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

[OldTrees1]

That is the assumption of vancian magic, by definition; its limited by daily use because it's more powerful. Except it ignores the fallibility of that limitation.

Internally, no. Spell slot vs spell slot is balanced. At-will vs. At-will is balanced. Spell slot vs. At-will cannot be. Inherently. It's the entire point of limiting the ability behind a resource. If ability A is limited by resource, it must be more powerful than ability B, which is not. A>B at any given point using both. That's an inherently imbalanced and flawed baseline. Wherever you go from there, that imbalance influences the system.

Here's our fundamental disconnect. "Being more powerful than other magic systems" isn't something that is part of Vancian magic. Vancian magic is simply defined as the literal fire-and-forget nature of the spells. You prep them, you have them until you use them. That's it.

Hold on a moment, I think there is less disagreement that is initially apparent.

Imagine a system where
Character A does 15 points per turn.
Character B does 14 points per turn, except for a limited number of turns they do 17 points that turn.
Actual balance depends on frequency. You will also note that the limited use ability does not need to be vastly stronger.

Imagine a system where
Character A does 3 green or 3 blue per turn.
Character B does 3 red per turn, except for a limited number of turns they do 3 yellow or 3 orange.

Vancian Magic is generally designed as the first system. Penalize the baseline ability but give it a limited use above average ability. Nothing in the vancian mechanics require that design, you could use the second design, but generally vancian magic uses that first design.

AKA limited use abilities don't have to be stronger than at-will abilities, but they generally do use that design paradigm.

[Wise Weasel]

Therefore, rather than make Steve look more like Thor, we need to change the way we look at Thor.

I think this is the wrong idea: You need to change and fix the Setting.

Lets take that Avengers film for an example. Captain America and Thor are at way different power levels, but did you notice that in the movie it did not matter. Thor does battle feild control with his lightning and takes out the big worm monster targets. Captain America is down on the street saving people and taking on small groups of aliens. Along with Hawkeye as the spotter, Iron Man as battle field control too, Hulk is smashing, and Black Widow as special operations, they make for a great team.

But you won't see Cap flying around, shooting lightning and killing big space monsters. The same way Thor does not land and fight an alien trooper hand to hand for a minute. Black Widow, really is the stand out here, though. She is doing the special operations. The Avengers need to close the portal, but even the all powerful ones can't smash through the force field. Black Widow literately says this. Then she figures out that the Loki scepter can get through the force field and close the portal.

So did you notice every Avenger had something to do? Something unique and amazingly suited to their talents and abilities? You might watch the movie and say "wow, what amazing random luck the big battle worked out that way".

Well.....guess what? It was not Luck. It was all a set up. It was all planned and written out that way. Why you might ask? Well, the answer is to make a great ending to a great movie....and it worked.

D&D needs the exact same thing: not just for a single fight, but for the whole setting.

if your party has Odysseus coexist with Doctor Strange, you run into the issue of Odysseus' legendary wits being infinitely less useful at solving problems that the Sorcer Supreme's magic powers. You don't need Odysseus to come up with a plan to escape Polyphemus, because Doctor Strange can just blast the cyclop to negative hitpoints, or turn him to stone, or make him fall asleep, or send him to another plane of existence or whatever else his magic can achieve. And Odysseus will feel shafted and useless, because his power level doesn't coincide with that of the rest of the campaign.

Another good example. Notice how it's a given that no matter what Doctor Strange's spells will always work 100% of the time? Well, this is a setting issue. The setting if full of targets that say 'cast spell here for the easy win'.

What if the setting was not like that. What if the foe was more resistant to magic, or maybe could absorb cast magic or was even immune to magic? What if the setting made it harder for the spellcaster to target their spells? Or, much like the above Avengers example: What if the way to defeat a foe was some OTHER way, other then just blasting away with more powerful magic? What if you need Odysseus or the Black Widow?

[MaxWilson]

"Odysseus" isn't a character class--it's a player mindset. You can't bottle genius and put it on a character sheet. An Odysseus fighter infiltrates the Fomorians underwater even though he doesn't have magic of his own. An Odysseus wizard kills the Rakshasa even though it's immune to his spells. _How_ Odysseus achieves it will vary based on circumstances, but you can be pretty sure he doesn't just attack the problem head-on.

[JNAProductions]

I think this is the wrong idea: You need to change and fix the Setting.

Lets take that Avengers film for an example. Captain America and Thor are at way different power levels, but did you notice that in the movie it did not matter. Thor does battle feild control with his lightning and takes out the big worm monster targets. Captain America is down on the street saving people and taking on small groups of aliens. Along with Hawkeye as the spotter, Iron Man as battle field control too, Hulk is smashing, and Black Widow as special operations, they make for a great team.

But you won't see Cap flying around, shooting lightning and killing big space monsters. The same way Thor does not land and fight an alien trooper hand to hand for a minute. Black Widow, really is the stand out here, though. She is doing the special operations. The Avengers need to close the portal, but even the all powerful ones can't smash through the force field. Black Widow literately says this. Then she figures out that the Loki scepter can get through the force field and close the portal.

So did you notice every Avenger had something to do? Something unique and amazingly suited to their talents and abilities? You might watch the movie and say "wow, what amazing random luck the big battle worked out that way".

Well.....guess what? It was not Luck. It was all a set up. It was all planned and written out that way. Why you might ask? Well, the answer is to make a great ending to a great movie....and it worked.

D&D needs the exact same thing: not just for a single fight, but for the whole setting.

Another good example. Notice how it's a given that no matter what Doctor Strange's spells will always work 100% of the time? Well, this is a setting issue. The setting if full of targets that say 'cast spell here for the easy win'.

What if the setting was not like that. What if the foe was more resistant to magic, or maybe could absorb cast magic or was even immune to magic? What if the setting made it harder for the spellcaster to target their spells? Or, much like the above Avengers example: What if the way to defeat a foe was some OTHER way, other then just blasting away with more powerful magic? What if you need Odysseus or the Black Widow?

What works in movies, books, and other stories does not always work in TTRPGs.

[Kyutaru]

"Odysseus" isn't a character class--it's a player mindset. You can't bottle genius and put it on a character sheet. An Odysseus fighter infiltrates the Fomorians underwater even though he doesn't have magic of his own. An Odysseus wizard kills the Rakshasa even though it's immune to his spells. _How_ Odysseus achieves it will vary based on circumstances, but you can be pretty sure he doesn't just attack the problem head-on.

You can though. Bottle genius and put it on a character sheet. Give heroes an ability involving coming up with a genius plan or maneuver that has direct game results. I mean this is basically akin to Bardic Inspiration and Bless already, giving you some genuine edge due to factors we can't see or explain. If you need the enemy to be vulnerable to your attacks then just have the enemy be vulnerable to your attacks and explain it away as you came up with some really cool trick. Can it be done by player ingenuity? Probably. But it can also be done with a dice roll on your "Craft Plan" skill check.

[Theodoxus]

I didn't read the whole thread, because lazy, so maybe this was touched on (looked like it might have been at the top of page 4) - but the problem with magic is that it's a limited resource and even things like Superiority Dice are already banging on the "why is this a limited resource, in universe?" portal.

The D&D multiverse has a very weird 'exhaustion' problem that simple training doesn't take care of. There's really no 'IRL' reason that Commander's Strike couldn't be used every round. At best, one could argue that the enemy quickly learns to ignore the fighter and listen for the rogue's sneak attack thereby negating it (somehow) - but that wouldn't work with most beasts, mindless undead, oozes, etc. Magic is artificially gated with spell slots to make the game "fair". Not that life is fair, so why we try so hard to make a game fair is beyond me - but that's a different discussion.

Ultimately though, eliminating spellcasting and replacing it entirely with something else that isn't some real world equivalent (flamethrowers, tazers, cars, cell phones, video chat... the technological equivalent of spells is mindnumbingly boring) is just renaming magic. Magic by any other name is just as powerful - to bash a metaphor into the ground.

Really, the only system of magic I'd consider would be something akin to Mage (as noted on page 1). But I don't think it would require a complete dismantling of the rest of the systems. It would, at it's most basic level, be built upon cantrips. Each cantrip would unlock a related, but more powerful upgrade. And different schools could be mixed together to get unique effects. Provide a bit of a template for the classic spells for players to sink their teeth into, and maybe a few examples of completely new spells that work strangely (an evocation/enchantment that debuffs armor when it's hit with acid, perhaps).

The last bit is figuring out how to power it all. I'm personally a fan of no damage being more than a typical martial can put out - something like sneak attack damage if you can gain a specific advantage (maybe Advantage, maybe something else) - but that would allow magic to be mostly without cost. I can see some people balking at unlimited healing (though I think it's kinda silly given the rest mechanics, but whatever). Can make some schools, some specific combinations, actually have a cost. THP, perhaps. And if you have none, you can always burn your actual HP...

[Kyutaru]

Magic is artificially gated with spell slots to make the game "fair".

I actually don't think it's that at all. Spell slots have existed since even the broken editions when fighters were a joke and wizards were gods with spells that didn't have defined limitations but near limitless reach and scope. Read through the 2nd edition spell list and you'll find tons of obscenely powerful and broken spells that had permanent duration or incredibly long ranges or physics shattering effects. Back then it was accepted that wizards were more powerful which is why it took more experience points to level one. Fighters only need 1000 xp to hit level 2 while Mages needed 2500 xp and this resulted in two characters of the same xp total having very different levels. D&D spells were less about hard rules and more generic fantasy roleplay descriptions that left a lot to DM discretion and players abused it for all it was worth to make their casters into world-shaping immortals. Magic got so out of hand at the time that even in the D&D lore a wizard tried to use an epic spell to become a god which led to the destruction of the Weave and the death of the magic goddess.

Vancian magic is not about limitation to make the game fair because wizards were grossly unfair even with it and later spells came along that let them basically ignore it. Instead it's just the style of casting, the idea that mages cast all their very long spells during preparation except for the trigger word and basically stored all the magical energy before unleashing it with the final incantation. Recovering spells took hours if not days because each one took a long time to cast, longer than the single round it takes to activate them. This concept of drainage and expending the energy promoted the rest cycle and adventuring days, the realistic storytelling tool that had adventurers require sleep and sustenance and survival because they couldn't just go all day long adventuring. Fatigue and exhaustion were huge components to tabletop war games and D&D began as one.

[MaxWilson]

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 GURPS 4E actually does this--unlike GURPS 3E, in 4E there's no real psionics system any more, just a bunch of powers that you buy with the "Psionic" origin attached (which gives you a minor discount and makes you vulnerable to anti-psionic effects, etc.). Even the magic system has moved in this direction. I think it's terribly bland and it's one of the reasons I started drifting back towards D&D, which has actual structure to its magic system, not just a bunch of orthogonal components.

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.)

Point-buy systems are generally whacko, and GURPS' point-buy chargen system is one of my least favorite things about it. If I were going to run a GURPS Dungeon Fantasy game I'd totally keep all of the runtime rules from Martial Arts, but I'd make my own character generation system with a lot more structure. Not necessarily a full class-and-level system, but definitely a larger-granularity system than the default, with more things like prerequisites before you can buy the best powers, so that progression has a certain order that is harder to cherry-pick.

Anyway, if you're saying that GURPS' magic system is not particularly balanced, [shrug] maybe. I don't really like GURPS' magic system, even the old one before they moved towards 4E's powers-by-another-name approach. It's simultaneously too weak and tactical and too powerful, in a weird way, but a different weird way than AD&D's or 5E's systems.

Definitely true. I’d rather make the non-magical part of D&D more like magic than the other way around.

Yes, 4e did a bunch of that and it was not popular, but it’s not clear to me that it could not be done, and in a way that was sufficiently D&D-esque enough to keep the D&D-seeking gamers happy. Make the skill/environmental-interaction system, a version of the combat system (make a Tome of Battle or GURPS:MA style martial class), and perhaps the social system have the same depth of complexity as D&D magic. Probably also truncate the worst-offender parts of magic like polymorph, summoning, simulacrum, and wish. Also make magic items* part of the expected norm again (perhaps with fighters once again getting access to the coolest magic items).

5E's system has a lot of weird outliers, but you could go a long way towards cutting spellcasters down to the same power level as warriors just by eliminating all minionmancy spells including Mass Suggestion and Simulacrum, eliminating Forcecage and Wall of Force, eliminating Shield and Absorb Elements, and eliminating all shapechanging spells and effects including Animal Shapes. Whether you should do that is of course up to your personal taste, but it does seem to be true that it's not so much magic that is overpowered in 5E as a large number of specific spells.

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I actually don't think it's that at all. Spell slots have existed since even the broken editions when fighters were a joke and wizards were gods with spells that didn't have defined limitations but near limitless reach and scope. Read through the 2nd edition spell list and you'll find tons of obscenely powerful and broken spells that had permanent duration or incredibly long ranges or physics shattering effects. Back then it was accepted that wizards were more powerful which is why it took more experience points to level one.

2nd edition balances wizards not just by making them slow to advance but also by making them fragile. Can't cast spells while moving, spells are subject to interruption while casting, can't wear armor while casting spells (although priests can, and Elven Chain doesn't count as armor), and have only 35 HP at 20th level (in an edition where Fireball does up to 10d6 (35) damage and permadeath occurs at 0 HP or (optional rule) at -10 HP, and save-or-die effects abound, and even resurrection magic can perma-kill you), and most wizards just plain aren't smart enough to ever cast 9th level spells even if they do hit 20th level.

That said, even the lower-level spells in 2nd edition are indeed great fun and often incredibly powerful. Dominate and Magic Jar, for example, are both 5th level spells but more powerful in many ways than 5E's 8th level version of Dominate Monster.

[AntiAuthority]

If you pay for power by taking a dependency on magic, you should get something in return. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to be "stronger" in some global sense. E.g. it's fine if a skilled thief can pick a lock faster and quiet than a wizard can enchant it open, and fine if a trained warrior can jump a gap that a scrawny wizard would need to Levitate over. It is less fine if someone wants to jump infinitely better than the trained warrior can, e.g. Superman-style jumps, while simultaneously insisting that that "isn't magic."

If you want to do supernatural stuff, you pay the supernatural price including vulnerability to anti-magic fields.

Magic, fantastic, extraordinary, superhuman, supernatural, mythological, etc. whatever you want to call characters that can pull off impossible stunts without using spells... There are genuinely people who think spells should be stronger than anyone who trains their bodies because "it's realistic that those who train their minds get ahead in life than those who train their bodies" and argue that anyone who wants superpowered warriors in D&D are trying to ruin the spirit of the game.

About supernatural prices, one of the 3.PF designers talked about this, and said the solution to labeling everything impossible as magic might be part of the issue of giving non-spellcasters nice things. I have to agree, and I think characters like Superman, Thor, Hercules, Beowulf, etc. wouldn't be considered magic users (such as casting spells) by DND terms and would probably be closer to something like a Fire Elemental or some other fantastic creature as a random example. The Fire Elemental doesn't cast spells to keep itself lit, its flames won't go out if it goes into an anti-magic field or someone casts Dispel Magic on it and it's not infinitely better than magic users just because it works in an field so it's not exactly magic by DND terms. Hercules' strength wasn't able to be suppressed to my knowledge (there was a plant that protected one hero from sorcery, so Hercules wouldn't be considered magic in myths) but the guy was far from invincible, needed help on his labors and ultimately died to being poisoned. If you want to consider Superman or any mythological warrior magic, I can understand your reasoning but I think they would more closely resemble beings that work inside anti-magic fields.

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In my experience it's almost exclusively a novel and D&D thing. They're used to Gandalf and Dr Strange and Elminster and Merlin. Did Aragorn exist? Sure, but he was a supporting character next to the awesome half-angel wizard who came back from the dead. Did King Arthur exist? Sure, but where would he be without Merlin guiding him and protecting the kingdom with his magics? Fantasy literature, which D&D is heavily based on, paint up mages like Harry Potter as more powerful than muggles and that's where they get their expectations from.

But gamers know better. You don't expect Warlocks to be superior to Rogues in World of Warcraft, in fact the opposite is true. In Dota where characters are split between Strength, Agility, and Intelligence the mages are not inherently superior to the melee tanks or assassins. Balance exists in all forms that are not storytelling because magic in gaming needs to be Hard Magic with solid restrictions and rules while magic in storytelling is too often Soft Magic without true limitations and used frequently in Deus Ex Machina.

Agreed 100%. Harry Potter is about magic being superior to muggles, while the BBEGs of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are magic users. The only real reason magic is considered superior to anything else is because it was written that way and some people interpreted that as making sense. A novel doesn't need balance, it's not like the other characters are being controlled by real people... A game is pretty different though lol.

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I agree! Those things are good and cool. There are lots of figures from mythology that can perform acts of physical might of these kinds; I shouldn't have limited it to anime-type stuff. But I have encountered many players who create martial characters that those players don't believe could do things like that. Oftentimes those players don't have the same hangups for magic use.

I completely understand, and agree, that this expectations mismatch is responsible for a lot of the power disparity at high levels. Often it is self-imposed by players themselves. I do not have a good fix for that.

Yeah, that is a problem... The issue is that only magic users get the high powered lifted from mythology thing going for them. The fantasy genre was influenced by mythology and folklore, but magic users got to keep abilities from mythologies while spellcasters aren't held up to the same standard. Even AD&D held up legendary figures like Cu Chulainn, Hercules, Beowulf and Siegfried as model fighters.

[langal]

You can though. Bottle genius and put it on a character sheet. Give heroes an ability involving coming up with a genius plan or maneuver that has direct game results. I mean this is basically akin to Bardic Inspiration and Bless already, giving you some genuine edge due to factors we can't see or explain. If you need the enemy to be vulnerable to your attacks then just have the enemy be vulnerable to your attacks and explain it away as you came up with some really cool trick. Can it be done by player ingenuity? Probably. But it can also be done with a dice roll on your "Craft Plan" skill check.

Just take player involvement out of it? It's supposed to be a thinking game. Resourcefulness should be rewarded. "Resourcefulness" shouldn't be dictated by a skill check. You can just auto-pilot the game as a full simulation. Like have the computer playing both teams in Madden.

[Kyutaru]

Just take player involvement out of it? It's supposed to be a thinking game. Resourcefulness should be rewarded. "Resourcefulness" shouldn't be dictated by a skill check. You can just auto-pilot the game as a full simulation. Like have the computer playing both teams in Madden.

It's a roleplaying game, not a turn-based tactics simulation. Autopilot is exactly how some groups do it. Heck the old DMGs even had ways to speed through combat to get to the good stuff -- roleplaying. They even have examples listed with characters performing Intelligence checks to solve puzzles or get clues, completely bypassing the minutia and getting back to the storytelling. The game engine is merely a platform for assisted narration with combat derived from old timey war games. THOSE were the tactical simulation strategy games, not D&D. The RPG itself wasn't even balanced or fair, just a meat grinder for players who had to use wits to avoid as much combat as possible because it was grossly stacked against them.

[Segev]

Hold on a moment, I think there is less disagreement that is initially apparent.

Imagine a system where
Character A does 15 points per turn.
Character B does 14 points per turn, except for a limited number of turns they do 17 points that turn.
Actual balance depends on frequency. You will also note that the limited use ability does not need to be vastly stronger.

Imagine a system where
Character A does 3 green or 3 blue per turn.
Character B does 3 red per turn, except for a limited number of turns they do 3 yellow or 3 orange.

Vancian Magic is generally designed as the first system. Penalize the baseline ability but give it a limited use above average ability. Nothing in the vancian mechanics require that design, you could use the second design, but generally vancian magic uses that first design.

AKA limited use abilities don't have to be stronger than at-will abilities, but they generally do use that design paradigm.

I still feel like you're not recognizing the issue. There is no connection between "Vancian" and "more powerful" beyond "Vancian provides a limited resource -> limited resources allow greater power." It's not Vancian, specifically, that makes D&D spellcasting more powerful than non-spellcasting. It's the versatility.

You could remake spellcasting to be Vampire Disciplines using blood points, psionic power points, or the like. It wouldn't make spellcasting diminish in power.

My sole argument on this part of the topic is that associating Vancian spell slots with casting being overpowered is erroneous. That leads to suggestions of fixing it by using some other limiting mechanic. This would have zero impact on the relative power of spells to non-spells. The only way to impact that is to change what spells can and can't do, or to change what can and can't be done without spells.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

What would you replace it with?

You need something to give before you can take.

Give them just cantrips and then slightly boost said cantrips.

Make it where each caster can do one thing well and not really anything else all that well.

If it's good enough for some players, it's good enough for others, right?

[JellyPooga]

I still feel like you're not recognizing the issue. There is no connection between "Vancian" and "more powerful" beyond "Vancian provides a limited resource -> limited resources allow greater power." It's not Vancian, specifically, that makes D&D spellcasting more powerful than non-spellcasting. It's the versatility.

You're right, it's not vancian magic that makes it more powerful. That's not what I've been saying. It's the disparity between it as a time-gated, resource based mechanic and the mechanics that govern the other, which are not.

Versatility is just another aspect of "power"; if one character can do X and another can do Y, Z and W but only Q number of times, the latter is more powerful; he has more solutions at any given time except when Q is zero (at which point the game will usually stop until Q is no longer zero) That is power just as much as the values of those letters is.

You could remake spellcasting to be Vampire Disciplines using blood points, psionic power points, or the like. It wouldn't make spellcasting diminish in power.

Precisely. It's not the mechanic, alone, but the disparity between a resource based mechanic and one that is not. Vampire works because everyone is using the same resource to fuel their abilities; bloodpoints. Regardless of what they can do, the resource is the same and predicated on the same principles. It's balanced. D&D does not do this and as a result is not balanced.

My sole argument on this part of the topic is that associating Vancian spell slots with casting being overpowered is erroneous. That leads to suggestions of fixing it by using some other limiting mechanic. This would have zero impact on the relative power of spells to non-spells. The only way to impact that is to change what spells can and can't do, or to change what can and can't be done without spells.

All mechanics are limiting. They're the difference between playing make-believe and playing a game. The trick to designing a balanced game is to make sure everyone is playing the same game. It can be asymmetric; look at Netrunner for an example of an excellently designed asymmetrical game. The point is that the basic mechanics that everyone is using must have the same basic assumptions.

D&D does not do this because vancian casting does not have the same basic assumptions as the rules that martial characters use. As demonstrated by Tome of Battle (as I mentioned), when you give martials the same basic assumption as spellcasters, the gameplay balances. Where it failed wasn't in game balance but in theme. I'm just saying to reverse the process. 4E did it too and it was largely balanced. Where that failed was in making characters homogenous as well as balanced. That doesn't have to be the case (see: Vampire, for example).

I'll say it again; it's not vancian casting alone. It's vancian casting in a system that has characters that use it and other characters that don't use any resource limited features. That's the disparity and it cannot be fixed by any amount of number or quality balancing.

[Silly Name]

"Odysseus" isn't a character class--it's a player mindset. You can't bottle genius and put it on a character sheet. An Odysseus fighter infiltrates the Fomorians underwater even though he doesn't have magic of his own. An Odysseus wizard kills the Rakshasa even though it's immune to his spells. _How_ Odysseus achieves it will vary based on circumstances, but you can be pretty sure he doesn't just attack the problem head-on.

Of course it isn't a character class - but if you were asked to create Odysseus as a D&D character, you wouldn't give him magic powers. My comparison was between the skillsets of two fictional characters, and how one can be reduced to irrelevancy by the other - because Doctor Strange's powers let him solve the problems Odysseus needs to outwit with a snap of his fingers, and he's just as smart as the King of Ithaca anyway. So what's Odysseus narrative role when Strange is just as smart but also able to do magic?

That's why I talked about setting player expectations and power level - you can have Gandalf coexist with Pippin and Merry in LotR, because a book you don't have to worry about Pippin's player feeling shafted. Tolkien simply wrote his book so that every member of the Fellowship had a role to play, but LotR would be an awful D&D campaign: wildly varying power levels among the party, everyone getting split up, there isn't even a proper boss battle!

So, again, the baseline problem some people face isn't that wizards are "too powerful" or fighters "too weak"*, but that they establish different power levels for martials and casters and then complain when there's a gap in party balance. You need to regulate that, and maybe the books should be more explicit about the power spectrum you'll go through as you level up: gritty heroic fantasy gives the way to mythic and epic fantasy which in turn leads you to being superheroes.

*I will reiterate, though, that martials lost a lot of the mechanics that were supposed to make them more powerful at high level. The game should look back and realise that you can fill the gap by giving martials different kinds of power than "hit more, hit harder", and/or giving them the ability to do something others can't do.

[DeadMech]

I need to stop reading threads like this... no... people need to stop posting threads like this.

How about instead of ruining the best parts of the game you instead look for ways to improve the worst parts of the game.

A fighter isn't boring and ineffective because wizards exist. It's because fighter is bad and the subsystems it interacts with are bad. Bring back progression to the skill system and stop locking everything necessary to do various interesting physical fighting maneuvers behind limited and permanent feats. And stop with the guy at the gym fallacy. This is a fantasy setting. Warriors are going to do things that are in some way supernatural. Just accept it already.

Actually learn the lessons ToB taught and stop turning up your nose because it's too "Anime".

[kazaryu]

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?

honestly, this is a hard pass for me.

The problem, as i see it, is that people try to impose 'realistic' limitations on martials, but not magic users. This is of course because magic users by themselves are inherently unrealistic. Whereas we read about people that were good with swords in our history books. So the solution is, well, stop imposing 'realistic' limitations on martials. DnD isn't meant to be a 'realistic' settings. at its core its not meant to be hyper gritty. its hero fantasy. thats why a high level fighter is able to take dozens of 'hits' at once and just shrug them off.

how this problem is expressed mechanically comes down to a fairly open ended skill system (thus requiring people to essentially come up with their own system). and poor non combat support for martials. And since people are inherently biased, they naturally default to imposing realistic limitations where they shouldn't. Keep in mind, the average bonus a professional person will have to their specific skill set is something around a +6. thats something PC's typically achieve around lvl 4-5. lvl 15-20? they become superhuman in their bonuses. the fighter isn't just 'a strong man at the gym.' he's literally the most talented swordsman this world has seen in this century. DnD PC's are mythical hero material. Let them exemplify that.

one good example i've seen in other threads: let barbarians do damage to wall's of force. don't let them break it instantly. don't give them a 'no' button. but let 'em **** it up. why not? this isn't Arnold Schwarzenegger we're talking about. this is hulk jr.



now, that being said, if a group *does* want to play in a more gritty, down to earth campaign. thats fine, they just need to recognize that those limitations need to be applied evenly, across both martials and caster's.

[Lucas Yew]

I repeat, I believe Fictional Jock Wish Denial is a major telling sign of nerds going too far towards the moral event horizon, even for whatever revenge (rightfully justified or not) the latter seek against the former demographic. Though completely removing the spellcaster archetype might be going too far in the opposite direction, so the route of quenching the "anti-Animesque" ideas might be more productive here instead.

Just not sure how common this mindset is among the DND crowd as a whole (might just be a vocal minority), but there are people who genuinely argue spellcasters should be stronger than none spellcasters.

Which is one major kind of population that gives me spasms every time I spot them on the Internet or anywhere else... Well, like some others said, they can work, in literature/plays/movies/etc., but NOT in a multiplayer game.

Years ago I came up with the concept of a magic user that charged up to cast and they could choose at what point during the charge up they wanted to cast. So it's at will with limitations. They cant go all nova in one encounter a day because their strength is directly proportional to the number of combats and rounds of combat. They still have resource management and have to weight the choices of casting little big, cantrip etc. It also limits out of combat utility because of the design.
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...New-Base-Class
for anyone interested.

It's a very pleasant surprise though, to see someone had nearly the same thought as I did to take care of the 5MWD problem (though I never ironed out the ideas with written words beyond my brain's mindscape). At least the "grounded" martials, if they even coexist with said casters, now have a definitely justified meat shield job at the very least when protecting the casters from losing their charged up problem solver spell...

[Segev]

I repeat, I believe Fictional Jock Wish Denial is a major telling sign of nerds going too far towards the moral event horizon

I still reject any argument that starts with this assertion. I have never seen, at least in discussions on these boards, a plurality of support for the notion of magic being more powerful than non-magic based on the idea that brains should always be superior to brawn in fantasy. I only see it around here when it is asserted that that is the "real" motivation for not agreeing to "nerf spellcasters" or "remove spells" or "change everything about spellcasting" as the obvious solution. That is, I see people ascribing that position to those who they disagree with, but never anybody they ascribe it to defending nor claiming it.

The better solution is improving non-casters. Expand the awesomeness. And the voices calling for this obviously can't be espousing "Fictional Jock Wish Denial." Because we're arguing for the Jock Wish to be Fulfilled.

Heck, the very terming of it as "Jock Wish Denial" to not want spellcasters nerfed is backwards: nerf spellcasters and don't change "jocks," and the "jocks'" wishes are still denied; you've just now also denied the spellcasters' wishes. It sounds more like there's a "Fictional Nerd Wish Denial" call going out, and those advocating it are claiming that refusing to deny "Nerd Wishes" are denying "Jock Wishes."

I advocate fulfilling both nerd and jock wishes. Make martials great!

[Silly Name]

I still reject any argument that starts with this assertion. You do not get to tell me what I think or what my motives are, nor do you get to assert what others "really" believe or want. I have never seen, at least in discussions on these boards, a plurality of support for the notion of magic being more powerful than non-magic based on the idea that brains should always be superior to brawn in fantasy. I only see it around here when people wish to assert that that is the "real" motivation for not agreeing to "nerf spellcasters" or "remove spells" or "change everything about spellcasting" as the obvious solution.

The better solution is improving non-casters. Expand the awesomeness. And the voices calling for this obviously can't be espousing "Fictional Jock Wish Denial." Because we're arguing for the Jock Wish to be Fulfilled.

Heck, the very terming of it as "Jock Wish Denial" to not want spellcasters nerfed is backwards: nerf spellcasters and don't change "jocks," and the "jocks'" wishes are still denied; you've just now also denied the spellcasters' wishes. It sounds more like there's a "Fictional Nerd Wish Denial" call going out, and those advocating it are claiming that refusing to deny "Nerd Wishes" are denying "Jock Wishes."

I advocate fulfilling both nerd and jock wishes. Make martials great!

Heartily agreed.

Plus I think it's way easier from a design perspective to improve martials than it is to fundamentally alter how spellcasting works anyways.

[OldTrees1]

I still feel like you're not recognizing the issue. There is no connection between "Vancian" and "more powerful" beyond "Vancian provides a limited resource -> limited resources allow greater power." It's not Vancian, specifically, that makes D&D spellcasting more powerful than non-spellcasting. It's the versatility.

My sole argument on this part of the topic is that associating Vancian spell slots with casting being overpowered is erroneous. That leads to suggestions of fixing it by using some other limiting mechanic. This would have zero impact on the relative power of spells to non-spells. The only way to impact that is to change what spells can and can't do, or to change what can and can't be done without spells.

You're right, it's not vancian magic that makes it more powerful. That's not what I've been saying. It's the disparity between it as a time-gated, resource based mechanic and the mechanics that govern the other, which are not.

Versatility is just another aspect of "power"; if one character can do X and another can do Y, Z and W but only Q number of times, the latter is more powerful; he has more solutions at any given time except when Q is zero (at which point the game will usually stop until Q is no longer zero) That is power just as much as the values of those letters is.

All mechanics are limiting. They're the difference between playing make-believe and playing a game. The trick to designing a balanced game is to make sure everyone is playing the same game. It can be asymmetric; look at Netrunner for an example of an excellently designed asymmetrical game. The point is that the basic mechanics that everyone is using must have the same basic assumptions.

D&D does not do this because vancian casting does not have the same basic assumptions as the rules that martial characters use. As demonstrated by Tome of Battle (as I mentioned), when you give martials the same basic assumption as spellcasters, the gameplay balances. Where it failed wasn't in game balance but in theme. I'm just saying to reverse the process. 4E did it too and it was largely balanced. Where that failed was in making characters homogenous as well as balanced. That doesn't have to be the case (see: Vampire, for example).

I'll say it again; it's not vancian casting alone. It's vancian casting in a system that has characters that use it and other characters that don't use any resource limited features. That's the disparity and it cannot be fixed by any amount of number or quality balancing.

Okay so I addressed magnitude in the last post and why limited use abilities generally, but not always, are designed to be stronger than resourceless abilities. Specifically when the resourceless ability of the resource based class is designed to be weaker than the resourceless ability of the resourceless class.

Now for versatility. First, how do limited resources impact versatility.

At its core there will be a versatility imbalance regardless of how I design the system.
Imagine a system X where
Character A does 3 green or 3 blue per turn.
Character B does 3 red per turn, except for a limited number of turns they do 3 yellow or 3 orange.

Imagine a system Y where
Character A does 3 green, 3 blue, or 3 purple per turn.
Character B does 3 red per turn, except for a limited number of turns they do 3 yellow or 3 orange.

In system X, during the day, character B is more versatile. In system Y, during the day, character A is more versatile. In system Y, character A is also, all else equal, strictly better than character B. So we can't use system Y unless there is some other factor. Thus, pending the discovery of the other factor, those with limited use abilities will tend to have more options than those with resourceless abilities (because those options decrease when used). However system X is not so bleak, sure character B will be more versatile than character A, but it does not need to be an overwhelming difference. Character A could have 10 options and character B could have 12 options. Since it does not need to be an overwhelming difference, the characters can be balanced despite not using the same foundation.

Okay, now for vancian magic in particular.

D&D designs vancian magic to be a long list of options (that is growing as the edition ages) from which each caster gets a list, and then makes a sublist from that list, and then gets to use that sublist all day as they spend limited resources on it. Sorcerers have it the worse while still being vancian and they get a list of 1+level (until mid level) limited resource options from the ever growing list.

So there are 2 components to this.
1) The ever growing list
2) The fixed size sublist
Vancian magic does not inherently need the ever growing list. But WotC loves that idea so let's assume it is inherent to Vancian_WotC

Now think about Warlock Invocations. Their invocation list could continue to grow. Their invocation sublist is a decent length and would be longer if warlocks did not have spells. The warlock invocation model is a resourceless model that also grows in versatility. You could do a similar thing for other more resourceless focused classes.

So yes, vancian magic is more versatile than fixed (not sure the right word) features granted to most resourceless focused classes. However you could use something like the invocation model. If you did then there is nothing mechanically preventing the versatility imbalance from being an overwhelming imbalance. Since it does not need to be an overwhelming difference, the characters can be balanced despite not using the same foundation.

Obviously this solution fits vancian like Sorcerers better than vancian like Clerics. But if you want the sublist to be modified, then make both sublists be editable.

Summary

1. The limited resources do cause some inherent difference in versatility.
2. The vancian model for limited resources has a lot of versatility and grows that versatility over time.
3. However resourceless models can be designed to have similar versatility to the vancian model.
4. The inherent difference in versatility does not need to be overwhelming, so resourceless classes can exist alongside resource based classes.

[Lucas Yew]

I advocate fulfilling both nerd and jock wishes. Make martials great!

Heartily agreed.

Plus I think it's way easier from a design perspective to improve martials than it is to fundamentally alter how spellcasting works anyways.

Oh, I absolutely do agree with your notions, really. Sorry if it seemed like I vouched for dragging spellcasters down, which I'm not. Let everyone be supers if they wish so in fictionland!

By the way, if explicit, "official" warnings are added in the rulebooks that if you deliberately choose to be non-super you can have hurt feelings for getting overshadowed by the others who choose to be super, would that help?

[Segev]

Oh, I absolutely do agree with your notions, really. Sorry if it seemed like I vouched for dragging spellcasters down, which I'm not. Let everyone be supers if they wish so in fictionland!

By the way, if explicit, "official" warnings are added in the rulebooks that if you deliberately choose to be non-super you can have hurt feelings for getting overshadowed by the others who choose to be super, would that help?

Not really. The "superness" should be a function of level in a d20-like system.

What should be there is a suggestion that, if you want a particular level of "superness," you should play games at that level. Maybe offer some version of "E6" rules as optional rules to keep things at a particular level.



On versatility and the ever-expanding list: I think the solution there is just to have whatever non-spellcasters use also get an ever-expanding list. WE have this with feats, sort-of, but the reason ToB was so successful was that it gave something a bit more easily-expanded than feats. (If it had gotten as much later-book support as spells had the whole time, it would have done even better.)

[OldTrees1]

On versatility and the ever-expanding list: I think the solution there is just to have whatever non-spellcasters use also get an ever-expanding list. WE have this with feats, sort-of, but the reason ToB was so successful was that it gave something a bit more easily-expanded than feats. (If it had gotten as much later-book support as spells had the whole time, it would have done even better.)

Agreed.

You know I am a bit fan of a very robust feat system*, but WotC is still learning how to do that.
ToB on the other hand is a system that WotC knows how to expand. So it is easier for them. I do like how some reimaginings of ToB even support resourceless class designs.

*Long list of feats. Without feat trees, but with level requirements. Characters get a few/several/many feats depending on class type. Individual feats are worth a level's worth of features. With a versatile breadth of options.

[MaxWilson]

Of course it isn't a character class - but if you were asked to create Odysseus as a D&D character, you wouldn't give him magic powers. My comparison was between the skillsets of two fictional characters, and how one can be reduced to irrelevancy by the other - because Doctor Strange's powers let him solve the problems Odysseus needs to outwit with a snap of his fingers, and he's just as smart as the King of Ithaca anyway. So what's Odysseus narrative role when Strange is just as smart but also able to do magic?

... So, again, the baseline problem some people face isn't that wizards are "too powerful" or fighters "too weak"*, but that they establish different power levels for martials and casters and then complain when there's a gap in party balance.

I believe in get your point, but I'm making a different point: Odysseus is a player type, of players who are good at adapting to circumstance and thinking on their feet.

If you have one Odysseus player playing a wizard, and another Odysseus player joins the group, either the second Odysseus will play a wizard too (and they'll swap spells and wreck face together), or else the second Odysseus will play something else like a Fighter (and probably get the first Odysseus to forge him some gear, and together they'll wreck face).

Presuming that the party is facing threats worthy of Odysseus's time and attention--threats which are much tougher on paper than they are--having twice as much wily brainpower in the party is never a bad thing. In fact you could probably have a third Odysseus who is nothing but a disembodied voice with no abilities at all (another player whom the other players get to call on the phone for advice but who doesn't actually join sessions) and he would still add value to the party, e.g. as OPFOR for trial runs during their planning process.

[ezekielraiden]

Alright. As expected, my thread asplode (hot take indeed), but sadly I can't really respond to most people. Sorry guys--I'd love to, truly, but having minimum one post at character limit and another for overflow is too much. Doubly 'cause I'm so verbose--dozens of replies would be literally pages of printed text. So I'll respond to a few here on this page, and if more people want to engage or challenge or whatever, I'll try to keep up. No promises--if I get a dozen replies, I'll be condensing.

I'll use terms like "martial" and "magic." I don't think the supernatural is exclusively "magic." I strongly support the "transmundane" (AFAIK my term) in fiction: stuff "merely" superlative skill, but which has somehow exceeded the limits of mundanity in the process. That which "should be" mundane, which grew out of mundanity, but has transcended it to become a supernatural version thereof. The smith who knows know magic, but can forge magic swords because she's just that good. The thief of legend whose prowess has grown so great, he can steal the color of a dapper swain's eyes (shout-out to 4e there). The sword-fighter of such amazing talent, they can reflect fireballs and cut rays of light. Etc.

So my "magic" is most (usually not all) supernatural things that aren't transmundane. When I use "martials," I mean characters that derive the majority of their power from mundane or transmundane skills, even if they might also happen to know some magic, and "spellcasters" or "magic-users" etc. get most of their power from magic, with little transmundane skill. (Note: here, things like Psionics, Incarnum, etc. are "magic" even if formally they're distinct.)

I have never seen, at least in discussions on these boards, a plurality of support for the notion of magic being more powerful than non-magic based on the idea that brains should always be superior to brawn in fantasy.

I haven't seen it here, in those terms, but I have seen it many, many times elsewhere. Won't give specifics (dislike cross-forum drama). Just know a VERY vocal minority exists (exact size: ???), completely convinced that magic can, should, and must be clearly stronger than non-magic. Once nearly had an argument on an artist's stream, because he specifically said this ("magic should always be more powerful" IIRC). I let it go, first, his house, his rules; second, (b) avoiding being That Guy raising a stink about dumb stuff. But yes, this opinion really does exist.

It's found (IMO even here), again by different words but same idea, in responses to both the BO9S and 4e D&D--for the latter, by both its critics and some of its designers. We've heard the "Fightan Magic" tripe the former got tarred with, and its grossly-overpowered-supplement reputation with many DMs...despite it being demonstrably less powerful than magic proper, minus a couple edge cases with bad writing (e.g. IHS). These critics usually don't openly say magic should be better than physical might, let alone the reason why. But the core notion--that it was wrong for physical might to achieve these sometimes-supernatural-adjacent effects--is still there. More importantly, it is valid to gloss that as "magic just SHOULD be better than non-magic." The expectations applied to non-magic effects are almost always extremely restrictive and confining, both narratively and mechanically. See also: the furor over "disassociated" mechanics, which are perfectly fine if they're magical and totally unacceptable if they're not (rather, AIUI, a mechanic cannot be "disassociated" if it's magic, because magic can do ~~anything!~~)

And then as noted, even 4e's designers kept trying--intentionally or not--to make the Wizard the most powerful class while it was in development, and Rob Heinsoo had to keep stepping in and adjusting it back down again, according to an interview with him. He even admitted that he might have overcorrected slightly, but that it would work out in the end. I don't think it's coincidental that one of the (bogus and inaccurate) criticisms of 4e was that it "made Fighters into Wizards" (along with all sorts of completely ridiculous and false claims like Fighters shooting lightning/fire from their hindquarters.) The vehemence, consistency, frequent inaccuracy, and specifically martial-centric nature of the complaints doesn't paint a good picture.

The better solution is improving non-casters. Expand the awesomeness.

Honest question: Do you genuinely believe it is possible to give non-casters something on a par with wish and have caster fans accept it? Because that's the kind of thing we have to be willing to do if we're going to make non-casters achieve..."parity" has put off some people in the past, but that's the kind of thing we need to achieve, a reasonable approximation of similar ability-to-shape-the-world.

Heck, the very terming of it as "Jock Wish Denial" to not want spellcasters nerfed is backwards: nerf spellcasters and don't change "jocks," and the "jocks'" wishes are still denied; you've just now also denied the spellcasters' wishes. It sounds more like there's a "Fictional Nerd Wish Denial" call going out, and those advocating it are claiming that refusing to deny "Nerd Wishes" are denying "Jock Wishes."

It seems to me that you are going a bit too far, at least relative to what I called for in the OP. I did, after all, specifically say that we couldn't just leave casters out to dry. But if we keep circling around the same problems over and over again, maybe there's something wrong with the implementation of magic currently, that can only be addressed by rebuilding from the beginning in a different way.

That doesn't mean refusing to grant wishes. It does mean that we may be granting one group's wishes in a way that is truly incompatible with granting another's, and can only grant both groups' wishes by going back to the drawing board and building the whole edifice from whole cloth, caster and non-caster both.

Summary

1. The limited resources do cause some inherent difference in versatility.
2. The vancian model for limited resources has a lot of versatility and grows that versatility over time.
3. However resourceless models can be designed to have similar versatility to the vancian model.
4. The inherent difference in versatility does not need to be overwhelming, so resourceless classes can exist alongside resource based classes.

Important follow-up question: What about if we are working from a system that is already unbalanced in versatility? Your comparison was between two systems of specific natures--ones that may not map to our current situation. That is, is it possible for a system to exist where the versatility of one character-option-set ("class/es") is so great that no amount of "catching up" is possible for things excluded from that set? Because that's, more or less, the assertion I'm making here, that spellcasting has an inherent problem (of design, culture, and implementation) that can only be addressed by re-writing it.

Not really. The "superness" should be a function of level in a d20-like system. What should be there is a suggestion that, if you want a particular level of "superness," you should play games at that level. Maybe offer some version of "E6" rules as optional rules to keep things at a particular level.

Which runs into the serious problem (that I've seen over and over, both in advertised games and in games I've actually played) where even when a DM expressly states they want a solid, reliable early experience....they play at 1st level. And often get flabbergasted by how fragile and easily-squished 1st-level PCs are. 1st level has an absolutely magnetic attraction; DMs will start there, stubbornly, no matter what value or benefit there is to starting at other places, no matter how much it would be good for brand-new players to get a not-incredibly-lethal first experience. (I have, in fact, seen a fellow-player driven away from D&D entirely because of this!)

Which is why I advocate for a first-level experience optimized for brand-new players (relatively low on decisions, but relatively durable), so long as it comes with official, in-book, and most importantly NOT deprecated rules for "zero-level" characters. Doing it this way actively supports those players who really do want that experience, while averting the real, visible problem of "(almost) every DM wants to start at 1st level no matter what."

On versatility and the ever-expanding list: I think the solution there is just to have whatever non-spellcasters use also get an ever-expanding list. WE have this with feats, sort-of, but the reason ToB was so successful was that it gave something a bit more easily-expanded than feats. (If it had gotten as much later-book support as spells had the whole time, it would have done even better.)

If that's on the table, I agree. But notice how quickly both this thread and the "how to fix martials" threads draw people asking, "You aren't going to do it like The Edition That Shall Not Be Named, are you? That would be awful and no one would play it."

[NichG]

I think I'm late to this party, but for the last few months I've been working on a d20/D&D 3.5 rewrite from the ground up, where the design goal (or part of it) is that all characters of all types are basically what would be at least Tier 1, in multiple different overlapping ways. I didn't remove spellcasting, I removed the spell list, and then I wrote ability lists for each of the 9 base classes which are each about equal in terms of number of options, ability to pick up those options mid-game, and in terms of having answers to standard questions like 'how do you deal with flying enemies, how do you deal with planar shenanigans, etc'. Three of the base classes are martial, three are traditional spellcaster archetypes, and three are types which use gadgets and gimmicks. In addition, all characters regardless of base class get to add a variant of PrCs on top of their class progression, which can be retrained just by going to an organization headquarters and spending a few days (so they can pick and choose some supporting class features, and swap them around almost like a wizard would swap daily spells) as well as an association with one or more 'Myths' which are the deity-equivalents of the setting and which grant a new dramatic editing ability every 5 levels.

So every character has a spell list, a number of slots they can rotate class abilities through which can be picked up during play, and 4-5 broad-scope dramatic editing powers.

By construction, even at the level of the cosmology, nothing at all in the setting is intended to be 'mundane'. Setting level, the world was destroyed and the only thing that remains and has the ability to hang together in a Lovecraftian void is the stories told of legendary or heroic deeds, which have taken on a life of their own and are literally the matter the world is made of. So there's explicitly 'no guy at the gym' excuses.

I guess we'll see how it plays when I run it.

(I can post the mechanics part at least if people are interested, but it's a hefty read at around 210 pages).

[Silly Name]

Honest question: Do you genuinely believe it is possible to give non-casters something on a par with wish and have caster fans accept it? Because that's the kind of thing we have to be willing to do if we're going to make non-casters achieve..."parity" has put off some people in the past, but that's the kind of thing we need to achieve, a reasonable approximation of similar ability-to-shape-the-world.

[...]

Important follow-up question: What about if we are working from a system that is already unbalanced in versatility? Your comparison was between two systems of specific natures--ones that may not map to our current situation. That is, is it possible for a system to exist where the versatility of one character-option-set ("class/es") is so great that no amount of "catching up" is possible for things excluded from that set? Because that's, more or less, the assertion I'm making here, that spellcasting has an inherent problem (of design, culture, and implementation) that can only be addressed by re-writing it.

Wish isn't problematic as it's made out to be... Because most people don't play at the levels where Wish is an actual option. The disparity emerges much sooner, and that's what needs to be addressed.

I'll reiterate that I absolutely don't think the problem is within the "Vancian" portion of "Vancian magic" - Vancian magic is simply a method to handle resources, not something that inherently creates imbalance in class design.

We have three problems, fundamentally:
1) The class chassis is much more restrictive for martials than it is for casters. The most important choice a martial character makes is what class(es) they take levels in, and those define their skillset, while casters get to take a class level and build their own toolbox anyway.

2) Martials lack exclusivity at what they do. That is, the casters can easily creep in what're supposed to be the martials' areas of expertise, because casters are given spells that can interact with pretty much every area of the game, whereas martials aren't give the tools to go outside the box.

3) Martials have been saddled down with the "Guy at the Gym" fallacy, demanding that even high-level martial characters be forbidden from performing mythic feats of strength and agility, despite being expected to fight titans and archfiends and dead gods.

I think it is perfectly possible to improve martials while at the same time retouching some details of the spellcasting system without having to revise the fundamental concepts of D&D.

For example...

1) Expand skill use and let high-level skill checks be more powerful - leap over chasms, balance on a razor-thin rope, jump from horse to horse and ride while standing up, tame raging hellbeasts and stuff like this. High risk, high reward performances. In the same vein, make combat maneuvers a more extensive system, easier to access and with far more options of what they can let you do.

2) Give martials ways to attract followers or intimidate entire crowds, as options built into the class. Give them features that can't be replicated with spells, stuff only they can do. Let an high-level barbarian be able to damage a wall of force, and high-level fighters have the heroic resolve to shake off being charmed and other effects... Stuff like this.

3) Narrow down casters: impose more limitations on what they can learn. Requisites for learning spells, class options that trade power for versatility, scrap the spells that do nothing but step on the toes of other characters, rebalance the more broken ones.


"What about the guys who don't want to play as demigods and superheroes?" Well, there's still space for them, just at lower levels, where those powers still don't pop up. The power spectrum of D&D is big, and different folks will prefer different areas of that spectrum. Just make it clear in the books, give some examples of what the differences are between Tier 1 and Tier 4 play, and everyone will be able to pick what range of levels they want their campaigns and characters to be at.

[Edea]

Well, define what a 'spell' is, first.

If Conan the completely mundane barbarian decides to flex his pectorals at a mountain in the distance and cause it to collapse in on itself, is that a spell? If a ranger starts dual-wielding their weapons so quickly that the blades heat up and catch fire, is that a spell? If a monk runs a mile in six seconds, is that a spell? If a rogue knifes you in the back so precisely that she actually destroys your soul, is that a spell? If a fighter stomps the ground so hard that all nearby foes are launched permanently into orbit, is that a spell? If a paladin creates a gate and summons a group of solars from the holy realms of Celestia by Smiting the fabric of reality with his fist, is that a spell?

Now, if we're being 3.5e-tier pedantic, those would all probably fall under 'supernatural abilities' and not rely mechanically on Vancian-type spell slots. But the point remains: what is a spell? If a wizard stood there and replicated any of those effects by waving their hands around, chanting something in a forgotten dialect of Draconic and rubbing bat guano all over their faces, those are suddenly all spells now, yeah?

There's no reason why a 'non-spellcaster' should be forbidden from re-flavoring effects generally considered 'spells' to better fit their class archetypes; hell, ToB and the entirely of 4th edition are precisely that. We could even use Vancian-type spell slots to track use limits, just call them something else, like 'action surges' or whatever.

But people in the hobby got mad at these things. Like, really mad. There seems to be this weird insistence that 'mundane purity' is capable of mechanically co-existing with Class 9 Reality Benders, barring either a conscious effort to make it so on the part of the DM/players (in which case it's a failure of a rules system) or complete indifference/ignorance as to how the game works (in which case the system being used is irrelevant and they might as well be playing strip poker).

TL;DR, as has been said multiple times already: WotC has already tried to 'remove' spellcasting, it was not well-received, WotC wants to make money and sell product, they reneged, and things went back to normal. I don't think it's going away anytime soon.

[ezekielraiden]

Not sure why this got moved here. It's not homebrew. I'm not proposing any specific changes to the rules. Guess I'll have to ping an admin since no one said anything...

Wish isn't problematic as it's made out to be... Because most people don't play at the levels where Wish is an actual option. The disparity emerges much sooner, and that's what needs to be addressed.

That it is not commonly played matters little to me. If the game is going to bill itself as a cooperative-teamwork roleplaying game, I expect that whatever things it offers for us to do will meet that goal. That means having, as noted, a reasonable approximation of parity--even at those upper levels. It doesn't have to be perfect, but....well, every edition except 1e and 4e has sucked at this. Sucked really hard actually--and 1e really only gets by because it made classes play completely different games once they hit "endgame" levels (Fighters as political figures with demesnes, retainers, income, warfare, etc.; Thieves as the heads of criminal enterprises of various sorts; Clerics becoming the high priest of a legit temple; Wizards settling down and doing research from their high towers; etc.)

I'll reiterate that I absolutely don't think the problem is within the "Vancian" portion of "Vancian magic" - Vancian magic is simply a method to handle resources, not something that inherently creates imbalance in class design.

Well that's sort of my point. Whether or not we keep the "Vancian," it's the spells themselves that are the problem. Hence, scrapping the system and replacing it seems like a good idea, yet no one seems to want to.

1) The class chassis is much more restrictive for martials than it is for casters. The most important choice a martial character makes is what class(es) they take levels in, and those define their skillset, while casters get to take a class level and build their own toolbox anyway.

Agreed. Well, I'd argue that both sides are weirdly shut out: there's essentially no equivalent on either side. Martials never get to make choices even approximating the least-choice-y spellcaster, and there is not (and, barring late-4e, has never been) a basically-no-choices spellcaster either.

2) Martials lack exclusivity at what they do. That is, the casters can easily creep in what're supposed to be the martials' areas of expertise, because casters are given spells that can interact with pretty much every area of the game, whereas martials aren't give the tools to go outside the box.

I think a better way to phrase this is:
There is, in net effect, little to nothing that martial characters can do, which a well-prepared spellcaster cannot meet-or-beat. There are spells for doing damage, inflicting any condition a martial character can inflict,
There are many things spellcasters can do, which no martial can meaningfully imitate. There are no martial equivalents to a huge swathe of (again, possible) spells that can be cast.

This is a fundamental and, I argue, unfair asymmetry. Either both sides should have things the other simply cannot replicate no matter how hard they try (without literally learning the ways of the other side), or neither should have anything the other can't do. That doesn't necessarily mean limiting spellcasters--but it does mean that we may want to consider some "trimming" if there are too many, or too powerful, ways that spellcasting simply outright exceeds martial capabilities with little to nothing to mitigate that difference.

3) Martials have been saddled down with the "Guy at the Gym" fallacy, demanding that even high-level martial characters be forbidden from performing mythic feats of strength and agility, despite being expected to fight titans and archfiends and dead gods.

Absolutely. Most martial characters are more limited than real-world Olympian athletes, let alone fantastic beyond-human beings native to a world where the list of fundamental elements is earth, air, fire, and water.

I think it is perfectly possible to improve martials while at the same time retouching some details of the spellcasting system without having to revise the fundamental concepts of D&D. For example... 1) Expand skill use and let high-level skill checks be more powerful <snip> 2) Give martials ways to attract followers or intimidate entire crowds, as options built into the class. <snap>

These would, assuredly, be progress on doing martial archetypes better. But--see above. I legitimately do not care that wish is beyond a level typically played: if it is a level offered to be played at all, it is reasonable and fair to ask that level to provide a reasonable parity between fundamental character archetypes--and few archetypes are as fundamental as "martial."

3) Narrow down casters: impose more limitations on what they can learn. Requisites for learning spells, class options that trade power for versatility, scrap the spells that do nothing but step on the toes of other characters, rebalance the more broken ones.

If this is successful, sure, I can grant that it could work. Here's the problem: every edition since 1e has tried to do this to some extent. Every edition has failed, except 4e. And you see how virulently, vocally anti-4e most people are, even today--it's shown up in this very thread, that even the hint of 4th edition methods, concepts, or philosophy is met with immense skepticism, often outright rejection without a single specific named. Given that this effort has failed not just once, but arguably five times (2e, 3e, 3.5e, PF, and 5e), it seems to me that we give too little credence to the idea that a more deep-level reboot, one that tries to recapture what good things D&D spellcasting did achieve without 40+ years of ossified baggage, is in fact necessary to achieve success where so many attempts have failed.

"What about the guys who don't want to play as demigods and superheroes?" Well, there's still space for them, just at lower levels, where those powers still don't pop up. The power spectrum of D&D is big, and different folks will prefer different areas of that spectrum. Just make it clear in the books, give some examples of what the differences are between Tier 1 and Tier 4 play, and everyone will be able to pick what range of levels they want their campaigns and characters to be at.

Well, as noted, this is why I advocate constructing robust, effective, and (though I didn't mention it before) scalable zero-level rules. In essence, you make a sorta-kinda "Basic" that is, in some sense, a spooled-out prelude to "actually being 1st level." Low HP, few resources, few mechanics, etc. This thread isn't meant to define a specific set of rules (hence why I'm not sure it belongs in Homebrew), but to discuss at a relatively high level of abstraction whether we have unfairly dismissed the notion that keeping spellcasting as it is, with just a few tweaks/additions/subtractions, is simply inadequate to the task in practice, whether or not it "should be" adequate to the task in theory.

There's no reason why a 'non-spellcaster' should be forbidden from re-flavoring effects generally considered 'spells' to better fit their class archetypes; hell, ToB and the entirely of 4th edition are precisely that. We could even use Vancian-type spell slots to track use limits, just call them something else, like 'action surges' or whatever.

But people in the hobby got mad at these things. Like, really mad. There seems to be this weird insistence that 'mundane purity' is capable of mechanically co-existing with Class 9 Reality Benders, barring either a conscious effort to make it so on the part of the DM/players (in which case it's a failure of a rules system) or complete indifference/ignorance as to how the game works (in which case the system being used is irrelevant and they might as well be playing strip poker).

TL;DR, as has been said multiple times already: WotC has already tried to 'remove' spellcasting, it was not well-received, WotC wants to make money and sell product, they reneged, and things went back to normal. I don't think it's going away anytime soon.

I have, in fact, made this exact point elsewhere, that the problem is insoluble because all of our avenues are cut off. That is, we could...
1. Do nothing. This is untenable because it leaves a meaningful portion of the fanbase--one that is active and engaged, a rare and important thing for something as niche as TTRPGs--out in the cold yet again.
2. Nerf casters. This is untenable because, as both this thread and others have demonstrated, people get really upset if you do this. They complain about having their toys taken away, in not so many words.
3. Buff martials. This is untenable because, as the reaction to both 4e and BO9S demonstrated, non-martials are very liable to be offended by martials achieving these things, and will riot. Not all, but many.
4. Attempt to recalibrate both ends slightly, so no one is technically "nerfed" or technically "buffed" but each has an area of focus. Both 3e(/3.5e) and 5e--and, indeed, PF to some extent as well--have tried this and failed.

Now, obviously, some people contest at least one of these. Segev denies that #3 is true, but I have not heard his replies to most of what I've said yet, so I won't dig any deeper into his thoughts until he can respond to mine. Most people I have interacted with who think things are just fine (whether because they simply deny that there is any power gap at all, or they recognize it and think it is good) deny #1--that doing nothing is perfectly fine. D&D editions have generally (with the exception of 4e) tried #4 repeatedly, with...well, as described, at best mixed results.

(Also, as a side note? That's not actually what 4e did at all. "Reflavoring spells as something other than spells" is a common misunderstanding of 4e repeated mostly by people who did not play it. I can't say whether or not you played it yourself, but having very recently done an analysis of a relevant comparison--powers with the Fear keyword available to Fighters and to Wizards respectively--it's very clear that the two are designed with different goals in mind. They use the same mechanical structure, yes, but that's purely for parsimony, not because they represent identical things. Just as AC is the common mechanical framework for everything from a literal piece of metal keeping you safe, to simply being too slippery to hit, to literal divine protection, to a long-term maybe-visible-maybe-not magical field surrounding your person: it's a unified mechanic representing a wide variety of things, so that it's easy to read and know the ultimate effects, even if the processes vary widely.)