

I think the assumption in TFTL and TFTF is that few rolls are made per scene and that characters should be failing the first try so that they're pushed to take on "narrative complications" to attempt the roll again with a bonus... so... yeah. There's a lot of implicit but very little explicit to make it clear, but I think they're going for "roll a few times per scene to see who takes narrative control of that scene".

Yeah, with the game I'm writing with intent to publish (freely on the interwebs) I've begun smoke testing the rules even though the full alpha document isn't finished (although if I was bothering to track versions we'd be at 0.1.4 at the moment due to some core rules revisions). Which reminds me, I need to actually add in an explanation of difficulties (and done).

Actually the GM chapter is mainly going to be about assumptions the system makes, including how many resources checks are rolled a session and the fact that it's intended for the GM to roll openly. It's just very hard to write it without coming across as prescriptive.


What must be the Le 7ème Cercle logo on the back of my copy is so dark that I can just make out the 7 and maybe a C clearly -- so I thought it was just a French and an English logo for Cubicle 7.

Yeah, it is a bit confusing. Honestly if Cubicle 7 still had the licence I might not brought it up, but the clarity helps people find the game(in pdf at least, I cannot work out if print copies are being produced in English).



Qin's system, with taking the difference between two dice, is a bit of an oddball (IIRC).

It's weird and creates a weird curve of results, but it works and does exactly what you expect. The system in Yggdrassil and Keltia is just as weird, Statd10b2+Skill, but skills are much more important it's '2+ 1s means a critical failure' rule leads to a bit of weirdness*.

* But I immediately saw that and decided that 'all ones is a critical failure' worked better for me.

Telok
2021-03-03, 01:36 PM
, or they just can't do math.

When for the price of a decent meal (or less) you can usually get a stats student to do a math check on your system or a comp.sci student to model it. I get that RPG writers aren't often math heavy but the issue has been common enough that they should know to get a math check.

Went back to the op:

In DnD you basically get your spells for free, when leveling up (the whole spell list in some cases) and casting won't fail, except for spell resistance.
You don't have to invest time or resources to learn spells and pretty small amounts to cast them.
There is nearly no downside to being a caster.

In other games I played, <snipped stuff> Additionally, spell failure can have devastating side effects.

To me, that means, that even if magic is really powerful, mundane characters keep being a solid choice, because by avoiding those costs, you can invest your resources in other ways and (kind of) keep up.

I think, by handling magic in this way, you can keep (high) magic as an option, but avoid things like the tippyverse.
The mentioned mystery of magic is also easier to achieve.

So yeah. Different people have different preferences, risk tolerance, preferred power levels, balance concerns, etc., etc.

D&D has, during the march of editions, gone with increasing ease & reliability of magic while mostly keeping non-magic trying to rolli high on a d20. It's an opinion and preference if that's good or bad. Other systems chose differently, for good or ill depending on various details. But nonD&D style limits on magic work in those games, some of which are on 3+ decades of publication.

Random question from me: Anyone know of nonD&D systems that do Tippyverse/wight-pocalypse type stuff on accident? I mean where those sorts of possible outcomes are really and truely unintentional and break/obsolete swaths of base character options? This is curiosity on my part, not casting aspersions. The closest I can think of is supers games with static RL style tech when super tech exists, but that's that whole genera and exists in the source material that the games emulate. And even that's more a fridge logic hiccup rather than the D&D style giving 1/10000 of the world population the ability to make perpetual motion devices or infinite food cabinets (yes, od&d, ad&d, & 4e generally avoided it too, already know that).

Pex
2021-03-03, 02:14 PM
In GURPS you can accidentally summon a demon for casting a spell. It's a small chance but is possible. Multiply by the number of spellcasters in a game world, Demon Apocalypse. The game only recommends to reroll the demon result for casting a healing spell.

Max_Killjoy
2021-03-03, 02:23 PM
When for the price of a decent meal (or less) you can usually get a stats student to do a math check on your system or a comp.sci student to model it. I get that RPG writers aren't often math heavy but the issue has been common enough that they should know to get a math check.

How much would it cost to have an economics student do a check on how much meals cost in the game? :wink:




Went back to the op:


So yeah. Different people have different preferences, risk tolerance, preferred power levels, balance concerns, etc., etc.

D&D has, during the march of editions, gone with increasing ease & reliability of magic while mostly keeping non-magic trying to rolli high on a d20. It's an opinion and preference if that's good or bad. Other systems chose differently, for good or ill depending on various details. But nonD&D style limits on magic work in those games, some of which are on 3+ decades of publication.

Random question from me: Anyone know of nonD&D systems that do Tippyverse/wight-pocalypse type stuff on accident? I mean where those sorts of possible outcomes are really and truely unintentional and break/obsolete swaths of base character options? This is curiosity on my part, not casting aspersions. The closest I can think of is supers games with static RL style tech when super tech exists, but that's that whole genera and exists in the source material that the games emulate. And even that's more a fridge logic hiccup rather than the D&D style giving 1/10000 of the world population the ability to make perpetual motion devices or infinite food cabinets (yes, od&d, ad&d, & 4e generally avoided it too, already know that).


I can't think of any other games where that's an inherent problem, off the top of my head.

NichG
2021-03-03, 02:52 PM
Random question from me: Anyone know of nonD&D systems that do Tippyverse/wight-pocalypse type stuff on accident? I mean where those sorts of possible outcomes are really and truely unintentional and break/obsolete swaths of base character options? This is curiosity on my part, not casting aspersions. The closest I can think of is supers games with static RL style tech when super tech exists, but that's that whole genera and exists in the source material that the games emulate. And even that's more a fridge logic hiccup rather than the D&D style giving 1/10000 of the world population the ability to make perpetual motion devices or infinite food cabinets (yes, od&d, ad&d, & 4e generally avoided it too, already know that).

It's pretty rare since usually it requires a system to have a certain level of rich interactions between its elements before its easy to miss such things. The one example that springs to mind is the Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG 2e, which has: 1. Separate spell shapes and spell effects, 2. One of the spell shapes very efficiently scales its radius with the casting cost you set for the spell if you set its other parameters to their minimum value and find a cheap effect thats ruinous when writ large (the thing is balanced for a cost that looks like X*Y*Z where X is a radius, Y is a duration, and Z is the cost of the effect and it looks like it was designed with the idea of leaving damage zones on the field, but if you push the duration to 1 round then suddenly its cheaper than the actual AoE template) , 3. An enchanting system that lets you in theory dump ~30 times the magicka capacity of a reasonable character into a single casting of something. Rather than a wightpocalypse, you can basically make a enchanted item bomb that will cause a one mile area to Frenzy and attack each-other, or things along those lines.

For example, a dedicated caster character near the end of a campaign might have 100 magicka. A Black Soulgem has 1500 magicka. If you do a Storm effect with 1 round duration, you get 2.5 meters of radius per +1 to the multiplier of the spell cost (or you could do a 15 degree cone for 7.5 meters per +1 to multiplier as another silly example). Lets say we pick Frenzy as the effect - the cost from Frenzy is 6 * X * Y where X is a modifier to the DC to resist and Y is a duration in minutes (rounds are 5 seconds). So set X and Y to 1 (note, I don't think it says that 1 is actually the minimum allowed, and if you set X to zero for Frenzy it still actually has a non-zero difficulty to resist, but I'd say that leaves the space of things that would be permitted at a table in practice). So for 1500 magicka, you get a 1-round blast that applies a low-DC Frenzy to a 1.25km diameter area or a ~1.9km long cone.

If instead you use Fear (cost 8*X), it slightly reduces the area, but the results of failed Fear checks in UESRPG can be weirdly severe. There's a d100 + 10*degree of failure roll on a chart where the most severe outcomes are things like permanent stat loss or going catatonic (granted, you're not going to induce 7 degrees of failure if you set the difficulty modifier variable to 1). The reason you might want to use Fear is that, rather than actually caring about the duration of the source of the Fear effect, the results on the table have effects which last 'until the end of the Encounter'. So if you wanted to siege a city, you could drop multiple Fear bombs with low duration and stack up debuffs.

Edit: This is actually MUCH worse in the 3e version of the rules, because they changed it so that the cost of the Form and Effect add rather than multiply. In 3e, Storm adds 5+Z cost to have a 1+3Z meter area of effect, and if you use Horror (Fear is split into Panic and Horror) then it adds only +7*modifier to the cost so at that point you might as well do a high level version since its just an additive effect. So lets say you pay 100 magicka for effect and base cost of Storm, leaving 1400 magicka to pump radius, giving you an 8km diameter hard-to-resist Horror-bomb at the cost of a single Grand Soulgem or Black Soulgem (and its rechargeable from an ammo stock of similar soulgems, with a 1 minute reload time). A failed Horror check has a flat 5% chance of permanent stat loss and a 1% chance of death via heart attack.

I'd guess that this kind of thing is all over the place in collectible card games though, given each card introducing new rules that might have unforeseen interactions.

NigelWalmsley
2021-03-03, 03:08 PM
Bloodzilla in Shadowrun was the same kind of accidental game-breaker.

Xervous
2021-03-03, 03:13 PM
Bloodzilla in Shadowrun was the same kind of accidental game-breaker.

Which edition?

NigelWalmsley
2021-03-03, 03:23 PM
Which edition?

IIRC, 4e, but they fixed it in errata at some point. If I'm remembering correctly, the basic issue was that Blood spirits could raise their attributes by killing things in a way that raised their attribute caps, allowing them to raise their attributes even further until they could OHKO anything in the setting trivially.

Telok
2021-03-03, 03:33 PM
Oh, yeah. The Morrowind superjump. Jump+100, speed+100, duration 1 second. Cast while running, jump immediately, get ready to cast levitate when you saw the ground coming at you.

You could combo a soulgem filler spell in those games too because summons appeared ahead of you and the zaps had a travel time. I think the ghosts were a fav, decent size souls and lowish health. A, what, 2 second summon was enough?

Oh, and the drain health spell/dagger enchant. Because the health coming back 1 second later didn't matter if they were dead.

Ah, the dangers of player designed magic in crpgs. Sounds like the pnp version was just as fun.

Edit: ok, the crpg ones didn't really break much. They were dangerous to use and would just avoid travel time or ohko mooks really well. Filling bunches of medium soulgems wasn't broken unless you went heavy into enchanting skill and made your own piles of magic rings or such.

Lord Raziere
2021-03-03, 04:30 PM
Mechanics can be juggled out to produce just about anything desired when you have the elusive gem of math and statistics that seems to be lacking on many mainstream design teams. It’s the flavor stuff that’s the stumbling block. Yeah I could write mechanics for it, but that’s frankly not the game we’re sitting down to play so you won’t have a cuteness attribute anal circumference stat.

The flavor stuff is what I'm referring to.

a magic system based in modern technological devices isn't going much use in a medieval setting. while a hypothetical magic system that can do a lot of things but has major weakness against metal of any kind gets weaker the more advanced your setting gets. A Sidereal Exalted is probably going to be very confused waking up in Faerun and anyone facing them is going to be very confused at their capabilities if they work at all, especially the wizards who know magic best.

and there is stuff like Cosmere magic systems a lot of them are very interesting, well thought out and capable of great things when exploited this or that way, but there is no way your importing them to anywhere else. they often have entire worlds and social systems set up around them to know their full capabilities and access the resources needed to use them.

there is always some metaphysical thingamajiggicks that comes up that needs solving in such matters. always.

Yora
2021-03-03, 06:22 PM
I can't think of any other games where that's an inherent problem, off the top of my head.

Was that even a thing in D&D before third edition? I know 2nd edition had big books of additional spells, but I don't recall that being considered an issue in 1st and it really is not in BECMI.

NichG
2021-03-03, 06:25 PM
Oh, yeah. The Morrowind superjump. Jump+100, speed+100, duration 1 second. Cast while running, jump immediately, get ready to cast levitate when you saw the ground coming at you.

You could combo a soulgem filler spell in those games too because summons appeared ahead of you and the zaps had a travel time. I think the ghosts were a fav, decent size souls and lowish health. A, what, 2 second summon was enough?

Oh, and the drain health spell/dagger enchant. Because the health coming back 1 second later didn't matter if they were dead.

Ah, the dangers of player designed magic in crpgs. Sounds like the pnp version was just as fun.

Edit: ok, the crpg ones didn't really break much. They were dangerous to use and would just avoid travel time or ohko mooks really well. Filling bunches of medium soulgems wasn't broken unless you went heavy into enchanting skill and made your own piles of magic rings or such.

In the CRPG (or at least Morrowind), it was Alchemy that was totally broken because of the Intelligence feedback loop :)

The tabletop system is kinda janky in some ways. In particular, failure rates for actions are very high at low level play and that kind of hits you double as a spellcaster since there's also quite punishing spell backfires if you're using custom spells (like, lose your character 10% of the time on a failure on a SL 2 spell). However, if you use the enchanting system you can basically 'pre-roll' your casting checks - e.g. if you fail an Enchanting roll you don't necessarily lose the materials and so you could go and try again, or at worst you burned through a petty soulgem or whatever. But then you have a magical item that can cast the spell for you, can store more magicka than you can as a character, can be recharged from another soulgem with a 1 minute long ritual, and is single-skill-dependent rather than depending on specific magic school skills... The main downside (in 3e) is that you can't make use of the magicka savings from Spell Restraint (but if you're casting out of soulgems you have much more magicka available than the system expects anyhow...) and that you can't get bonus damage from Overloading a spell (which does make blasting a little less attractive since you'll be losing out on ~ a +4 to +8 damage, when a SL 3 spell for example deals 1d10; but keep in mind you're also getting rid of something like a 30% failure chance in exchange...)

The really broken thing at character-scale play (rather than trying to figure out how to nuke cities and such) is the Ward spell, which you can pop off as a counter-action to any attack against yourself or another party member and basically gives DR high enough to negate most sources of damage in the system, and the way the action economy works gives you basically two actions a round (so you could use one to blast and reserve one to ward) plus a way to buy a third action using a limited pool. So reserving an action to Ward is a massive difference in early-game tankiness. Daedric armor for example grants effectively 8 DR, and a SL 1 Ward spell reduces incoming damage by 6 for the cost of 4 magicka.

Telok
2021-03-03, 07:26 PM
In the CRPG (or at least Morrowind), it was Alchemy that was totally broken because of the Intelligence feedback loop :)

The tabletop system is kinda janky in some ways. In particular, failure rates for actions are very high at low level play and that kind of hits you double as a spellcaster since there's also quite punishing spell backfires if you're using custom spells (like, lose your character 10% of the time on a failure on a SL 2 spell). However, if you use the enchanting system you can basically 'pre-roll' your casting checks - e.g. if

Heh, in the crpg spells from magic rings didn't have a casting animation. You could empty rings with spells as fast as you could click the mouse and access inventory. Yeah, the alchemy stacking broke self buffing, mastering enchantment could break all the limits on casting. High enough and you could make magic items with custom spells on the fly.

Ok, so the Elder Scrolls pnp game did an easy abuse magic system. Don't give players unrestricted access to a special effects/magic system. Nobody ever catches all the exploits. Supers games have known that for a long time. Sounds like someone else didn't.

EdokTheTwitch
2021-03-05, 09:10 AM
Well, took me long enough to read through the thread that the interest in it managed to wane. I fought through the superhero VS guy at the gym, 4th Edition, and even random game system sidetracks, only to arrive at the finish line too late. :smallbiggrin: Hopefully it doesn't fade too quickly, the topic is incredibly interesting.

I noticed that there is a lot of focus (and push-back) on the subject of even introducing a cost to magic. Many people mention that the costs are either prohibitively high (unreasonable fumble charts mostly), purely narrative and thus easily ignored (losing life expectancy or signing away your soul), or just unfun (long casting times or severe magic nerfs). And, to be honest, I definitely agree. Most of these feel like they're intended to slap a band aid on the problem of caster supremacy (Of course, talking about D&D) and punish the player for daring to play a caster.

I've been thinking, though. I DO believe that magic should have a cost. Unless it's a setting where magic is commonplace (Harry Potter, Eberron, Avatar), as a mystical, unknowable force, there should be some price for using it.

I've got a couple of ideas that I've been using in my own (heavily WIP) system:
1. Magic is dangerous,but only until mastered. In this idea , learning new spells is the dangerous segment, not actively using them later. For example, every time the caster needs to learn a new spell, they seclude themselves, and go through a risky process of trial and error. This is mostly flavorful in the end, but it can provide some interesting moments for the player, as they struggle to master a particularly complex spell.

2. Magic is toxic/not suitable for mortals. In this system, channeling magic is not too complicated, but it carries the drawback of making a character weak. Every time they learn a new level of magic, they roll on a table to see how it weakens them. For example, they lose 5 ft of movement speed, drop one die size when rolling for hp, lose a point of strength and constitution, etc. In this system, the mages grow in power, but lose themselves and their health along the way. Of course, the drawbacks are easy to compensate with spells, but that is a win-win, as the player gets to use more spells, and get to experience the transition into a more magical being, as they rely less and less on their physicality.

3. Magic is severely draining. Here, the mages should definitely not be pure spellcasters. Whenever a player casts a spell, they accumulate a point of exhaustion (or a similar effect in other systems). This limits the impact of powerful magic in individual encounters, and encourages players to be more selective in their casting. Of course, this does not mesh in any way with the Vancian casting system,so that would have to go as well. My idea here is that players would be something like "field mages", adventurers who use magic alongside other skills, such as climbing, investigation, and social skills. And, if it seems too harsh, characters could get several (2, 3) spells for free each encounter before being forced to suffer the penalty.

Of course, all of these systems are heavily system- and setting-reliant. As a matter of fact, with the exception of 1 and 3, I don't really think I would combine them with each other. However, all of them provide an interesting way for the players to interact with the magic in the game, and give off a feeling of an otherworldly force.

Any thoughts?

Segev
2021-03-05, 11:12 AM
Well, took me long enough to read through the thread that the interest in it managed to wane. I fought through the superhero VS guy at the gym, 4th Edition, and even random game system sidetracks, only to arrive at the finish line too late. :smallbiggrin: Hopefully it doesn't fade too quickly, the topic is incredibly interesting.

I noticed that there is a lot of focus (and push-back) on the subject of even introducing a cost to magic. Many people mention that the costs are either prohibitively high (unreasonable fumble charts mostly), purely narrative and thus easily ignored (losing life expectancy or signing away your soul), or just unfun (long casting times or severe magic nerfs). And, to be honest, I definitely agree. Most of these feel like they're intended to slap a band aid on the problem of caster supremacy (Of course, talking about D&D) and punish the player for daring to play a caster.

I've been thinking, though. I DO believe that magic should have a cost. Unless it's a setting where magic is commonplace (Harry Potter, Eberron, Avatar), as a mystical, unknowable force, there should be some price for using it.

I've got a couple of ideas that I've been using in my own (heavily WIP) system:
1. Magic is dangerous,but only until mastered. In this idea , learning new spells is the dangerous segment, not actively using them later. For example, every time the caster needs to learn a new spell, they seclude themselves, and go through a risky process of trial and error. This is mostly flavorful in the end, but it can provide some interesting moments for the player, as they struggle to master a particularly complex spell.

2. Magic is toxic/not suitable for mortals. In this system, channeling magic is not too complicated, but it carries the drawback of making a character weak. Every time they learn a new level of magic, they roll on a table to see how it weakens them. For example, they lose 5 ft of movement speed, drop one die size when rolling for hp, lose a point of strength and constitution, etc. In this system, the mages grow in power, but lose themselves and their health along the way. Of course, the drawbacks are easy to compensate with spells, but that is a win-win, as the player gets to use more spells, and get to experience the transition into a more magical being, as they rely less and less on their physicality.

3. Magic is severely draining. Here, the mages should definitely not be pure spellcasters. Whenever a player casts a spell, they accumulate a point of exhaustion (or a similar effect in other systems). This limits the impact of powerful magic in individual encounters, and encourages players to be more selective in their casting. Of course, this does not mesh in any way with the Vancian casting system,so that would have to go as well. My idea here is that players would be something like "field mages", adventurers who use magic alongside other skills, such as climbing, investigation, and social skills. And, if it seems too harsh, characters could get several (2, 3) spells for free each encounter before being forced to suffer the penalty.

Of course, all of these systems are heavily system- and setting-reliant. As a matter of fact, with the exception of 1 and 3, I don't really think I would combine them with each other. However, all of them provide an interesting way for the players to interact with the magic in the game, and give off a feeling of an otherworldly force.

Any thoughts?

Of these, (1) is the one that is most usable in a game. It actually does a lot to explain why a class-based system has spellcasting classes, rather than just allowing any old commoner to learn to read and figure out the right finger-waggles and tongue-twisters to make that twist of straw jammed into a cow pie conjure a flock of barbarian hens to do his bidding.

(2) has the same sort of problem that other narrative "costs of magic" do: it either does very little to impact the game, or rapidly makes a character unplayable. Tying the "horrible fumble table" to leveling up limits the damage, a bit, and enables a bit more inflictions of weakness that are real before the character stops being playable, but it still is pretty problematic. It's noteworthy that the Wu Jen of 3.5's Compete Arcane had taboos they added as they leveled up. These were mostly cosmetic, though could get problematic to play if the DM and players paid too close attention to them, and were a bad idea mechanically because the wu jen wasn't any more powerful for having them, but they also were about as severe as such costs can really get before the class is unusable.

(3) is really just a variant mana system with a high cost for spending mana. "The cost of magic" is already in every edition of D&D except possibly 4e by this standard: it costs you spell slots. Now, I know the actual proposal here is that there be a cost that is more than something "knowing magic" gave you, and everybody - mage or not - recognizes "being tired, possibly to the point of death" as a cost rather than a new extra resource. But it rarely matches "the cost of magic" narratively, which tends to be some grand thing that comes due or subtly accumulates.

(3) is a workable mechanic, in other words, for exactly the reasons that it doesn't quite match what most people mean when they say "the cost of magic" in a narrative sense.

Max_Killjoy
2021-03-05, 12:38 PM
Of these, (1) is the one that is most usable in a game. It actually does a lot to explain why a class-based system has spellcasting classes, rather than just allowing any old commoner to learn to read and figure out the right finger-waggles and tongue-twisters to make that twist of straw jammed into a cow pie conjure a flock of barbarian hens to do his bidding.

(2) has the same sort of problem that other narrative "costs of magic" do: it either does very little to impact the game, or rapidly makes a character unplayable. Tying the "horrible fumble table" to leveling up limits the damage, a bit, and enables a bit more inflictions of weakness that are real before the character stops being playable, but it still is pretty problematic. It's noteworthy that the Wu Jen of 3.5's Compete Arcane had taboos they added as they leveled up. These were mostly cosmetic, though could get problematic to play if the DM and players paid too close attention to them, and were a bad idea mechanically because the wu jen wasn't any more powerful for having them, but they also were about as severe as such costs can really get before the class is unusable.

(3) is really just a variant mana system with a high cost for spending mana. "The cost of magic" is already in every edition of D&D except possibly 4e by this standard: it costs you spell slots. Now, I know the actual proposal here is that there be a cost that is more than something "knowing magic" gave you, and everybody - mage or not - recognizes "being tired, possibly to the point of death" as a cost rather than a new extra resource. But it rarely matches "the cost of magic" narratively, which tends to be some grand thing that comes due or subtly accumulates.

(3) is a workable mechanic, in other words, for exactly the reasons that it doesn't quite match what most people mean when they say "the cost of magic" in a narrative sense.


Most narrative limits/costs require the developers, the GM, and the rest of the players, to be fairly on the same page as to how to apply those limits, or they end up being perfunctory or onerous.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-03-05, 12:47 PM
Most narrative limits/costs require the developers, the GM, and the rest of the players, to be fairly on the same page as to how to apply those limits, or they end up being perfunctory or onerous.

Yeah. And tend to constrain the possible adventures and worlds tremendously. Which may be a good thing or not depending on taste and purpose of the system.

My big concern is that they're like mechanized flaws tend to be--if you up-shift the power to compensate for the cost, then people who figure out how to avoid or mitigate the cost now have extra power with no cost.

EdokTheTwitch
2021-03-05, 01:09 PM
Of these, (1) is the one that is most usable in a game. It actually does a lot to explain why a class-based system has spellcasting classes, rather than just allowing any old commoner to learn to read and figure out the right finger-waggles and tongue-twisters to make that twist of straw jammed into a cow pie conjure a flock of barbarian hens to do his bidding.

(2) has the same sort of problem that other narrative "costs of magic" do: it either does very little to impact the game, or rapidly makes a character unplayable. Tying the "horrible fumble table" to leveling up limits the damage, a bit, and enables a bit more inflictions of weakness that are real before the character stops being playable, but it still is pretty problematic. It's noteworthy that the Wu Jen of 3.5's Compete Arcane had taboos they added as they leveled up. These were mostly cosmetic, though could get problematic to play if the DM and players paid too close attention to them, and were a bad idea mechanically because the wu jen wasn't any more powerful for having them, but they also were about as severe as such costs can really get before the class is unusable.

(3) is really just a variant mana system with a high cost for spending mana. "The cost of magic" is already in every edition of D&D except possibly 4e by this standard: it costs you spell slots. Now, I know the actual proposal here is that there be a cost that is more than something "knowing magic" gave you, and everybody - mage or not - recognizes "being tired, possibly to the point of death" as a cost rather than a new extra resource. But it rarely matches "the cost of magic" narratively, which tends to be some grand thing that comes due or subtly accumulates.

(3) is a workable mechanic, in other words, for exactly the reasons that it doesn't quite match what most people mean when they say "the cost of magic" in a narrative sense.

Yeah, the first one is the one I think most people would see as the best. However, in my eyes, it's the most dangerous, as the studying process should be LETHAL.

Magic as toxin is the one I personally love. The mage begins fairly normal, maybe with a slight disadvantage. But as the weaknesses grow, the mage's power grows as well. A mage with a weakened CON constantly recasts Bear's Endurance to keep up, a slow one is on permanent expeditious retreat, or even fly, while a reflex-lowered one lives blurred

Yeah,the last one IS a modified mana system, but it relates to much more than spell power, as it damages the character's functionality overall. Maybe as they grow, they can learn to use lower-level spells without cost.

NichG
2021-03-05, 02:47 PM
I'd say the point of narrative costs of magic just shouldn't be about game balance in the first place. Costs in general aren't a great balancing tool compared to changing what something actually does, for reasons that have been stated already (namely, that those who are willing to organize their concept and build around negating the impact of those costs can often escape them). If balance is really the point, go with stricter limits on what magic in general as well as specific subtypes of magic is capable of, and have those limits correspond to something fundamental and common to how magic works in the setting rather than just 'a way around this hasn't been invented yet'.

E.g. things like 'magic cannot itself create any permanent changes to the world, it can only create opportunities for non-magical things to create permanent consequences or leave impressions sentient minds capable of dreaming'. So a building raised by magic falls apart in a day even if the materials were mundane, but it could give travelers shelter from a storm; if the materials had been magical too, those travelers would find themselves suffering the consequences of having been exposed to the weather a day later. Therefore no magical healing, no magical creation of food, teleportation would only be useful for information gathering, you can't even kill something with magic (though you can knock it out temporarily), etc.

But narrative costs can help make the properties of magic in a setting more specific, and can bring about interesting choices and even create interesting skill-based play.

Take something like the way magic works in Pact (from the author of Worm). If you become a practitioner, karma becomes a real force in your existence, where it's less about being a good person and more about taking responsibility for what you promise and for the consequences you make others bear. It's not made fully mechanical, but this has effects like small lies removing power from the character's workings for a bit, violating an oath or certain traditions like hospitality protections rendering the person unable to resist hostile magic on their own behalf (so they need to explicitly stay under the protection of a supernatural sponsor or will quickly get possessed or worse), and certain things like overt murder or causing accidental supernatural harm to unawakened individuals (or harms without particular ritualized forms of authority or right to cause harm) creating even generational karmic debts that make out-of-sight alliances and friendships tend to decay or turn to betrayal.

If everyone is on the same page to play within those limits (everyone is at least aware of the supernatural if not a practitioner) then there's new gameplay considerations like 'how do we get the right to harm our enemies?' and even new roles such as 'hey you're not in the karma system, can you take care of things when we need to kill?' and so on.

Cluedrew
2021-03-05, 10:09 PM
Magic as toxin is the one I personally love.If the system supports it you could also use it just to explain: Why are the wizard's stats lower than a normal person's? The only thing I would caution is letting magic directly make up the difference. And I'm not talking about balance (you can still make up the difference other ways) I just mean a wizard who is cursed to slow down and then buffs their speed... I mean if you like it go for it but it feels like a complicated circle to me.

I once played a super disabled wizard (I had every physical disability the game would let me take) who would have trouble operating in day-to-day life let alone an adventure. But they were an extremely talented summoner and had a bunch of helpful caretakers for the things they could not do themselves. The magic as toxin later became the basis for a base building game I sketched for fun.


Yeah,the last one IS a modified mana system, but it relates to much more than spell power, as it damages the character's functionality overall. Maybe as they grow, they can learn to use lower-level spells without cost.I've done that, except all character had mechanics where they could spend their energy for things. It was baked into the resolution system and there were other abilities that used it, not just spell casting. It probably needed a lot more tuning though.


But narrative costs can help make the properties of magic in a setting more specific, and can bring about interesting choices and even create interesting skill-based play.The best solution is make the cost something people want to engage with. Not the characters no, but the players.

Segev
2021-03-06, 01:39 AM
On the "magic is a poison" concept of a cost, there's the Oracle and their curses in Pathfinder.

If you want "the cost of magic" to be something painfully obvious/crippling, you can have it be paid more-or-less up front just for getting the power(s). But you have to make the magic worth the cost. The upside of this method is that you can make the cost a defect that is just the right level of inconvenient, and not worry about it making using the magic intractable. You have the magic; the cost is just something you perpetually live with rather than something you pay for overuse.

Satinavian
2021-03-06, 02:30 AM
I like it when the magic system has three different kategories of cost :

- Character building cost. People not learning magic get other fun things. When made gradual (the more magic you buy, the less other stuff you can buy) it provides all kinds of hybrid characters like gishes without any extra rules

- Cost of use in regular play. That is the combination of casting time and mana points/spell slots and how those refresh. This dictates how often magic gets used which makes it the major balancing factor. Without such a cost magic effects would have to be near irrelevantly weak to be balanced to nonmagical options.

- Cost of extraordinary magic. This is for the large scale game/setting changing rituals as well as for things like permanent buffs or crafting permanent magic items. All those need a further reason to be in limited use. It is important that the magic user does not use all his downtime to provide permanent things with his magic points he has no further use yet and people ask why the world is not flooded with such stuff if everyone can do so. Special rare components might work because that is less a thing where the system has to say how often it can be done and more a thing the setting and the GM decide.


I don't like the risk for magic thing. Do you really want to roll the dice whenever a PC advances to learn if he kills themself ? And then what happens ? He dies and the player makes a new character or he is lucky and can as reward have overpowered magic that he paid for with the risk ?

HumanFighter
2021-03-06, 12:35 PM
I once heard of a ridiculous magic system where wizards could cast their spells endlessly, no mana point cost, no spell slots. But every time they cast a spell they had to roll dice to see if they succeeded. Failing that die roll, something horrendous may happen to the caster. High risk, but high reward. Still, not a magic system I would prefer.
The GM would simply ask the player of the wizard, "Okay, what spell effect do you want to do?" And the wizard could tell them the most ridiculous spell you ever heard of, and the GM would actually allow them to attempt it, no matter how ridiculous it was. The GM would have to on the spot come up with a Target Difficulty Number based on the chosen effect.
I don't like this system. It is ridiculous. In my younger days I experimented with a system like this and it always ended in disaster and wasn't fun.
That's why I prefer mana point systems. Spell slots are fine too.
Now I'm a Human Fighter so I typically don't worry too much about magic systems. Still, I'm getting sick and tired of being outshined by wizards. At least in 4th edition I had a decent set of powers. LoL!

Telok
2021-03-06, 04:04 PM
The GM would simply ask the player of the wizard, "Okay, what spell effect do you want to do?" And the wizard could tell them the most ridiculous spell you ever heard of, and the GM would actually allow them to attempt it, no matter how ridiculous it was. The GM would have to on the spot come up with a Target Difficulty Number based on the chosen effect.

What's the issue? That's the D&D 5e approach to everything that isn't combat, a spell, or a pc class ability. Tell the DM what you want to do, DM decides on a number and tells you what modifiers apply, you roll, if you roll high enough you get what what you want otherwise you fail with any penalties the DM decides on.