Hot Take: D&D should eliminate spellcasting and replace it entirely

[ezekielraiden]

We've had a number of threads asking how we would fix martial characters. A handful of posters have suggested that spellcasters should be brought down closer to non-caster power levels, perhaps with the (usually admitted to be tedious) task of re-writing a large number of spells.

How about a different tack: Just scrap the spells. All of them. Every last one. Gone, poof, sayonara, good riddance to bad rubbish.

Obviously this does not mean that we leave classes that cast spells out in the cold. We would, of course, need to design a whole new system--or possibly set of systems--to replace spellcasting. But if we're having so many problems with spellcasters, and their rate of resource expenditure and regain, and how powerful they can become, and how versatile they almost always are (even the "limited" ones), etc. etc. ad nauseam, why keep spells? We've changed many, many other aspects of the game--attack matrices, saving throws, how you roll hit points, how you roll stats, number and frequency of attacks, initiative, monster statistics...let's do the same to spells.

Perhaps vestiges will survive. Fireball as a Wizard feature/option, Cure Wounds as a Cleric option, and so on. But if spellcasting is going to cause us so many problems, why not send it back to the drawing board, rather than continually circling around the same seemingly-irresolvable questions about non-casters?

[JNAProductions]

What would you replace it with?

You need something to give before you can take.

[MrStabby]

Sure...

What aspects would you want to preserve? How would you deliver those? Under any new system how would you keep classes differentiated and keep the gaming experience as rich as it is?



My approach would be to start with a matrix of theme and function. A class should have a tight theme - an aesthetic that it works towards. Then it should have its function - its strengths but also as explicitly its weaknesses. Then develop abilities that fit within the intersection. This may mean classes need to be broken down a bit - say a wizard might have a weakness doing single target damage, but the nectromancy theme seems like it should be good at snuffing out someones life therefore a necromancer cant be a wizard... I think the designers of 5th edition didn't give enough thought to what a caster type shouldn't be able to do as they should.

[Sam113097]

Didn’t Fourth Edition do this? If I recall correctly, it was widely disliked because, among other reasons, it limited a lot of the creativity and utility that people like in spellcasters.

[JellyPooga]

What would you replace it with?

You need something to give before you can take.

Spell points, skill based, fatigue to name a couple...take your pick. Mix'n'match if you want. Almost every other game uses a different system to the quasi-Vancian one that D&D still hangs on to and in almost every case, it's more balanced with whatever version of "martial" exists in that game.

D&D's magic system is pretty bad. Like, really bad. It deserves to go, IMO.

The problem, I think, is that D&D assumes magic to work. Whether someone resists it or a spell attack hit or misses is beside the point; the magic works automatically; no effort or skill involved. That's why it has to be gated by daily usage and that, in turn, creates an automatic imbalance between that which you can do at-will and that which you can't. These things cannot be compared easily, if at all. That's why D&D is one of the only systems in which I see people arguing over martial vs. caster balance. The core mechanic is not ubiquitous; it has two different systems that are not comparable. If D&D is going to run on a d20 system, then all of D&D should run on that system, including magic. Currently it does not.

Fourth edition tried to do this and failed because alongside making the system ubiquitous, they made the characters homogenous. For a good example of how to have diverse characters that use the exact same mechanics no matter what they do, see GURPS.

[Xervous]

At what point do we just say “play something that’s not DnD”?

[Kane0]

At what point do we just say “play something that’s not DnD”?

When that other thing becomes as well known and popular.

[Flallen]

I don't think there is a productive way to replace the system and still have it feel like it is the same game. I also don't think that the lack of pronounced martial abilities for higher levels is a spellcasting problem. There is plenty of space within the spell casting system to adjust the balance if desired.

[Yakk]

There are plenty of RPGs where non-spellcasters can do in-game mechanically awesome things that rival or exceed high-level 5e spellcasters.

Now, they are supernatural characters, but they aren't spellcasters.

[RSP]

When that other thing becomes as well known and popular.

So you only play D&D because it’s “popular”? Interesting motivation.

To the OP, other systems do magic better, but that would require playing those systems. I don’t think magic as designed in 5e is modular enough to swap it out for another system of magic, without changing the entire 5e system.

For instance, I liked WoD’s initial Mage magic system (no idea what later editions did because I’ve only played the original). I see no way to swap that for 5e’s Spellcasting without swapping the entire system; at which point you’re now playing Mage: The Ascension and not D&D 5e.

[Lupine]

Not that I disagree with the sentiment, but you’re going to have to come up with a pretty robust system to replace spell casting.

Personally, I think the versatility of spells is fine, but the problem is with just how many spells a spellcaster has. I’m curious to see your proposed engine swap.

[Kane0]

We've had a number of threads asking how we would fix martial characters. A handful of posters have suggested that spellcasters should be brought down closer to non-caster power levels, perhaps with the (usually admitted to be tedious) task of re-writing a large number of spells.

How about a different tack: Just scrap the spells. All of them. Every last one. Gone, poof, sayonara, good riddance to bad rubbish.

I’ve agreed with the majority of your assessments in those threads, so I could get on board with this. But I also agree with the others here in that it would be preferable to have a concept or draft to work with first, otherwise we’re sort of stuck looking at each other and saying ‘yeah, could work’

[fbelanger]

They try this in 4ed.

[Amnestic]

So you only play D&D because it’s “popular”? Interesting motivation.

It's easier to find a group when you say "Hey, lets play D&D" than "hey, lets play GURPS/Exalted/Mutants and Masterminds". While it's quite likely that your group would have a decent fun time with any of those three and more, they don't have anywhere near the brand recognition of D&D. Nothing does in the TTRPG space.

There's an automatic buy-in from people with a casual interest that might be put off by things they don't recognise.

[elyktsorb]

It's easier to find a group when you say "Hey, lets play D&D" than "hey, lets play GURPS/Exalted/Mutants and Masterminds". While it's quite likely that your group would have a decent fun time with any of those three and more, they don't have anywhere near the brand recognition of D&D. Nothing does in the TTRPG space.

There's an automatic buy-in from people with a casual interest that might be put off by things they don't recognise.

Can't find anyone to play gamma world.

[MaxWilson]

We've had a number of threads asking how we would fix martial characters. A handful of posters have suggested that spellcasters should be brought down closer to non-caster power levels, perhaps with the (usually admitted to be tedious) task of re-writing a large number of spells.

How about a different tack: Just scrap the spells. All of them. Every last one. Gone, poof, sayonara, good riddance to bad rubbish.

Obviously this does not mean that we leave classes that cast spells out in the cold. We would, of course, need to design a whole new system--or possibly set of systems--to replace spellcasting. But if we're having so many problems with spellcasters, and their rate of resource expenditure and regain, and how powerful they can become, and how versatile they almost always are (even the "limited" ones), etc. etc. ad nauseam, why keep spells? We've changed many, many other aspects of the game--attack matrices, saving throws, how you roll hit points, how you roll stats, number and frequency of attacks, initiative, monster statistics...let's do the same to spells.

Perhaps vestiges will survive. Fireball as a Wizard feature/option, Cure Wounds as a Cleric option, and so on. But if spellcasting is going to cause us so many problems, why not send it back to the drawing board, rather than continually circling around the same seemingly-irresolvable questions about non-casters?

For purely martial combat I'd rather just run GURPS: Martial Arts. The magic system (including all the individual spells) is the most interesting thing about AD&D or 5E.

It's easier to find a group when you say "Hey, lets play D&D" than "hey, lets play GURPS/Exalted/Mutants and Masterminds". While it's quite likely that your group would have a decent fun time with any of those three and more, they don't have anywhere near the brand recognition of D&D. Nothing does in the TTRPG space.

There's an automatic buy-in from people with a casual interest that might be put off by things they don't recognise.

You just say "Hey, let's play Dungeon Fantasy." If they ask what that is you say, "It's a roleplaying game where you risk your life to kill monsters and discover ancient treasures in a magical world." http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/dungeonfantasy/

Sell them on the setting, not the rule system.

[Man_Over_Game]

Didn’t Fourth Edition do this? If I recall correctly, it was widely disliked because, among other reasons, it limited a lot of the creativity and utility that people like in spellcasters.

That's my response. Although 4e didn't handle the noncombat elements as a "here is a world with real physics" kinda way, and instead was more on the lines of "you shift the rock using X amount of points".

And having DnD be fashioned after real-world concepts is pretty integral to the formula. It's a complicated problem.

DnD players want their magic to alter physics in a realistic way that has a forceful, defining impact on the world, but they don't want the same for combat (as the combat version of Teleport would just be a Fighter saying "I slit his throat" and the badguy dies).

There HAS to be that divide, otherwise you end up with something that's not DnD. DnD, at it's core, is basically just a bunch of people writing a story together that occasionally whip out a board game to resolve the combat scenarios, because they're really bad at writing those parts. You can't make it all a board game, and I don't know how to replace the spells in a less "physics-defining" way that doesn't just make the entirety of DnD into a board game.

But while there has to be the divide between those two elements of the game, that doesn't mean Martials and Casters have to find themselves stuck on either side of the divide. We can give Martials storytelling tools, we just can't remove the element of storytelling tools from the game.

The solution, from what I can tell, is to give Martials Spells (or spell-like physics). Or decide that DnD is better off as 4th Edition (100% board game) or FATE (100% storytelling).

Unless some genius can come up with a way of rewriting spells so it's not a board game and still physics-defining, but f-all if I can think of one.

[Segev]

Spell points, skill based, fatigue to name a couple...take your pick. Mix'n'match if you want. Almost every other game uses a different system to the quasi-Vancian one that D&D still hangs on to and in almost every case, it's more balanced with whatever version of "martial" exists in that game.

You'll have to give examples, because in my experience, unless everybody is using that magic system, magic wins out over non-magic. It's not the "quasi-Vancian" spellcasting that makes D&D magic "better" than martial stuff. It's the versatility. There is next to nothing that you can't justify as being "a spell." It can be a lot harder to think of how to let somebody whose explanation isn't "I magic at it" accomplish some things. Certainly not with the same ease and timing. "I cast a spell to teleport to the other side of these bars" is magic, so of course it's doable. "I squeeze my way between these bars" is believable...if you're small enough, the bars are far enough apart, etc.

"I bring down this keep with an army and siege weapons" is expensive, has lots of logistics, and is not exactly a small endeavor. "I cast a spell that makes the keep crumble to dust" just requires the wizard.

Making the spellcasting system work off of fatigue, or skill, or spell points won't change this. At best, making it work off of skill will bring it to parity with "I slip through the bars" as you remove the "how" from the equation and just make the difficulty based on what you're doing. But even then? If you have a varied set of skills, your "I do magic" skills risk becoming more powerful than any others because they can justify a lot more with their baliwick than more mundane skills. Is your "I teleport to the other side of the bars" skill just "spellcraft?" Is it "conjuration?" Is it "teleportation?" Is it one specific spell?

If you make it identical DC to cast the teleport spell and squeeze through the bars, why was it harder to teleport past those bars than it was to teleport the same distance across the room with no obstacles? Is it actually 0 DC to teleport across a room since you could walk across the room with no check?

All of these questions can be answered, and you could build a system around any of these ideas, but I don't think you'll solve the problem you're setting out to solve. The problem you're setting out to solve is rooted more in the concept that magic can do just about anything, because why couldn't it? While non-magic is rooted in more "believable" limitations. The best solutions involve breaking that paradigm, either by giving magic super-hard limits by making it have very specific in-setting mechanics by which it works, limiting what it can do and making it unable to do some things that you can do without magic, or by enabling epic feats of superhuman prowess by non-magical means. "Extraordinary abilities" being legitimately beyond real-world capacity despite not being magic. One Piece actually has some pretty good examples of this: look at Zoro and Sanji and the things they accomplish. They are NOT magical beings. They're just very well-trained men. Yet Sanji can practically set his legs on fire and kick so hard that he walks on the air, and Zoro can cut steel even with poor-quality swords and lift boulders that could comfortably be carved into a small cottage.

[Morty]

DnD players want their magic to alter physics in a realistic way that has a forceful, defining impact on the world, but they don't want the same for combat (as the combat version of Teleport would just be a Fighter saying "I slit his throat" and the badguy dies).

D&D players want spells to be better than everything else, ultimately. There's been a lot of words spent on the subject, but I think this is what it boils down to. People want D&D spellcasting to work in a very particular way, but this way is incompatible with them not dominating every other aspect of gameplay. Any attempt to bring it in line with others, one way or the other, is decried as "no longer D&D".

Really, attempts at giving non-casters cool and effective abilities meets less resistance than the mere suggestion that maybe casters shouldn't have dozens of powerful, reliable spells at their easy disposal. Less resistance, but still a lot of it, of course - hence why 5E firmly put the kibosh on any subsystem or set of powers that aren't spells.

[MoiMagnus]

For purely martial combat I'd rather just run GURPS: Martial Arts. The magic system (including all the individual spells) is the most interesting thing about AD&D or 5E.

I'd second this. D&D's core is magic. If there were to be only one thing in the D&D rulebooks, that would be spells and nothing else.
[Ok, maybe not, that would be its supernatural monsters. D&D creatures are even more central to D&D than its spells. But spells would be second in the list.]
And high level spells are the core of high level D&D. If you get rid of them, it's just giving up on making a real high level D&D experience and disguising your low-level D&D into a high level one by inflating numbers.

(I have no attachment with the Vancian magic system, so scrapping it in favour of 4e-like powers is fine for me. But don't assume other spells systems are easier to balance than the Vancian one just because they look so. And I do find that 5e classes are not restricted enough in their spell choices.)

[Segev]

D&D players want spells to be better than everything else, ultimately. There's been a lot of words spent on the subject, but I think this is what it boils down to. People want D&D spellcasting to work a very particular way, but this way is incompatible with them not dominating every other aspect of gameplay. Any attempt to bring it in line with others, one way or the other, is decried as "no longer D&D". Really, attempts at giving non-casters cool and effective abilities meets less resistance than the mere suggestion that maybe casters shouldn't have dozens of powerful, reliable spells at their easy disposal. Less resistance, but still a lot of it, of course - hence why 5E firmly put the kibosh on any subsystem or set of powers that aren't spells.

This is a straw man argument I see erected every time this topic comes up. "You don't want spells nerfed the way I want them to, so you want spells to be more powerful than anything." It always ignores the counterpoint that there are people who'd be thrilled to see extraordinary non-magical abilities that also can do amazing things that are just as powerful as magic.

Now, you're right that the D&D paradigm doesn't really have anything magic can't, in theory, accomplish. But in practice, the player base has been very receptive to individual items that do restrict the power of magic in the hands of particular characters. Heavily-themed casters who have restricted spell lists are some rather popular classes. Having the "do-everything mage" is an issue, yes, but ascribing "they just want magic to be better than anything" to anybody who disagrees with whatever latest "remove magic" or "change the whole system of magic" idea has come along is poor debate and not even very useful rhetoric unless your goal is merely to make an echo-chamber feel superior to those who disagree with it. Because telling somebody, "Oh, you just don't agree with me because you want this thing that you don't actually want but makes you sound unreasonable," is a great way to make them stop listening to you.

Unless I'm wrong for reading "wanting spells to be better than everything else is unreasonable" into your assertion, and you think that's a perfectly reasonable position to take. (I, personally, do not.)

[Luccan]

D&D players want spells to be better than everything else, ultimately. There's been a lot of words spent on the subject, but I think this is what it boils down to. People want D&D spellcasting to work in a very particular way, but this way is incompatible with them not dominating every other aspect of gameplay. Any attempt to bring it in line with others, one way or the other, is decried as "no longer D&D".

Really, attempts at giving non-casters cool and effective abilities meets less resistance than the mere suggestion that maybe casters shouldn't have dozens of powerful, reliable spells at their easy disposal. Less resistance, but still a lot of it, of course - hence why 5E firmly put the kibosh on any subsystem or set of powers that aren't spells.

Probably because people don't like stuff being taken away. Also, just gonna say a lot of classic spells are very much part of D&D's identity. In fact, the core identity of D&D probably boils down to the Attributes, Class system, Alignment, Races, and Vancian-inspired Spellcasting (as well as the spells themselves). 5e has already basically gutted Alignment and the future of meaningful distinction between the different fantasy races is up in the air. I don't think a lot is gained for people who like D&D (not those who play it because it's hard to get a game of anything else), by breaking yet another pillar of its identity. So yeah, generally I'm more in support of making non-spellcasters better than making spellcasters worse.

Can't find anyone to play gamma world.

Which edition?

[Man_Over_Game]

D&D players want spells to be better than everything else, ultimately. There's been a lot of words spent on the subject, but I think this is what it boils down to. People want D&D spellcasting to work in a very particular way, but this way is incompatible with them not dominating every other aspect of gameplay. Any attempt to bring it in line with others, one way or the other, is decried as "no longer D&D".

Really, attempts at giving non-casters cool and effective abilities meets less resistance than the mere suggestion that maybe casters shouldn't have dozens of powerful, reliable spells at their easy disposal. Less resistance, but still a lot of it, of course - hence why 5E firmly put the kibosh on any subsystem or set of powers that aren't spells.

I honestly don't think it's like that. We just want cool toys, like making a bridge out of Wall of Stone, or coming up with goofy solutions with Reverse Gravity, or putting the illusion of a shrub over you so you can nap in the middle of a prison riot (I had a gnome player do that last one for realsies).

That's really it. But how do you define effects like that that aren't "This happens"? How do you scale something like Fly as a mechanic without writing it as "You are Flying"? You could add more and more rules, but then we're talking about bogging the game down, requiring more lookup during noncombat scenarios, and turning it into more of a board game.

Look at the scaling utility effects in the game, the ones that utilize the same mechanics from beginning to end and just get bigger in scope. Jump Height, Lifting Capacity, Stealth vs. Passive Perception, etc. Realize that every single one of those is incredibly boring and weak, despite being fairly well-scaled for those numbers.

Balance and Physics don't really mesh. Heck, the Martial equivalent to Featherfall is simply being level 10 and just surviving 80 damage.

[Edit] After thinking about it, you probably could do something like having a "Self-Mobility" magic that increases your speed or allows you to fly, or so on that could have scaling factors that are easy to track, but...you're basically just rewriting Mutants and Masterminds.

[Avonar]

So you only play D&D because it’s “popular”? Interesting motivation.

To the OP, other systems do magic better, but that would require playing those systems. I don’t think magic as designed in 5e is modular enough to swap it out for another system of magic, without changing the entire 5e system.

For instance, I liked WoD’s initial Mage magic system (no idea what later editions did because I’ve only played the original). I see no way to swap that for 5e’s Spellcasting without swapping the entire system; at which point you’re now playing Mage: The Ascension and not D&D 5e.

Popularity is a part of it though. I'm a giant 13th Age fan, yet I've never been able to play in the system as I have been entirely unable to find a game to join or tempt someone into DMing it.

But yes, if you want to replace how spells work, you're talking about 6e at this point, there is way too much mechanical bits and pieces tied in.

I do quite like how it's done in 4e/13th Age, unique spells for different classes, you just need to bolster those with mechanics so that a firebolt doesn't feel like just a fire damage arrow. 5e magic is mechanically and flavourfully different from weapon fighting, as it should be.

[JellyPooga]

You'll have to give examples, because in my experience, unless everybody is using that magic system, magic wins out over non-magic. It's not the "quasi-Vancian" spellcasting that makes D&D magic "better" than martial stuff. It's the versatility. There is next to nothing that you can't justify as being "a spell." It can be a lot harder to think of how to let somebody whose explanation isn't "I magic at it" accomplish some things. Certainly not with the same ease and timing. "I cast a spell to teleport to the other side of these bars" is magic, so of course it's doable. "I squeeze my way between these bars" is believable...if you're small enough, the bars are far enough apart, etc.

"I bring down this keep with an army and siege weapons" is expensive, has lots of logistics, and is not exactly a small endeavor. "I cast a spell that makes the keep crumble to dust" just requires the wizard.

Making the spellcasting system work off of fatigue, or skill, or spell points won't change this. At best, making it work off of skill will bring it to parity with "I slip through the bars" as you remove the "how" from the equation and just make the difficulty based on what you're doing. But even then? If you have a varied set of skills, your "I do magic" skills risk becoming more powerful than any others because they can justify a lot more with their baliwick than more mundane skills. Is your "I teleport to the other side of the bars" skill just "spellcraft?" Is it "conjuration?" Is it "teleportation?" Is it one specific spell?

If you make it identical DC to cast the teleport spell and squeeze through the bars, why was it harder to teleport past those bars than it was to teleport the same distance across the room with no obstacles? Is it actually 0 DC to teleport across a room since you could walk across the room with no check?

All of these questions can be answered, and you could build a system around any of these ideas, but I don't think you'll solve the problem you're setting out to solve. The problem you're setting out to solve is rooted more in the concept that magic can do just about anything, because why couldn't it? While non-magic is rooted in more "believable" limitations. The best solutions involve breaking that paradigm, either by giving magic super-hard limits by making it have very specific in-setting mechanics by which it works, limiting what it can do and making it unable to do some things that you can do without magic, or by enabling epic feats of superhuman prowess by non-magical means. "Extraordinary abilities" being legitimately beyond real-world capacity despite not being magic. One Piece actually has some pretty good examples of this: look at Zoro and Sanji and the things they accomplish. They are NOT magical beings. They're just very well-trained men. Yet Sanji can practically set his legs on fire and kick so hard that he walks on the air, and Zoro can cut steel even with poor-quality swords and lift boulders that could comfortably be carved into a small cottage.

Ok, example. GURPS.

Every spell is a Skill, just like the Skill of wielding a sword, running or picking a lock. It works the same way as any other skill; to cast a spell you roll 3d6 and roll under your skill at it. Only difference is that it usually costs Fatigue points (casting spells is tiring, just like fighting in combat is), unless you've gotten so good at the spell that you've managed to reduce that cost to zero ("Hey! That's a bit like Wizards in D&D who get to cast a 1st level spell at-will at high levels!"). You can be really good at casting just Fireball, for example, or you can spread out your points to be good at a range of spells and other skills. Either way, the system balances itself out, because if you're really super-focused it one being the best at one thing, usually it means being pretty terrible at other things. No spell is so powerful that it will solve every situation and because the more powerful spells require knowing lower level spells (e.g. to know Fireball, you first have to know Create Fire), not only is it expensive to invest in casting spells (which can do all that D&D spells can do and more), but it can also mean being super good at the higher "level" spell means being sort of crappy at a more basic version of it (overkill exists!), but at least a Fire Mage has to know how to raise the temperature of some stew before he learns how to annihilate a continent with napalm; which makes sense.

So yeah, it's balanced, it makes sense, it is harder to teleport across a room than walk because 1) you have to learn how and 2) teleporting means you don't have to know how to squeeze through bars or jump over chasms or be fireproof to walk over lava (all of things you can spend points on in GURPS) or any other thing that might prevent you from just walking. Yes, liek any modular system, there are ways to break it, but in my experience, both as a player and a GM, GURPS handles the martial/magic divide really effectively.

Or did you want me to talk about Earthdawn instead? Arcane, for sure, but it's balanced. How about WoD? It has all sorts of different types of "magic", but they all sort of work alongside one another and more mundane effects quite happily. Warhammer Fantasy balances magic by making it super risky; which stops it from being abused, despite its potentially godlike power. Sure, magic is almost always very effective, no matter the system and abuse is a function of having rules at all, but D&D is really the only system I've seen get magic really...well, wrong.

Just my opinion, of course.

[Silly Name]

Whenever I see those suggestions, I think back to the ship of Theseus. For those who don't want to check up on an odd philosophical problem, the gist is: How many parts can you remove and substitute from a thing before it stops being what it was and becomes a new thing?

I think more people may be familiar with the hand-axe version of the problem: if you change both the head and the handle of an axe, it obviously is a new axe, but when did it become one? When you changed the handle or the head? When you changed both? And the more "pieces" you add, the harder it is to point at the moment it becomes something new.

So, sure, let's remove Vancian casting from D&D. Does it still look like D&D? I know many people would say "no". Others would say "yes". Other people may suggest removing classes, and be rebuked by crowds claiming that that's not D&D anymore, while some will insist that it's the d20 that makes D&D what it is.

And you may say "but D&D isn't any one of those things! It's the sum of them, and many more!" And you'd be correct, but, just like the ship of Theseus, if you change enough pieces at some point you'll have to admit it's not Theseus' ship/D&D anymore, and what the tipping point is varies depending on who you ask.

I would feel extremely anxious at the prospect of removing something that's been part of the core game fundamentally since its invention, and that oft sets D&D apart from other games. I also fail to see how reinventing new magic system is any way less tedious and complicated than rewriting problematic spells.



From another perspective... Vancian casting isn't broken. There's nothing inherently game-breaking in Vancian casting. What has caused people to complain over and over for two decades about martial/caster disparity is that in 3.X and 5e, casters keep getting handled cool shiny toys at every level, while the fighter and the barbarian and the ranger have to sit in the corner and hope the DM helps them out. The rogue is pigeonholed into trying to proc Sneak Attack and get pointed at traps and locked doors... Until the casters get the tools to completely bypass traps and locked doors.

But it wasn't always the case. It used to be that Fighting Men were the ones who could use the most magic items, making them stronger. It used to be that wizards had far less access to reality-altering powers. It used to be that followers and kingdoms were built right into the class package for martials. It used to be that the casters couldn't simply be better at everything. The thief was the only one with skills!

There's a bunch of OSR games out there that handle Vancian casting without much fuss, and even if I find myself mostly uninterested in the OSR I can appreciate some mechanical ideas that community has. So, hey, maybe the problem isn't Vancian casters - maybe the problem is that along the way the martials lost all their neat features that were supposed to turn them into leaders of men and cool heroic archetypes, and saddled down with the "guy at the gym" fallacy and other stuff that left them in the dust compared to casters.

[MrStabby]

The solution, from what I can tell, is to give Martials Spells (or spell-like physics). Or decide that DnD is better off as 4th Edition (100% board game) or FATE (100% storytelling).

Unless some genius can come up with a way of rewriting spells so it's not a board game and still physics-defining, but f-all if I can think of one.

I would start by trying to introduce a relationship - broadly and imprecicely between physical effects and damage. Much like falling damage does. If you want to pick someone up in the air and drop them you use the same spell as you would to pick anything else up out of combat, but the rules on falling create a mapping between physical effect and combat input.

So fore fire damage, for example, you create a number of different categories of "hot" and examples of what happens at those temperatures - paper burns, wood burns, gold melts, iron melts, rock melts etc. and then a damage per turn that that temperature does. So running into a building that it hot enough to burn wood would have the same effect as a spell hot enough to do the same. Then it would mean theat the fireball spell would also to more physical damage to different object types at different temperatures/degrees of upcasting.

I think this could work for the physical effects, mental spells would need a different approach though. And those with no physical analogy would need an extra level of creativity.

[langal]

Seriously play another game. Why play a game that is so unbalanced?

[Segev]

Ok, example. GURPS.

Every spell is a Skill, just like the Skill of wielding a sword, running or picking a lock. It works the same way as any other skill; to cast a spell you roll 3d6 and roll under your skill at it. Only difference is that it usually costs Fatigue points (casting spells is tiring, just like fighting in combat is), unless you've gotten so good at the spell that you've managed to reduce that cost to zero ("Hey! That's a bit like Wizards in D&D who get to cast a 1st level spell at-will at high levels!"). You can be really good at casting just Fireball, for example, or you can spread out your points to be good at a range of spells and other skills. Either way, the system balances itself out, because if you're really super-focused it one being the best at one thing, usually it means being pretty terrible at other things. No spell is so powerful that it will solve every situation and because the more powerful spells require knowing lower level spells (e.g. to know Fireball, you first have to know Create Fire), not only is it expensive to invest in casting spells (which can do all that D&D spells can do and more), but it can also mean being super good at the higher "level" spell means being sort of crappy at a more basic version of it (overkill exists!), but at least a Fire Mage has to know how to raise the temperature of some stew before he learns how to annihilate a continent with napalm; which makes sense.

In my experience in GURPS, if you're building a mage, you can do a LOT more with the same points than you can with non-magic. Because you can narrow it down to just needing to be good at magic.

Now, you're right; a careful GM can make GURPS magic not outshine non-magic, but this usually winds up with magic being not worth doing at all, because it can't do anything useful. The balance of just the right amount of fatigue cost and just the right difficulty for just the right number of CP winds up with it being better to just say, "Screw it; magic and non-magic are just fluff. Tell me what result you want and how you get it, and we'll decide if it was magical or not afterwards."

Note that this "works," but leads to what a lot of people - myself included - dislike about generic systems: there's no actual feeling of distinction between methods, and your character is heavily disconnected from the mechanics. I mean, the most balanced system in the world might be, "Tell me what you want to have happen and flip a coin. If it's heads, describe how you succeed at it. If it's tails, describe what you tried to do and how it failed." Every character is equally powerful, here. Perfectly balanced. Satisfying? Well...that's subjective.

So yeah, it's balanced, it makes sense, it is harder to teleport across a room than walk because 1) you have to learn how and 2) teleporting means you don't have to know how to squeeze through bars or jump over chasms or be fireproof to walk over lava (all of things you can spend points on in GURPS) or any other thing that might prevent you from just walking. Yes, liek any modular system, there are ways to break it, but in my experience, both as a player and a GM, GURPS handles the martial/magic divide really effectively.

D&D is similarly well-balanced between the caster/martial divide with a GM who doesn't let you "break it."

Note: I don't like GURPS, but I have built things in it. I have played in it. Because I gravitate towards mages or psychics, I know from experience that players who didn't still felt I was "overpowered." I won't say they're wrong (or right), but the sentiment persisted, which tells me that GURPS doesn't actually handle it better. (I did have to work harder to get a mage who wasn't utterly useless, though, because GURPS if you don't optimize to the point that it is almost trivial makes magic something that you fail at so much more often than you succeed that you may as well not bother.)

Or did you want me to talk about Earthdawn instead? Arcane, for sure, but it's balanced. How about WoD? It has all sorts of different types of "magic", but they all sort of work alongside one another and more mundane effects quite happily. Warhammer Fantasy balances magic by making it super risky; which stops it from being abused, despite its potentially godlike power. Sure, magic is almost always very effective, no matter the system and abuse is a function of having rules at all, but D&D is really the only system I've seen get magic really...well, wrong.

Just my opinion, of course.

I can't comment on Earthdawn. Warhammer Fantasy I've only played the wargame of, and it makes magic balanced by making mages cost more points, and spells be somewhat more random. And the fact that you aren't really balancing the mages against the martials in your own army; you're pitting army vs. army.

World of Darkness handles it as I first stated in my last post to you: EVERYONE does magic. You're playing Vampire? You're all vampires, with magical vampire powers. Sure, you pick different ones to make different characters, but you're all using the same magic and magic system. You're playing Werewolf? You're all werewolves, and you all have the shapeshifting, the regen, and access to magical Gifts. You're playing Changeling? You are all Changelings and all have access to the Cantrips or the Contracts (depending on edition), even if your individual ones are different from another character's. You're playing Mage? You're all mages.

In all cases, it's not that the system isn't "quasi-vancian" that balances it with non-casters. It's either that everybody is a caster, or the magic itself, independent of system powering it, is not as powerful or is more limited. (Or, in GURPS's case, is useless if you don't min/max it effectively, and if you do min/max it effectively, it goes back to being overpowered. There's no middle ground I have managed to find where you can actually be any good at magic and any good at anything else, without pushing magic to the point that it's dominating. I mean, I guess you could make it unreliable but not cripplingly so, but you'll still be terrible at anything else you try to do at that point, and the most efficient means of doing anything else becomes putting the points into magic, because magic CAN do it and you've already got it as the strongest thing in your arsenal.)

[Man_Over_Game]

I would start by trying to introduce a relationship - broadly and imprecicely between physical effects and damage. Much like falling damage does. If you want to pick someone up in the air and drop them you use the same spell as you would to pick anything else up out of combat, but the rules on falling create a mapping between physical effect and combat input.

So fore fire damage, for example, you create a number of different categories of "hot" and examples of what happens at those temperatures - paper burns, wood burns, gold melts, iron melts, rock melts etc. and then a damage per turn that that temperature does. So running into a building that it hot enough to burn wood would have the same effect as a spell hot enough to do the same. Then it would mean theat the fireball spell would also to more physical damage to different object types at different temperatures/degrees of upcasting.

I think this could work for the physical effects, mental spells would need a different approach though. And those with no physical analogy would need an extra level of creativity.

It's not bad, but it'd probably have to be both very simple and very broad, which is really hard to nail down. Too many specifics, and now you're spending an hour figuring out how much collision/fire damage you suffer while trying to avoid burning wall segments from falling on you. Not enough specifics, and you end up with 5e's skill system.

There's also this predicament that the more we go into detail on a system like that, the less and less it sounds like DnD. Although, tbh, the CR system works kinda like this and it doesn't really sound all that 'DnD', so as long as most of the complicated bits are behind the DM screen, it could probably work. But that also means telling your DM that you want to "Fly", and then he has to tell you how badly you do it, which is less than ideal if you didn't plan around the possibility of falling. Most players who use a Fly spell don't expect the necessity of Featherfall, and a "soft" system might mean they'd need to expect to fail. A lot.

That's a big Catch-22. Do you have the players define their own mechanics, and have it feel nothing like DnD, or does the DM handle all of it and the players have to be paranoid about expecting everything they do to potentially fail (like how Skills work)?

I dunno, neither really sounds like a step forward.



That's why my suggestion is to force everyone to have a balance of guaranteed effects ("Spells") and also have gambled effects ("Skills") that aren't inherently entitled to a single playstyle. Spells aren't the problem, the problem is that casters are the only ones that get spell-like effects while not having to gamble for anything. Take away "spell-like effects" from casters and give them to everyone else, to the point where everyone has to use those "spell-like effects" AND skills equally.

The game stays the same, it just means now everyone is playing the same game.