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  1. - Top - End - #61
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    Fighters can sac 4 (of 7) feats for Resistance, to get Proficiency in all saves. Which is a roll of 8+ on a d20.
    You cannot take the resistance feat more than once. Regardless, where is this 8+ coming from? Saves are target-number based in 5e, not roll over a fixed number.

  2. - Top - End - #62
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie the Duck View Post
    You cannot take the resistance feat more than once.
    ARG! Some things in 5e just don't make sense.

    So, I suppose that this will just become part of my Homebrew.
    Should make it more 'balanced' for martials.

    Regardless, where is this 8+ coming from? Saves are target-number based in 5e, not roll over a fixed number.
    I'm sorry I did't show my calculations, teacher.
    Proficiency 6 +5 ability = 11 + Roll of 8 on d20 = 19 to save.

    Don't have a +5 modifier? Ok, might need to roll a 13 on d20.

    It's only really a problem when the PC has no Proficiency and no Ability Modifier.
    That's when you can only save with a natural roll of 19 or 20.

    What's that, I targeted your Dump stat? Most likely a lucky thing, on my part.
    (I agree that DMs constantly doing this isn't cool, really)

    I'd suggest maybe Magical Books to boost your stats (sacrificed all your ASIs for feats?)
    but hey - magic items were disliked/banned, right?
    Last edited by Great Dragon; 2019-08-02 at 03:55 PM.
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  3. - Top - End - #63
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    Am I the only one that sees how much more 5e does than any other Edition?
    Did 4e get retconned out of the universe or something? I remember those martials doing Cool ThingsTM

    Mana/Psionic Points? Too much Math, and extremely exploitable. Especially in 5e.
    Okay, I've played enough RPGs to know one thing: tracking nine resources to do the same thing is annoying. (As a side note 5e's spell point system is bad due to not realising that a caster using spell points should have less 'juice' to make up for having more flexibility.) The most I've found worthwhile is 2 in Unknown Armies, and there you have to put effort into gsthering Charges.

    D&D's problems with magic are deep, and are related to it having magic that is powerful and flexible, while denying both to Martials. 5e cranked the dials down to 9 for spellcasters in most cases, but needed to turn them further,to potentially 6 or less.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  4. - Top - End - #64
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    Did 4e get retconned out of the universe or something? I remember those martials doing Cool ThingsTM
    No offense, but I can only compare to things I'm familiar with, and I don't have any experience with 4e.

    First, I didn't have anyone interested in playing or running it with me.

    Second: As stated, it looked too much like an attempt to do an TtMMO, and required lots of maps and minis.

    Third, I'm not going to drop loads of money for something to sit on my self, gathering dust.

    As I offered, I'm willing to give it a try, if someone (yourself?) is interested in showing me the "coolness" of 4e, that goes beyond the Boring "At Will", the easily burned up "Encounter" and not impressive "Daily" powers that I saw.

    But again, my exp is limited with 4e.

    Ill be honest. I don't even know all that much about Pathfinder either.
    And the Second Edition (which looks suspiciously like 5e D&D at first glance) - and no one to play it with - means that I'm skipping this as well.

    PF2 Rulebook 60, Beastary 50, Screen 20, Cards 23 = $153 !! Without taxes.

    If I ever find people near me that want to play these, I'll consider getting them.

    Okay, I've played enough RPGs to know one thing: tracking nine resources to do the same thing is annoying. (As a side note 5e's spell point system is bad due to not realising that a caster using spell points should have less 'juice' to make up for having more flexibility.)
    So, let me see.
    At 1 point per spell level, for a 20th level Wizard that works out to mana points:
    4/3/3/3/3/2/2/1/1 is 4+6+9+12+15+12+14+8+9 = 89 points.
    Plus 10 bonus points per day.

    D&D's problems with magic are deep, and are related to it having magic that is powerful and flexible, while denying both to Martials. 5e cranked the dials down to 9 for spellcasters in most cases, but needed to turn them further,to potentially 6 or less.
    Now, to take in your desired lowering of Power, your saying that they should only have maybe 75 points and no daily bonus?

    In which case it would just be easier to say that the Wizard can't ever go past (about) 12th level.

    Or, if higher spells are allowed, then all the points needed to cast 1st-4th level spells would go into casting them, once*. Since you'd have to increase the cost of higher level spells to prevent 'munchkin' casters from dumping low level mana points for more powerful higher level spells.

    Maybe just taking away damaging spells? Leave the DPR to the Martials.

    (* I'm running out of time, and I'm too tired to calculate points gained versus used.
    I'll try next time. Sorry)

    The most I've found worthwhile is 2 in Unknown Armies, and there you have to put effort into gsthering Charges.
    So, although the caster has spent just as much time 'mastering' his power as the Fighter did honing his weapon skills, they must still take a chance that they fail each time they cast anything? Oh, and weird things happen when they do fail.

    All because the (insert favorite Martial type) can't Fly for 10 minutes 4 times a day.
    (Which if the caster did, would mean no Fireballs, Counterspells, ect. Without Upcasting: which costs spell options out of those levels)

    But the 20th level Wizard that is out of spells, is only a little more effective than the average Commoner.
    Last edited by Great Dragon; 2019-08-02 at 06:29 PM.
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  5. - Top - End - #65
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by jjordan View Post
    Well, balance doesn't mean you have to make non-spellcasters as powerful as spellcasters. You can put some limits on magic that make it less powerful. Start by really enforcing the material component rules. Spell casters end up spending a bunch of their time looking for the material they need and they tend to be less likely to toss spells around if they only have enough materials for two more applications of the spell. That's a simple RAW fix right there. If you want to move away from the rules then a whole world of possibility opens up before you.
    If you enforce tracking accurately how many material components each Wizard is carrying I want the rogue to track exactly how many ball bearings they have on their person.

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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by MeimuHakurei View Post
    If you enforce tracking accurately how many material components each Wizard is carrying I want the rogue to track exactly how many ball bearings they have on their person.
    LOL !! Heck YEAH!!!

    And the martial isn't allowed to pull out a weapon from thin air, if it's not on their PC sheet:
    Tough!
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    No offense, but I can only compare to things I'm familiar with, and I don't have any experience with 4e.
    You made the claim, so you back it up. For the record this is the reasoning we're using for why 4e is the most balanced:

    'All classes use the same resource structure and their damage dealing abilities use the same mechanics, with status effects having standardised durations. Characters also have defined roles that explicitly call out their focus, making trap builds less likely.' (I could go a bit deeper, but it's ten to twelve as I'm typing it.)

    Second: As stated, it looked too much like an attempt to do an TtMMO, and required lots of maps and minis.
    No, it's not an attempt to do a tabletop MMO.

    It is a skirmish-level miniature wargame, as well as an RPG, but it has very little in common with MMOs. Do people really not look past the Defender/Striker/Leader/Controller setup? Because that's the only bit I can see that's in common with MMOs (it's also in quite a few single player CRPGs, as well as quite a few RTS and TBS games).

    Honestly, I have a small list of things I wish had been kept from 4e. Healing Surges are one, Defender/Striker/Leader/Controller is another (Racial Powers are the third). Most of the rest I can leave, they work in 4e but wouldn't in a game with different assumptions, but I've found myself using Healing Surges in my homebrew systems and would use a Defence/Damage/Support/Control setup if I was going something combat related (I haven't for a while).

    So, let me see.
    At 1 point per spell level, for a 20th level Wizard that works out to mana points:
    4/3/3/3/3/2/2/1/1 is 4+6+9+12+15+12+14+8+9 = 89 points.
    Plus 10 bonus points per day.
    The problem is that spell scaling is not linear, a 4th level spell is more than twice as powerful as a 2nd level spell (most of the time). Now I can't remember how the official spell point scaling works (I remember it comes out to over 200 points a day at the highest levels), but the problem is that they don't lose anything for that additional versatility. I'd probably argue that if you're moving directly to spell points you have to cut 'mana capacities' to roughly 80% at higher levels, while keeping it equal at higher levels.

    Now, to take in your desired lowering of Power, your saying that they should only have maybe 75 points and no daily bonus?
    No, what I'm saying is that casters need to be taken down in terms of power and versatility. They need less spells (particularly at high levels, not so much at lower levels), and they need to have their power capped at a lower level (I like to suggest 6th level). They don't strictly need to do their spells less often, but they need to not:
    1. Do more things than the mundanes can do.
    2. Do it better than the mundanes.

    So while we're on this topic, cards on the table, I hate D&D, and I hate it for exactly this reason. I love playing spellcasters, and D&D makes it feel like I have too much power. My favourite character pulled off about three rituals in the entire campaign (but had some passive abilities they could pull off), and the one I played just after him had three 'effects' he could call on but no more. I adore having to work around awkward rituals, strange components, limited mana, and all those limitations other systems give magicians. I hate that D&D magic is easy, because it ruins that feeling of all your preperation and sessions of setting up candles in various parts of the city finally paying off.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  8. - Top - End - #68
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    You made the claim, so you back it up. For the record this is the reasoning we're using for why 4e is the most balanced:

    'All classes use the same resource structure and their damage dealing abilities use the same mechanics, with status effects having standardised durations. Characters also have defined roles that explicitly call out their focus, making trap builds less likely.' (I could go a bit deeper, but it's ten to twelve as I'm typing it.)



    No, it's not an attempt to do a tabletop MMO.

    It is a skirmish-level miniature wargame, as well as an RPG, but it has very little in common with MMOs. Do people really not look past the Defender/Striker/Leader/Controller setup? Because that's the only bit I can see that's in common with MMOs (it's also in quite a few single player CRPGs, as well as quite a few RTS and TBS games).

    Honestly, I have a small list of things I wish had been kept from 4e. Healing Surges are one, Defender/Striker/Leader/Controller is another (Racial Powers are the third). Most of the rest I can leave, they work in 4e but wouldn't in a game with different assumptions, but I've found myself using Healing Surges in my homebrew systems and would use a Defence/Damage/Support/Control setup if I was going something combat related (I haven't for a while).
    To me, though, it felt like an attempt at a TTMMO.

    And partially because of things you list... all the mechanics felt close to the same, with differences mainly being in how those abilities were "skinned" and some sliding scales for balancing... which is very common to MMOs. The whole "strictly and specifically defined role" thing too.
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    You made the claim, so you back it up. For the record this is the reasoning we're using for why 4e is the most balanced
    Challenge accepted.
    Because this goes deep into 4e and there might be Members not wanting to have to read through details and compairisons, I made a thread:
    Here.

    See you there.
    Last edited by Great Dragon; 2019-08-02 at 08:24 PM.
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    No, it's not an attempt to do a tabletop MMO.

    It is a skirmish-level miniature wargame, as well as an RPG, but it has very little in common with MMOs. Do people really not look past the Defender/Striker/Leader/Controller setup? Because that's the only bit I can see that's in common with MMOs (it's also in quite a few single player CRPGs, as well as quite a few RTS and TBS games).
    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    To me, though, it felt like an attempt at a TTMMO.

    And partially because of things you list... all the mechanics felt close to the same, with differences mainly being in how those abilities were "skinned" and some sliding scales for balancing... which is very common to MMOs.
    A lot of the "4e is an MMO!" complaints come from the art style, the color-coded power cards making a "power bar," the ditching (or at least heavily nerfing and downplaying) of most non-combat magic, and so forth, but a lot of it also comes from the fact that the designers outright said in interviews that they were drawing on MMO conceits and/or trying to attract MMO players to the game, both in the "hype" articles before and during 4e and then reinforcing it when talking about what design goals or rules artifacts from 4e they were planning to keep in 5e.

    At lot of the pre-4e stuff was lost in the Gleemax debacle, WotC site reorganization, and suchlike, but here's a bit from this Mike Mearls interview regarding overall design goals:

    [H]ow did you find your experience with the whole design process, and what was it like to work on the project?

    [...] I think what 4th Edition, looking back, what we were trying to do was to start predicting for D&D where we thought the game was heading...so that was a big part of it. So what we think, when people are coming to role-playing games, they’re going to have that MMO background or a video game background.

    [...] [F]or 90% of the people this like the first time they encounter a choose-you-own-adventure style play, they’ve never seen this before. But they’ve probably played a role-playing game...they’ve played Skyrim or [World of] Warcraft or any of those game, so they probably actually know what a role-playing game is. We can probably just assume they know what a role-playing game is and they know they just need to make a character, and let’s just start explaining how this game works. So what I think, as opposed to what happened before was, we were trying to predict the future, and then trying to get a sense of the audience, ok?
    And regarding at-will magic:

    Was that a conscious choice, or was that a response to the reaction from the fans?

    [I]t was definitely a combination. We knew that At Will magic did really well with the initial playtests, and we had playtests where we looked at types of fantasy magic. [...] So going in to this knowing At Will magic, I would have been surprised if people didn’t like it. It was popular in 4th Edition, and it just kind of makes sense. That’s the kind of thing too, coming from a computer game background, people who play Skyrim and [World of] Warcraft, well of course you have At Will magic, right? D&D’s kind of a weird outlier where you stick a Wizard with a crossbow once he’s out of spells. Those games have Firebolt or something the Wizard can always throw, so I think that people are just used to that. So it’s not weird that D&D is going that way [too].
    So when even Mearls himself is saying they were looking to WoW for inspiration...yeah, people are going to say 4e turned out MMO-like.

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    Honestly, I have a small list of things I wish had been kept from 4e.[...] [I] would use a Defence/Damage/Support/Control setup if I was going something combat related (I haven't for a while).
    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    The whole "strictly and specifically defined role" thing too.
    A lot of people defending 4e claim that it just codified the roles that were already in D&D (Fighter/Wizard/Rogue/Cleric is iconic for a reason and MMOs got roles from somewhere, after all), but the problem was that combat roles were never sharply divided along class lines, only build lines.

    Every martial class could fill at least one of two roles depending on gear, weapon proficiencies (AD&D) or feats (3e), and similar (generally Striker or Defender, but Controller [rogue with Ambush feats, monk focused on Stunning Fist, Shadow Hand swordsage] and Leader [marshal or dragon shaman with auras, Devoted Spirit crusader] were also options), caster hybrids could generally handle two roles at once out of three possible (paladins are two of Striker/Leader/Defender depending on spell choice and smite/LoH focus, bards are always Controller+Leader and can switch for or add on others with PrC choices, etc.), and full casters could handle any one role with ease and often do all four in a single combat if necessary.

    People weren't complaining that 4e slapped labels on what they were already doing, they were complaining that they and their group had always played with e.g. Striker fighters, Defender clerics, Controller rogues, and Leader wizards and suddenly playing that party wasn't possible anymore without making a bunch of other concessions (making the Fighter a Ranger and forcing him to TWF or use a bow, waiting for the Bard to come out and then try to build it as Wizard-like as possible, and so on).
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jakinbandw View Post
    I suppose. But I still think it would be at an appropriate power level if mages were using MP instead of spell slots to cast spells.

    Anyway, if such a class is just tier 2, I wish someone would write it up. It would be cool to have that level of problem solving ability as a martial!
    Agreed on both counts. It think it is a huge stepping stone. Personally I would want a more flexible but weaker class that still followed the non-magic no-casting martial theme. So I will keep searching. However I do want to acknowledge the progress.

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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by MeimuHakurei View Post
    If you enforce tracking accurately how many material components each Wizard is carrying I want the rogue to track exactly how many ball bearings they have on their person.
    Easy enough in my campaign: Zero. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make ball-bearings by hand? :) But it's not a good comparison. Spell components enable fire-balls and chain-lightning. Ball-bearings make terrain difficult. One is worth tracking IF you're trying to reduce the power of magic. The other much less.

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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    And the martial isn't allowed to pull out a weapon from thin air, if it's not on their PC sheet:
    Tough!
    Who allows that to begin with?

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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    Agreed on both counts. It think it is a huge stepping stone. Personally I would want a more flexible but weaker class that still followed the non-magic no-casting martial theme. So I will keep searching. However I do want to acknowledge the progress.
    Working on it, I promise! I'm going to write up this 'Saitama Class' in the homebrew section for fun I think though

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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    Am I the only one that sees how much more 5e does than any other Edition?
    *snip*
    Getting all saves means you blow all of your ASIs on Resilient, even if your DM allows stacking it. Barbarians get a lot of EHP, but that doesn't do much for the narrative disparity between someone who can teleport and someone who's just tough to kill. A good 3.5 barbarian actually did the same things that a 5e totem barb does, except with more power. Bear level 7 doubles your lift/carry? Level 20 3.5 rage also does that due to +8 STR, but you have 30+ STR at this point and can lift literal tons. And maybe throw them at someone, too, if you have the right feats.

    Psychic Warriors are MUCH better than Eldritch Knights if you compare their 3.5 versions. Psychic Warriors would have to be on par with Paladins, at least. Other psionics might fit into other classes, but probably not that well because of fluff (except Sorcerer/Psion, maybe).

    Tome of Battle classes made into X/day classes breaks the entire point of them. They are the "do cool stuff, almost all the time" classes.

    And therein lies the crux of the problem. 5e is a resource management game which touts bounded accuracy as a plus, despite it being a limit on how good characters can get. 5e is lower power than 3.5 or 4e were, despite pretending not to be. Extremely so. And if you take out resource management, it ceases to pose a lot of challenge, unlike 3.5, where even if you have at-will maneuvers, you aren't autowinning everything by throwing them at enemies.
    Last edited by Ignimortis; 2019-08-02 at 11:33 PM.
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Here: The Overstriker

    That's a basis for what a character would need to look like in 3.5 dnd to keep up with mages that use mana instead of vancian casting. Probably tier 2? Not sure honestly, I just had fun with it.

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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by jjordan View Post
    Who allows that to begin with?
    Heh. I've seen it a bit over the years.

    With the statement that it wasn't magical, so Dispelling and Anti-magic had no effect on it.

    I was a joking (I can't do Blue text easily on my phone) and making a reference to how many times I've seen someone use an Anime Character's Abilities of doing so, for their PC.

    Highlander did that quite a bit of the time:
    Walk around with no weapons visible, another Immortal shows up, and he pulls out a - what? - 3.5' blade from nowhere, and starts fighting. Not every episode, but often enough.

    While I might not make you keep track of each ball bearing, I do ask how many bags of at least 20 are available.

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    Last edited by Great Dragon; 2019-08-03 at 06:49 AM.
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Speaking of Mythcreants...

    https://mythcreants.com/blog/how-to-...-magic-system/

    There's always the alternative of creating a constrained and rational magic system for your setting, and thus your game mechanics... instead of trying to push into "utterly not fantastic I swear, but can do blatantly fantastic things" territory.
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    @Max_Killjoy: Indeed.

    While D&D tries to do hard magic, it doesn't get Rational a lot of the time.
    Heck, Oriental Adventures and especially Rokugon (which is based on Legend of the Five Rings) is better at Rational system, while still being mostly hard magic (well defined rules for spells and magical effects) that didn't ignore soft magic.

    Some things are consistent in D&D, like Fireball. But really, when was the last time you saw a Player describe rolling Sulfur and Guano into a ball of tar before casting it? Instead of (now) just using their Focus?
    Don't get me wrong, I do like the fact that I don't need to have 10 pages of spell components for my Wizard PC sheet, but with the way that I see Foci being enforced; if it's taken away, I can't even use Material Components to cast anything that uses them.

    ******
    Now, I have removed Wish from the Mage's list.

    Put a limit on how many Simulacrum one Mage can have.

    And Genesis (now called Demiplane) is an Epic level power, that is also available to Clerics.
    (Druids can do it, but most prefer to just go to the Feywild)
    Literally making your own Demi-Plane isn't something that should just be readily available to every Mage.

    I have other 'solutions' to Mages being OP, as well.

    ******
    So, are we full circle? - where even with lots of reductions in Power, people still think Martials are getting the short end of the Wand?
    Last edited by Great Dragon; 2019-08-03 at 09:56 AM.
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    @Max_Killjoy: Indeed.

    While D&D tries to do hard magic, it doesn't get Rational a lot of the time.
    Heck, Oriental Adventures and especially Rokugon (which is based on Legend of the Five Rings) is better at Rational system, while still being mostly hard magic (well defined rules for spells and magical effects) that didn't ignore soft magic.

    Some things are consistent in D&D, like Fireball. But really, when was the last time you saw a Player describe rolling Sulfur and Guano into a ball of tar before casting it? Instead of (now) just using their Focus?
    Don't get me wrong, I do like the fact that I don't need to have 10 pages of spell components for my Wizard PC sheet, but with the way that I see Foci being enforced; if it's taken away, I can't even use Material Components to cast anything that uses them.

    D&D doesn't do anything systematic or rational with its magic -- at the fiction level, I mean.

    It just does kitchen sink, with giant lists of spells from wherever they could be grabbed from, it's the epitome of "design be 'that's awesome!'"

    It mistakes tedium and the sell / no-sell arms race for game balance, and where the List of Awesome leaves a hole, it falls back on a List of Symmetrical Completeness.
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

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    The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.

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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    A lot of the "4e is an MMO!" complaints come from the art style, the color-coded power cards making a "power bar," the ditching (or at least heavily nerfing and downplaying) of most non-combat magic, and so forth, but a lot of it also comes from the fact that the designers outright said in interviews that they were drawing on MMO conceits and/or trying to attract MMO players to the game, both in the "hype" articles before and during 4e and then reinforcing it when talking about what design goals or rules artifacts from 4e they were planning to keep in 5e.

    At lot of the pre-4e stuff was lost in the Gleemax debacle, WotC site reorganization, and suchlike, but here's a bit from this Mike Mearls interview regarding overall design goals:
    Interesting, that explains it.

    A lot of people defending 4e claim that it just codified the roles that were already in D&D (Fighter/Wizard/Rogue/Cleric is iconic for a reason and MMOs got roles from somewhere, after all), but the problem was that combat roles were never sharply divided along class lines, only build lines.

    Every martial class could fill at least one of two roles depending on gear, weapon proficiencies (AD&D) or feats (3e), and similar (generally Striker or Defender, but Controller [rogue with Ambush feats, monk focused on Stunning Fist, Shadow Hand swordsage] and Leader [marshal or dragon shaman with auras, Devoted Spirit crusader] were also options), caster hybrids could generally handle two roles at once out of three possible (paladins are two of Striker/Leader/Defender depending on spell choice and smite/LoH focus, bards are always Controller+Leader and can switch for or add on others with PrC choices, etc.), and full casters could handle any one role with ease and often do all four in a single combat if necessary.

    People weren't complaining that 4e slapped labels on what they were already doing, they were complaining that they and their group had always played with e.g. Striker fighters, Defender clerics, Controller rogues, and Leader wizards and suddenly playing that party wasn't possible anymore without making a bunch of other concessions (making the Fighter a Ranger and forcing him to TWF or use a bow, waiting for the Bard to come out and then try to build it as Wizard-like as possible, and so on).
    Interesting. 4e made big mistakes (such as tying Role too strongly to Class), but it still feels like 5e threw out all of the good elements in order to bring back the worst of 3.X (hello overpowered casters).

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    Found something to ponder
    5e Mistakes
    Interesting, but I already knew 80% of it. If you're not blinded by a D&D-focus a lot of 5e's flaws come to light, especially as it's a game that's somewhere between five to ten years behind the industry despite trying to jump on the big trends*.

    These days if I want to play D&D style fantasy I'll run The Fantasy Trip or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, both of which suffer from balance problems, but in one case are the unfortunate side effect of point build systems and in the other are both part of the world and somewhat mitigated (hello miscasts and speciesism).

    * Mainly because it's implementation of things like 'roleplaying mechanics' is behind where they were in the late 90s.

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Speaking of Mythcreants...

    https://mythcreants.com/blog/how-to-...-magic-system/

    There's always the alternative of creating a constrained and rational magic system for your setting, and thus your game mechanics... instead of trying to push into "utterly not fantastic I swear, but can do blatantly fantastic things" territory.
    Ah, rational magic, where 'anythimng goes' is tossed aside for something that actually makes sense. I wish more games would use it(the only ones that do, to my knowledge, are Unknown Armies and games like Ars Magica).
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    D&D doesn't do anything systematic or rational with its magic -- at the fiction level, I mean.

    It just does kitchen sink, with giant lists of spells from wherever they could be grabbed from, it's the epitome of "design be 'that's awesome!'"
    Oh, I absolutely agree that the D&D fiction/Novels did the 'made up to look awesome'.

    RA Salvatore did the best at even writing FR, and he avoided magic (except the Gem) like the plague!

    Greyhawk was a mess (But it was Gagax's baby, anyway) with more Dues ex Machina than real plots.

    Darksun didn't limit magic, but killed the Planet doing so.
    If you wanted to be the eco-friendly good guy, you were better off being a Psionic Class.
    (D&D Psionics was it's own ball of WTF)

    Magic could change depending on which Dimension you were in - with Planescape.
    (Exact changes and other limitations were left up to the DM.)

    And while I liked Spelljammer, it was bonkers with magic.

    It mistakes tedium and the sell / no-sell arms race for game balance, and where the List of Awesome leaves a hole, it falls back on a List of Symmetrical Completeness.
    I've kinda always believed that there should be more sell / no sell conditions for magic.

    But, with actual reasons for why and usable rules for how they work.
    5e Energy Resistance is better then 3x, and Immunity is a flat no sell to the energy type.

    Sadly, I don't have anyone near me to work on figuring these things out, and doing it over the net usually doesn't work, without lots of trial and error - and most folks here have things they would rather do.
    Like figure out how to better optimize their latest Broken Character idea...
    Not everyone, but....
    Let me see: Counting the People here, plus Tawmis, Man_Over_Game, Segev, PheonixPhyre and Grod_The_Giant.
    I'd have to go though some of my old posts to find anymore.
    (I'm at least trying)

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard
    Interesting, but I already knew 80% of it. If you're not blinded by a D&D-focus a lot of 5e's flaws come to light, especially as it's a game that's somewhere between five to ten years behind the industry despite trying to jump on the big trends*.
    That's the biggest problem with D&D, it either chases after the latest trend (AD&D = complicated Math for basic results) (3x = Lots of exceptions to Rules) (4e = MMO) (5e = "New" Retro-Clone) or accidentally sets those trends.

    While I'm a fan of D&D, I do my best to not be closed minded towards other RPGs. Including 4e D&D.
    I just can't get interested in them without people to play them with.
    And I can't really do more then maybe 4 games a week, without mental burnout.
    *****
    But, what I was trying to explain, is that there are ways for the DM to stay within the 5e Rules and still 'balance' the mages. The Bounded Accuracy design really cut down on Quadratic Wizards - and concentration stopped most game breaking shenanigans. Put in some real conditions, like: not having your Focus or at least the correct Components; means no casting of spells that require them.

    A little more Gaming as War, with combat maybe Gaming as Sport.
    I don't claim that my system is the best. I just offer it as a suggestion to others because it does work for me, with nearly all my Gaming Groups.
    Last edited by Great Dragon; 2019-08-03 at 12:01 PM.
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    ******
    So, are we full circle? - where even with lots of reductions in Power, people still think Martials are getting the short end of the Wand?
    Imagine you have a character concept. Imagine wanting to instantiate that concept into an RPG. Now imagine the authors of those RPGs lacked enough creativity / imagination for their mechanics to be able to instantiate your character concept. Furthermore imagine those authors are quite creative when it comes to another character concept. So creative that it inspired your imagination and broke some of your mental blocks about your character concept. Now not only did the published materials fail to instantiate your character concept but, by being more creative when instantiating another character concept, they raised your expectations with regards to instantiating your own character concept.

    It is not about power. Some people can imagine these high level characters but those that author the published content can imagine the high level mages but cannot imagine these other high level characters (non-magic, non-caster, at-will, etc, etc). So you get disappointed players that have character concepts that cannot be instantiated because the author's imagination failed them. And most of these are the harder concepts to imagine. Personally I get stuck somewhere in levels 11-16*. At that point my imagination fails to be able to generate mechanics to instantiate these characters. So I understand the difficulty.

    This is the short end of the wand. Some concepts are harder to imagine == thus => harder to design mechanics for == thus => harder to instantiate into the game. Those concepts tend to receive worse instantiations and characterizations as a consequence of these mental blocks.

    *Levels based on 3rd edition D&D scale. Different RPGs/editions go beyond that level or stop before it** but that is where I stop being able to write mechanical representations for these concepts.

    ** This is kinda what you did when you chose to delay some of the magic flexibility to higher level. You altered the scale.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2019-08-03 at 01:05 PM.

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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    Imagine you have a character concept. Imagine wanting to instantiate that concept into an RPG. Now imagine the authors of those RPGs lacked enough creativity / imagination for their mechanics to be able to instantiate your character concept. Furthermore imagine those authors are quite creative when it comes to another character concept. So creative that it inspired your imagination and broke some of your mental blocks about your character concept. Now not only did the published materials fail to instantiate your character concept but, by being more creative when instantiating another character concept, they raised your expectations with regards to instantiating your own character concept.

    It is not about power. Some people can imagine these high level characters but those that author the published content can imagine the high level mages but cannot imagine these other high level characters (non-magic, non-caster, at-will, etc, etc). So you get disappointed players that have character concepts that cannot be instantiated because the author's imagination failed them. And most of these are the harder concepts to imagine. Personally I get stuck somewhere in levels 11-16*. At that point my imagination fails to be able to generate mechanics to instantiate these characters. So I understand the difficulty.

    This is the short end of the wand. Some concepts are harder to imagine == thus => harder to design mechanics for == thus => harder to instantiate into the game. Those concepts tend to receive worse instantiations and characterizations as a consequence of these mental blocks.

    *Levels based on 3rd edition D&D scale. Different RPGs/editions go beyond that level or stop before it** but that is where I stop being able to write mechanical representations for these concepts.

    ** This is kinda what you did when you chose to delay some of the magic flexibility to higher level. You altered the scale.
    Great post. That's why I keep getting disappointed by most high-fantasy RPGs that aren't Exalted or homebrewed to hell 3.PF.
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Struck by a thought. Have to write it somewhere:

    A way to make a flexible martials without limited resources / spellcasting:
    Start with a variety of basic endeavors: Attack, Movement, ..., ..., etc
    I suggest having the number of endeavors per turn and out of turn increase with level.
    Have a chapter of alterations: Knockback, Power Attack, ..., etc
    Alterations are not feats, you get access to all the ones you satisfy the unlock requirement for. No feats needed here.
    Each option in the chapter of alterations will have:
    • An unlock requirement. For example Knockback might require Str 15, or Athletics Proficiency, or a Paraglider, or ..., etc
    • A requirement of the endeavor it will modify. For example Knockback would require the endeavor contacts the target of the knockback
    • A complexity cost. This prevents you from apply every compatible alteration each time you use an endeavor. Complexity ranges from 0 to some positive number. Negative complexity costs do not exist.
    • An effect (duh) which might scale or even trigger another endeavor. Knockback might have distance scale off of an Athletics check, or maybe it kicks off a Pushing endeavor to determine the distance.

    Each time the character uses an endeavor (and that can be multiple times per turn or out of turn) they can modify it with alterations up to some complexity cap (which increases with level).

    So you have martials whose flexibility scales with: (content created, complexity cap(mostly direct level scaling), and achieving unlock thresholds (indirect level scaling)).

    So you could have someone use this system to do things like:
    Hit a boulder for fast travel
    Give an ally cover as a reaction
    and many more
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2019-08-03 at 01:11 PM.

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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by jjordan View Post
    Easy enough in my campaign: Zero. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make ball-bearings by hand? :)
    Not very, actually. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_tower
    I mean you need a tall tower and a bucket of water, but those are a dime a dozen in D&D.
    l have a very specific preference when it comes to TTRPGs. If you have a different preference, that's fine, but I just want you to know you're having fun wrong.

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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    OldTrees1
    Imagine you have a character concept. Imagine wanting to instantiate that concept into an RPG. Now imagine the authors of those RPGs lacked enough creativity / imagination for their mechanics to be able to instantiate your character concept. Furthermore imagine those authors are quite creative when it comes to another character concept. So creative that it inspired your imagination and broke some of your mental blocks about your character concept. Now not only did the published materials fail to instantiate your character concept but, by being more creative when instantiating another character concept, they raised your expectations with regards to instantiating your own character concept.
    Part of the problem there, my friend, is that your concept didn't start within the context of the game's intended design, and when trying to get everything wanted (especially at low levels for D&D) you're most likely stuck with an uncooperative DM.

    Now, I will concede that a lot of RPGs tend to be focused around one thing, and suck at another.
    WoD is my go to for this example: Choose only one thing: Werewolf, Vampires, Mage, Changeling, etc.
    None of these books are compatible - even though they use the same d10 system.

    Like a few years ago, I had what 5 players wanting to play DBZ concepts.
    Which don't really translate well, even into 3.x bendable/breakable multi-classing rules.
    A lot were very disappointed, even if they still played.
    Note: this was before the ToB, which might have helped.

    See, I had this problem back in AD&D - but when wanting to create my Human Mage.
    The DM was very anti-mages, and the game system didn't seem to have any real rules that allowed much for them to do. (It's been ages, and my memory isn't reliable) I recall that I was literally nothing more then the Magic Missile Machine, when I looked at a lot of the other available spells (like Sleep) but there wasn't any way to really get new spells, unless the DM was nice to roll for Arcane Scrolls - and having to take 8 hours to Identify even one magical effect or item, (but not able to detect Cursed items) it was just easier to try to figure out what they did by experimentation, and hope the Party Cleric could cure anything bad that happened.

    It is not about power. Some people can imagine these high level characters but those that author the published content can imagine the high level mages but cannot imagine these other high level characters (non-magic, non-caster, at-will, etc, etc). So you get disappointed players that have character concepts that cannot be instantiated because the author's imagination failed them. And most of these are the harder concepts to imagine. Personally I get stuck somewhere in levels 11-16 (Levels based on 3rd edition D&D scale) Different RPGs/editions go beyond that level or stop before it (This is kinda what you did when you chose to delay some of the magic flexibility to higher level. You altered the scale) but that is where I stop being able to write mechanical representations for these concepts.

    At that point my imagination fails to be able to generate mechanics to instantiate these characters. So I understand the difficulty.
    There are times when my imagination does fail me, regardless of RPG system.
    Some of the things from Shadowrun (Adept) just broke my mind.

    This is the short end of the wand. Some concepts are harder to imagine == thus => harder to design mechanics for == thus => harder to instantiate into the game. Those concepts tend to receive worse instantiations and characterizations as a consequence of these mental blocks.
    Maybe this is my limit (for D&D) here?
    Last edited by Great Dragon; 2019-08-04 at 09:51 AM.
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    Pardon my tendencies to go to extremes.

    But, I was actually confused by what you were aiming for, by your comment of "almost" on my reduced mage idea.
    I didn't use the word "almost" in this entire thread.
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    Default Re: How stronger would non-magic classes need to be to allow broad-non vancian magic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    OldTrees1
    Part of the problem there, my friend, is that your concept didn't start within the context of the game's intended design, and when trying to get everything wanted (especially at low levels for D&D) you're most likely stuck with an uncooperative DM.
    The character concept could be imagined before or after the context of the game's intended design. The point of failure is at the mechanical level. D&D includes the abstract concept of high level martial characters in its intended design. It intends for them to exist in the same space as high level spells. But when those authors went to create mechanics for that ... it takes them a lot of time, effort, tries, and innovation before they even thought of ToB.

    PS: No need to presume an uncooperative DM. I am talking about an author's material rather than what my group changes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    Now, I will concede that a lot of RPGs tend to be focused around one thing, and suck at another.
    WoD is my go to for this example: Choose only one thing: Werewolf, Vampires, Mage, Changeling, etc.
    None of these books are compatible - even though they use the same d10 system.
    I was not really talking about that. However, imagine Vampire Masquerade with all of its intent to allow many different types of Vampire. However the authors hit an imagination block so that only Dracula like vampires have mid-high level content with all the other types (despite being in the design) only having low level content.

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    Like a few years ago, I had what 5 players wanting to play DBZ concepts.
    Which don't really translate well, even into 3.x bendable/breakable multi-classing rules.
    A lot were very disappointed, even if they still played.
    Note: this was before the ToB, which might have helped.
    This is closer to what I was talking about D&D thinks and intends to support those abstract concepts, but the authors struggled to imagine how to make concrete mechanics that could instantiate those concepts. So the 3.0 Goku was either a 20th level Wizard or a 20th level Monk. Neither does a good job at capturing the concept because Monks (the better fit) did not have high level mechanics and Wizards (which did have high level mechanics) were not a good fit for the concept. Additionally you can see here that the 20th level Wizard is more flexible than Goku, so the player might conclude that a properly instantiated Goku would be lower than 20th level and a 20th level Goku would be even more flexible than in the original character concept.

    And then in late 3.5 ToB came out which was a closer mechanical instantiation of the character concept. Now they could create something like Goku at 10th level.* While they would not be able to instantiate the Goku++ that was the same conceptual level as the 20th level Wizard, they could at least have their 10th level Goku.

    * Or start at 1st with the lower level version of the concept that would eventually grow into Goku.

    Hence my overall point. When trying to solve this instantiation problem it comes down to our imagination having few mental blocks for some character concepts than it does for others. The concepts locked behind more mental blocks take more time/effort/imagination/and innovation to overcome those mental blocks. Once you overcome those mental blocks then you can create the concrete mechanics that instantiate those character concepts at those levels.

    It would be hard for me to imagine and create the mechanics necessary for instantiating a 60th level version of Todd from next door. Although there is no Todd next door, so the concept of being fictional might help the process. I would struggle long before 60th but the hyperbole and exaggeration was funny.

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    See, I had this problem back in AD&D - but when wanting to create my Human Mage.
    The DM was very anti-mages, and the game system didn't seem to have any real rules that allowed much for them to do. (It's been ages, and my memory isn't reliable) I recall that I was literally nothing more then the Magic Missile Machine, when I looked at a lot of the other available spells (like Sleep) but there wasn't any way to really get new spells, unless the DM was nice to roll for Arcane Scrolls - and having to take 8 hours to Identify even one magical effect or item, (but not able to detect Cursed items) it was just easier to try to figure out what they did by experimentation, and hope the Party Cleric could cure anything bad that happened.
    Part of that was the low level. (Character concepts span all level ranges but are weaker and less flexible when they are lower level.)
    However a lot of that was the magic mechanics at the time. Luckily there have been innovations since. The Warlock, the 3rd edition Dread Necromancer, and the 4th/5th edition Cantrips come to mind as mages that have some at will magic. The 5th edition Rituals also addressed the Identify issue.

    Quote Originally Posted by Great Dragon View Post
    There are times when my imagination does fail me, regardless of RPG system.
    Some of the things from Shadowrun (Adept) just broke my mind.
    Maybe this is my limit (for D&D) here?
    To be clear. I was talking about where my imagination fails to allow me to author mechanics to instantiate those character concepts. Somewhere in the 11-16th level range I run into a writer's block with regard to making high level martial mechanics. Above that point I fail to even author mechanics for those character concepts.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2019-08-03 at 03:15 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    Interesting. 4e made big mistakes (such as tying Role too strongly to Class)
    Trying very hard to skate around this particular conversation without getting into edition war territory, but this is completely false, and a simple case of people being too turned off by the presentation of 4e to examine what it's actually doing (a thing that happens a lot). Yeah, the 4e PHB says that fighters are defenders and their job is to meat shield. The 3.5 PHB also tells you that a cleric's job is to healbot, yet that never stopped people from turning them into enormous tier 1 beatsticks that magic their problems out of existence once they get bored of beating them to death with their buffed up combat stats. As has already been noted, D&D has had roles ever since its inception, and that has never stopped people from moving outside that role to do other stuff. The only thing that changed in 4e was the addition of a little one-word summary of what that assumed role is, placed before the more detailed and flowery role description present in every edition's PHB.

    So yeah, fighter's a defender class. And it's a defender class with a wealth of multiattack powers, which are the bread and butter of 4e striking, which defends teammates by beating monsters over the head for a bunch of damage if they attack anyone else, with explicit build options for saying screw AC, I'm going to haul a giant slab of metal around and cut people in half if they look at me funny, and then everyone'll be really well defended because there won't be anything left to attack them. In other words, exactly the same thing as fighter was in every edition, except with a bit more mechanical support to back it up. And while I'm using fighter as the example here, it's hardly unique. Wizards can still cast fireball if you don't like the idea of battlefield control, clerics still get plenty of support for wading into the front lines and beating people to death, paladins still smite evil, rogues can move away from striking and instead run around crippling enemies with dirty tricks, blah blah blah. This is all right there in the PHB1, mind - content from splats certainly helped to diversify the classes, but all the versatility to play the class in various different roles was there from day 1, with the PHB1 even explicitly telling you that role wasn't a straitjacket that forces you into a one-dimensional archetype, and the concept of roles was exactly the same as always, unchanged from the very first day Gygax picked up a d20 and decided to pretend to be an elf, and these roles were described and presented in the same way as it always had been. Literally the only thing that changed was the addition, to the role description in every class entry, of that one-word summary at the top.
    Last edited by Lanaya; 2019-08-03 at 03:49 PM.

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