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The Archives => Campaign Elements and Design (Archived) => Topic started by: SilvercatMoonpaw on August 08, 2006, 01:51:06 PM

Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: SilvercatMoonpaw on August 08, 2006, 01:51:06 PM
This thread is here to post what you don't like about magic.  I have an idea for skill-based casting, but I first want to see what problems people encounter when using magic/psionics so I know what to avoid that makes magic too powerful.  Keep in mind that I'm talking about game balance such as making skills worthless, or causing more damage than a sword.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Epic Meepo on August 08, 2006, 02:48:56 PM
Personally, I find that magic and psionics are both very well balanced in the context of the framework described by their designers (3-5 encounters per game day with the prescribed ECL distribution). They also remain fairly balanced when you append any number of roleplaying encounters on top of the base 3-5 encounters per day.

So long as combat encounters occur in groups of 3-5 when they occur (instead of having one lone combat encounter per day/week/whatever), I've found that magic and psionics don't overwhelm too many skills, and characters with swords (particularly Power Attacking barbarians with greatswords) often deal more total damage per day than spellcasters and manifesters.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Tybalt on August 08, 2006, 03:46:55 PM
I actually like the way that D&D magic and the magic in say the Chaosium game systems work, I find that they always cost something, that they place restrictions on their users, and that they aren't unbalancing at all unless you allow unrestricted spell research and that kind of thing. I'd be very interested in seeing what your system would look like but for me the D&D system works just fine. I tend to be rather strict on making sure that player characters actually have to find spells (on scrolls, in books, or via finding a teacher in magic of some kind and either paying them or performing services in exchange for spell tutelage) and that psionicists have to find teachers to study under, and that clerics have to demonstrate devotion to their faith.
But you see that's also part of the fun, it makes for interesting motivations to go to this place or that place as well.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: SilvercatMoonpaw on August 08, 2006, 05:39:22 PM
Maybe I should rephrase the quesiton:
Take out the coptious amount of magic items.  Now tell me if you think casters can still be balanced?
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Johnny Wraith on August 08, 2006, 08:53:31 PM
If there are no magic items then the people who suffer are the melee-type ones.. If you go this way, I'd say you try and do something to make casters weaker (Supposedly, casters are already much more powerful than melee-types, so consider nerfing them a lot).
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: brainface on August 08, 2006, 09:27:21 PM
QuoteTake out the coptious amount of magic items. Now tell me if you think casters can still be balanced?
intrinsic[/i] about spellcasters that makes them unbalancing without the copious amounts of magic items, but it's kinda how it's set up now.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Hibou on August 08, 2006, 09:48:09 PM
What I've been thinking about for a while would be a system where the spells of the Abjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation, and Universal(of course) schools would act as normal, but spells of the Evocation and Conjuration schools are very taxing on a caster. This might help balance the class system in the case of an absence of magic gear, though I don't know how much.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: SilvercatMoonpaw on August 08, 2006, 10:11:14 PM
Quote from: WitchHuntWhat I've been thinking about for a while would be a system where the spells of the Abjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation, and Universal(of course) schools would act as normal, but spells of the Evocation and Conjuration schools are very taxing on a caster. This might help balance the class system in the case of an absence of magic gear, though I don't know how much.
I've look through all the spells.  Certain schools aren the problem, it's specific spells.  Damage-dealing spells scale with level while a guy with a sword is lucky to get a bit of extra damage without magic.  In addition spells like protection from energy mean that casters eventually become immune to things that non-casters still have to worry about.  All schools have offenders.

It might be worth noting that in my Ah'rem setting I cut out all the core spells I thought were too game-breaking.  No one school was much more an offender than any other, but in the end illusion came out the strongest.  Maybe I should go with the idea of having magic be only trickery-type stuff.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Hibou on August 09, 2006, 06:54:34 AM
Trickery-type stuff is always the impression I got from the superstition of magic during the middle ages. The things I could imagine being used in terms of magic encompassed Abjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation, Universal, and a tiny bit of Conjuration, while tossing around fireballs and firing cones of chilling cold seemed like it should be limited to a specific class, powerful creatures of the Outsider, Aberration, and Undead types, or removed altogether.

If casters were to be gifted with mainly spells that mislead and buff, they'd still have many advantages over melee characters but would probably be a lot more balanced against them in the case of a setting where magic items are scarce.

That being said, I don't really mind the D&D casting system. It has its flaws, but it's alright.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Wensleydale on August 09, 2006, 09:54:08 AM
Without magic items, you have Bob the Fighter with his 1D8 scimmy and Sam the Wizard with his magic missile. Both of them are level 2. Bob has a str bonus of +3, so he can deal 1D8+3 at +6 AB (or something like that.) He can go on hitting all day. Sam, however, can deal 2D4 damage at range to one or two targets, splitting damage between them. He can't even do as much damage as Sam can, and he can do it a restricted amount of times per day. If Bob had a composite longbow, he could still do more than Sam can as far as Sam can until he runs out of arrows.

Poor Sam.

But when Sam's higher levels, he can attack a lot, needs to rest a lot less, and has spells that can deal lots of D6s! Now poor Bob, without his magic items, has very little he can do. He uses his scimmy and deals 1D8 + str bonus unlimited times per day, but Sam can hit plenty of enemies a large amount of times/day, doing more damage than poor Bob.

Poor Bob.

The point of this was that the fighter is easily better at low levels than Sa- I mean, the wizard, but once the wizard gets to higher levels the fighter is left in difficulty if he has no magic items or magic damage on his weapons.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Tybalt on August 09, 2006, 10:31:13 AM
Ahhhh now I get you.

When I was thinking of lowering the amount of magic in my game, I had a few thoughts.

1. That regardless of magical items, an 18th level magic user can do utterly phenomenal stuff. Similarly, in a game like say the Elric game from Chaosium if you are a Melnibonean sorceror you can make pacts with elemental lords and such; you look at the game and think...who would want to play a sailor or warrior by comparison?

2. That therefore when I reduced the amount of magic common to the D&D setting in my campaign world I also reduced the number of people who could rise to higher levels in magic, clerical, magic user or otherwise. They should be a very small percentage of the population in such a world, in my opinion. So for instance in the small Republic of New Edom there is only one wizard of any significant amount of power, and 3 others who have some recognition of ability, while all the rest are apprentices and suchlike. Magic is known to exist, no one would go mad with horror if they saw it, but ordinary people see adventurers the way that the average person now would see astronauts or special forces personnel...you don't just see them walking down the street on a regular basis.

3. Not all clerics get spells; only those who have extraordinary faith do.

4. you also have to reduce the amount of fantastic monsters. I like the idea of them being rare; in my campaign world's legends once dragons were much more common for instance, now they are so rare that sighting one is a potential disaster.

5. I have made certain kinds of conjurations costly for the magic user. For instance, if to conjure an elemental requires such concentration and strain upon the body that you lose say a point of con, and it requires at the very least a full week of rest to recover after then the magic user will be wary of casually doing so. Or if say pacts or bindings involving the elemental lords was required in order to be able to do so per type. I like the idea that you have to sacrifice something to gain magical power.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: the_taken on August 09, 2006, 11:41:49 AM
Quote from: Tybalt2. That therefore when I reduced the amount of magic common to the D&D setting in my campaign world I also reduced the number of people who could rise to higher levels in magic, clerical, magic user or otherwise. They should be a very small percentage of the population in such a world, in my opinion. So for instance in the small Republic of New Edom there is only one wizard of any significant amount of power, and 3 others who have some recognition of ability, while all the rest are apprentices and suchlike. Magic is known to exist, no one would go mad with horror if they saw it, but ordinary people see adventurers the way that the average person now would see astronauts or special forces personnel...you don't just see them walking down the street on a regular basis.

Um... Yeah. I'm gonna have to say that... *sips cofee* I don't agree with you on that.
It's not the world that's the problem. Saying that casters are rare in the world just means that a PC who is one is much more special. It's the mechanics that's the problem. Bob and Sam. As Sam grows in level, his power becomes mightier and scales acordingly. A Bob is stuck with a sword and sheild. If Bob fights Sam, Sam use stuff like Force Cage and other hold me downs, completely negating Bob.
What Bob needs at that point is some teleport capability, but he doesn't get any from his class. So in preperation to fight a full-fledged wizard, Bob buys some Boots of Dream Hopping. Three times per day, he can use Dimension Door from a use activated item. Sam can also make those boots for himself. He also has contingeant spells and quickened spells.
Bob teleports out of the cage and tries to hit Sam. Sam's contingeant spell triggers and teleports him 50ft away. Sam then cages Bob again. Bob uses his second teleport, and Sam uses a quickened teleportation spell again. Repeat once more. Now bob can't teleport. Sam pulls out his scrolls. Game. Set. Match.

Nerfing the world at large hurts the melee dudes. They need absolutely insane magic items to keep up with mages, which is the problem. A bare naked fighter vs a bare naked mage is not a fair fight past level 7.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Wensleydale on August 09, 2006, 12:33:33 PM
Yeah. Using the present rules, at low levels mages suck and fighters slaughter. As you get to higher levels, the mages slowly catch up to, and then take over, fighters and don't slow down, until at level 20 a mage can hammer a fighter to pulp without the fighter laying a finger on them.

Fighters need scaling weapon bonuses or something like that.

Now, if you take away a wizard's spellbook or put it in an antimagic field... muahahaha...
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Tybalt on August 09, 2006, 03:17:31 PM
Forgive me for sounding annoyed, but it is MY campaign world, not yours. I'm not condemning what everyone else is doing, merely saying that these are my preferences and that they work for me. At the start of the thread, suggestions and ideas were requested,based on what we'd experienced in running our own games. I've never had a problem with my fighter characters feeling unbalanced. Yes, there are those moments when a particular powerful spell is used that is awfully impressive, but it always comes as a cost. Furthermore, if say there is a pivotal magic sword that has to be used it's going to be a fighter, not a magic-user.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Epic Meepo on August 09, 2006, 04:04:38 PM
Quote from: Golem011Using the present rules, at low levels mages suck and fighters slaughter. As you get to higher levels, the mages slowly catch up to, and then take over...
I agree with this general premise. Casters do tend to be top-heavy compared to warriors. (The PHB II helped a little bit with its interesting feats for high-level fighters.) Then again, I'm not so sure that casters are as vastly superior at high levels as everyone assumes. They do have an offensive advantage in many situations, but they still break fairly easily.

Returning to the main point of the thread: what don't I like about magic in the context of a world where magic items are limited? Well, once you add that last stipulation, then obviously, something must be done to curtail spellcasters (and monsters and traps) by an equal amount. As to how exactly that must be done, I'm not sure I can help you with that one. Game balance is a surprisingly delicate thing, and when making radical rules changes, I'd recommend constantly making adjusments to the rules as you play. It's almost impossible to get things right just by looking at new rules on paper.

Everything in D&D is specifically designed and (at least in the Core rules) fairly well-balanced for a particular style of play, one where a specified amount of treasure is distributed and encounters occur at a specified pace. In my experience, outside of that framework, game balance is up in the air.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: CYMRO on August 09, 2006, 04:17:47 PM
QuoteA high-level mage may be a fantasy world's equivalent of an air strike, but its worth noting that that an air strike still relies on forward-deployed troops (rogues and scouts in a fantasy world) to provide the intelligence necessary to make targeting decisions, and on ground forces (fighters and warriors) to mop up isolated and sneaky opponents who have managed to avoid the brunt of the aerial barrage.

Quite a good point.  There is no game balance between class types.  There never can be, only relative strengths versus relative weaknesses.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Wormwood on August 10, 2006, 01:47:48 AM
I feel magic should be dangerous. Dark Art, that when botched would realase deamons of the void to careless caster. Dangerous to soul, corrosive or something along those lines. Anything that would get people to take step back even hearing the word; Magic. As it is now, it is just a tool-kit, used as carelesly as fighter uses his sword.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Wensleydale on August 10, 2006, 05:25:39 AM
Yes, and with more power than a fighter's sword will ever have, in some cases...

This is why I design new, restrictive magic systems, or more dangerous ones. 'Weaves' aren't exactly restrictive, in fact, they're very open and malleable, allowing you to create a new spell every time you use them, but... well... Wild Magic comes at a different cost.

My favourite magic system is the one I'm working on at the moment. It turns everything around and makes Sorceror the main casting class. Basically the sorceror must use his own life force to channel many spells, and although he can apply metamagic at will without it having any effect on the casting, it can harm him a lot. As well as this, the mage has a chance of opening the vortex or, if he overchannels (rather different to standard overchanneling) the Wild Magic rules for planes come into effect.

Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: snakefing on August 14, 2006, 08:59:11 PM
So much to say, so little time. So here's a link to stuff on my home wiki (http://69.170.121.6:8080/cgi-bin/GameWiki.pl/AlternateSpellSystem). Leave comments here or there...click on D20SpellWeaknesses to find my rant.

lovely, lovely rant...
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Yair on August 14, 2006, 11:08:15 PM
What I hate about magic?  Well, it would have to be that I never seem to able to say the third syllable correctly!  Oh how many apprentices I have turned into frogs.   :D

Seriously though, the biggest issue I have with the magic system is there are no penalties for using it. As a result I would be interested in hearing more about this:

[blockquote=Golem011]My favourite magic system is the one I'm working on at the moment. It turns everything around and makes Sorceror the main casting class. Basically the sorceror must use his own life force to channel many spells, and although he can apply metamagic at will without it having any effect on the casting, it can harm him a lot. As well as this, the mage has a chance of opening the vortex or, if he overchannels (rather different to standard overchanneling) the Wild Magic rules for planes come into effect.[/blockquote]

As previous posters have mentioned in a world with limited magic items the magic users will far surpass the melee combatants.  IMHO, in order to keep it fair at higher levels there needs to be a penalty to the caster.  Used up life force, chance of random demon, wracking pain or something like that.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Stargate525 on August 14, 2006, 11:27:38 PM
Like has been said before, make there be a penalty to using the magic, strip or bump up in level the damage dealers and powerful spells, and magic becomes something alot more contendable at high levels.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Soup Nazi on August 15, 2006, 12:10:26 AM
I have quite a few gripes with D&D magic

1. Vancian casting, fire and forget magic or whatever you wish to call it is just awful from a flavor stand point. While much easier to regulate than free form systems, mana point systems, and other options, the whole concept turns my gut.

2. The bell curve power level is terrible. The mechanics of the game dictate that warriors get the spot light at low levels, and spell casters get the spot light at high levels. In my games I would much prefer if I had more say over which characters get be focal and when they get to shine. I want equal opportunity for all the classes to contribute at all levels.

3. Role cross-over. Spells that duplicate the abilities of rogues and skills in general really piss me off. That's what the rogue is there for, and if spells trump his search skill, his diplomacy skill, his gather information skill, his open lock skill, his hide skill, and so on so forth, the rogue turns into nothing more than a crappy warrior with sneak attack.

4. The pervasive nature of magical items really kills me. Wizards must be mass producing these things in such number that they lose track of how many they have made. Every single character of say 3rd level or greater has magic items in abundance. Funny thing is, that the characters that rely on them most, are the ones who cannot produce them...

5. Certain spells that just make things too easy or too complicated...polymorph, forcecage, most scry and die combos (scry/buff/teleport, you know the drill). Most us already know the real offenders, so there is no need to list them all.

A toned down power, unlimitted use system, with no skill duplicating spells, and less pervasive magical items, and I'd be happy as a clam. Maybe someday instead of complaining, I'll list the things I do like...naaa

-Peace-
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: CYMRO on August 16, 2006, 12:07:47 PM
QuoteLike has been said before, make there be a penalty to using the magic,

Too Faustian for my taste.

QuoteSpells that duplicate the abilities of rogues and skills in general really piss me off.

Yay and verily!

Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Matt Larkin (author) on August 20, 2006, 11:39:36 AM
Quote from: CYMRO of the TRUE Cabbage Cabal
QuoteLike has been said before, make there be a penalty to using the magic,

Too Faustian for my taste.
I, on the other hand, have often thought a little Faust is exactly what a magic system should have, and have tried to create it in my new magic system for Kishar (see the Mechanics thread), by offering incredible power with great risk.  Great innovations, great strides forward can only be achieved by taking risks.  It also fits well with the flavor of magic in the dark ages - one has made a pact with something dark for power.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: beejazz on August 20, 2006, 04:36:19 PM
mmph. with fewer magic items in a setting... what about guns? I mean... to a greater extent even than I've got. And rather than relying on extra damage per attack... how abot extra attacks, stunning, and more powerful crits? a modification in combat might balance the system... rather than curtail magic and piss off the mages, why not give the fighters a good reason to get smug?
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Matt Larkin (author) on August 20, 2006, 05:51:47 PM
Well, it's kind of off-topic, but damage should probably scale a little with level for physical attacks the way it does for supernatural ones.  It certainly wouldn't scale on-par with hit points, but if you got say +1 per level or per 2 levels, it would at least make weapons (even non-magical ones) respectible.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: CYMRO on August 20, 2006, 05:56:01 PM
Quote from: Phoenix KnightWell, it's kind of off-topic, but damage should probably scale a little with level for physical attacks the way it does for supernatural ones.  It certainly wouldn't scale on-par with hit points, but if you got say +1 per level or per 2 levels, it would at least make weapons (even non-magical ones) respectible.

Maybe fighter/warrior types should get SR.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Matt Larkin (author) on August 20, 2006, 05:59:41 PM
With spells like Otto's stupid dance, everyone should get SR ;)
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: SilvercatMoonpaw on August 20, 2006, 07:54:23 PM
I think what D&D suffers from is the lack of an all-controlling narrator.  In any story in which we see magic it gets defeated because of cleverness or pure force of will, because it can't fight the narrator.  But in a cooperative game there is no way to ensure that these things can bring magic down.

Magic always has been, and always will be, more powerful than the guy with the sword or the guy with the brain.  The only reason anyone defeats magic without magic is that thinking can potentially defeat everyone, or the person's will is just plain stronger than anything that can be thrown at them.  The first is impossible to represent mechanically, the second you might but it would never work how you want it.

D&D erroniously assumes that you can recreate the defeat of magic without someone pulling all the strings.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Johnny Wraith on August 20, 2006, 08:12:40 PM
Quote from: CYMRO of the TRUE Cabbage Cabal
Quote from: Phoenix KnightWell, it's kind of off-topic, but damage should probably scale a little with level for physical attacks the way it does for supernatural ones.  It certainly wouldn't scale on-par with hit points, but if you got say +1 per level or per 2 levels, it would at least make weapons (even non-magical ones) respectible.

Maybe fighter/warrior types should get SR.

I was DMing a campaign for newbie players a while ago and when the party first encountered an enemy spellcaster the melee-types asked me if their shields stopped the magic in any way, I told them no, and we started to debate whether or not this was logical (Note these people had never played D&D or any roleplaying game for that matter, they didn't know many of the rules and were in no way powergamers). After discussing it I decided to house-rule that shields did give SR (With a feat and depending on the type of shield). Weapon/Shield, opposed to TWF or 2HWs, are known to be a weaker combo... so I figured it would be a nice addition to the system.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: snakefing on August 20, 2006, 10:29:43 PM
Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawD&D erroniously assumes that you can recreate the defeat of magic without someone pulling all the strings.

I think this is generally true, but at the same time there are some ways to balance things out for magic to be a little less overwhelming than all that. The big problem with D&D is that they want their wizards to be throwing around world-shaking magic, and they want them to be balanced with other classes. That is a tall order.

One approach I've been playing around with is to make the really powerful magic available, but very expensive. Thus, a mage could hypothetical through out that sixth level spell, but it will really tax them and leave them basically helpless. Or they can throw out lots of smaller spells.

Two possible mechanics I've got in mind, neither one fully developed:

Spell points: The spell point cost scales as (spell level) * (caster level). Min caster level is the level at which spell can first be cast in normal system, or optionally just equal to spell level for more flexibility. Spell points scale as (level)^2. Spell point recovery scales as (level). In this system, a basic 6th level spell at min caster level (11) would cost 66 spell points. A caster could do that a couple of times...but it could take weeks to recover the spell points. And damage doesn't scale unless you spend enough to bump the caster level.

Exact details would have to be worked out to balance it out properly.

Mana level: Caster's mana strength scales as (level). Casting a spell deducts (spell level) from mana strength. When mana strength is gone, you can't cast anything any more. Go past your mana strength, you risk mana fatigue and/or mana shock, with major consequences. Mana strength returns faster though, maybe at the rate of 1 per hour normally. So a mage can cast spells fairly often, but the amount of spells they can cast in a short time period is strictly limited.

With this one, I think you'd need to restat the spells. Also I'm not sure about damage scaling and save DC's.

Anyway, both these approaches do allow wizards or sorcerers to cast quite powerful magic. But there's a serious consequence whenever they start using their most powerful magic, so they would have to think a bit more about whether that Cone of Cold is really worth it.

Defeating magic in such cases is a matter of forcing the wizard to spend their resources faster than they can recover them.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Matt Larkin (author) on August 21, 2006, 12:48:28 AM
Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawI think what D&D suffers from is the lack of an all-controlling narrator.  In any story in which we see magic it gets defeated because of cleverness or pure force of will, because it can't fight the narrator.  But in a cooperative game there is no way to ensure that these things can bring magic down.

Magic always has been, and always will be, more powerful than the guy with the sword or the guy with the brain.  The only reason anyone defeats magic without magic is that thinking can potentially defeat everyone, or the person's will is just plain stronger than anything that can be thrown at them.  The first is impossible to represent mechanically, the second you might but it would never work how you want it.

D&D erroniously assumes that you can recreate the defeat of magic without someone pulling all the strings.
That's pretty insightful, and I mostly agree.  However, some games do succeed in balancing magic with normal characters.  Those are the games where magic is a two-edged sword (a Faustian bargain, even).  I would cite WFRP, and possibly CoC.  If you're willing to pay the price, you can have great power.  But you risk a high price.  Something I've attempted to duplicate in my Kishar system.  Unlimited use magic, that the caster himself limits out of fear.

Quote from: snakefingOne approach I've been playing around with is to make the really powerful magic available, but very expensive. Thus, a mage could hypothetical through out that sixth level spell, but it will really tax them and leave them basically helpless. Or they can throw out lots of smaller spells.
Unfortunately, there can still be the issue that even low-level spells allow a wizard to do things a fighter cannot hope to match.
Hold person can often be the low-level equivalent of save-or-die.  Fly is hard for a fighter to counter.  Invisibility, well, you get the idea.  Even something as simple as mirror image can totally tie-up a melee guy while he tries to sort it out (though that's more in-line with the kind of power that makes sense; we'll say close on on-par).
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: the_taken on August 21, 2006, 12:49:17 AM
Sword damage that scales acording to your level. That makes too much sense.

A list of thigs people don't like about magic as presented in D&D.Silence spell. Don't need to Tumble, teleport with Dimension Door. Locked door in the way? Don't get those lock picks out, since you can Knock it open. Or Shatter it to smiterines. Ah ha ha!

*The spell componant joke. You actualy don't realize there's a joke 'till somebody points it out and you've re-read your high school chemistry notes.

*Extra action cheese. Caster's have a familiar, a contingeant spell, a quickened spell, a contigeant spell on the familiar, crafted contingeant spells, crafted contingeant spells on the familiar... and that's just the wizards.[/list]
Is this list difinitive, or can anything else be added?
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: beejazz on August 21, 2006, 10:53:29 AM
Hmmm...
Let's put four fighters 100ft away from a wizard. *BOOM*

Now let's try putting one wizard within five feet of four rogues. *AoO'd, Interrupted, Sneaked*
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: the_taken on August 21, 2006, 12:01:32 PM
That's a Paper, Rock, Scissors sceneario. Which is totaly unfair.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Matt Larkin (author) on August 21, 2006, 12:19:35 PM
Not the fighter would like being flanked by four rogues either.  Even the barb probably wouldn't like it, even if they couldn't flank, it's stil four on one!
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: the_taken on August 21, 2006, 12:33:13 PM
So the rock deafeats paper by being denser and smashing thru it.

Imp.Uncanny Dodge + Great Cleave will teach those rogues to surround the guy foaming at the mouth. A fighter doesn't get Imp.Uncanny dodge, wich totaly baffles me.

Edit->Each of these paragraphs have no relation to each other, 'cept for this one wich talks about the other two.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Lmns Crn on August 21, 2006, 12:35:11 PM
QuoteA fighter doesn't get Imp.Uncanny dodge, wich totaly baffles me.
Me too. At the very least, UD ought to be available as feats.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Epic Meepo on August 21, 2006, 01:26:28 PM
Quote from: Luminous Crayon
QuoteA fighter doesn't get Imp.Uncanny dodge, wich totaly baffles me.
Definately. I mean, honestly, how do you flank a high-level monk? You shouldn't be able to.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Epic Meepo on August 21, 2006, 01:28:19 PM
Quote from: the_takenThat's a Paper, Rock, Scissors sceneario. Which is totaly unfair.
The entire class and level system is a Paper, Rock, Scissors scenario. That's the point. Some classes will almost always win in certain circumstances, others will almost always win in others.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Lmns Crn on August 21, 2006, 01:46:08 PM
Quote from: Epic Meepo
Quote from: the_takenThat's a Paper, Rock, Scissors sceneario. Which is totaly unfair.
The entire class and level system is a Paper, Rock, Scissors scenario. That's the point. Some classes will almost always win in certain circumstances, others will almost always win in others.
This is true. The artificial part of a rock-paper-scissors scenario is that one-on-one fights between equal-levelled characters of Class X vs. Class Y are not the way issues in-game are typically resolved.

If you're playing Mortal Kombat-style d20, then "Class X beats Class Y" discussions are very useful. Most games don't happen that way, though, and consequently I don't care whether Class X knocks the stuffing out of Class Y nine times out of ten or not. That's because characters of Class X, Class Y, and Class Z are all working together to achieve goals cooperatively, in a forum where (ideally!) all of their varied strengths cover each others' varied weaknesses.

Because gaming is typically a cooperative effort, not a battle royale, "Class X beats Class Y in a fight" is not a useful statement on its own. If that's someone's only evidence of a problem, it's not enough to make me care. However, "Class X makes Class Y unnecessary and redundant" is a very different issue-- and a pretty serious one.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: the_taken on August 21, 2006, 02:47:09 PM
As an example of redundancy, you don't need a warrior type in the party if you have a spellcaster cause magic can be used to make golems or summon some pretty good warriors. Hell, planar binding a fiendish beholder (caster-type) is better than binding a fiendish purple worm.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Lmns Crn on August 21, 2006, 02:58:45 PM
Okay, I'm finally responding to the title question of this thread. Here's what LC dislikes about magic:

The system is sprawling and complicated, and it gets more worse with every new book release. Seriously, I can understand the importance of nuance, but there comes a point where enough is enough-- we really don't need any more spells. Discounting issues like power creep and uneven scaling of power between casters and noncasters with each new suppliment (both entirely new cans of worms to be opened), a lot of things are redundant. I'd prefer to have a simplified system that allows for individual variation on a smaller number of core ideas: don't give me two dozen level 1 damage spells, give me one or two, and the ability to cast each of them in a few different ways.

The Arcane/Divine distinction, the Psionics/Magic distinction, and other arbitrary divides. There is really no reason to introduce this sort of mechanical complexity to further clutter-up an already complex mechanism. We can get the same results (if we must) by giving spellcasting classes different spell lists (which we're doing already, anyway!) Dividing magic into arcane and divine categories is arbitrary, pointless, and redundant. Dividing the whole notion of "supernatural effects" into magic and psionic categories is even worse, because it requires me to familiarize myself with an entirely new set of game mechanics. What we really need is a simple and concise system that's used by anybody who does anything supernatural; then leave details about how they did it up to players, DMs, and writers.

When you strip away the actual game mechanics themselves, what's the difference between the concept of a bard, an enchanter wizard, a cleric of Trickery (or whatever), a sorceror with a lot of mind magic, and a psion who specializes in mental effects? Tell me honestly: is that difference enough to justify an entirely new book of game rules? Is it even enough to justify distinct classes for these spellcasters? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Magic is the skeleton key-- it fits every lock-- especially at high levels. It takes a while for this to become apparent, but as characters gain levels, magic solves more and more of their problems. Magic becomes the tool of choice for any issue, whether it's investigation (scrying!), stealth and infiltration (teleport in, invisibly!), countering traps and assorted hazards (I could name A MILLION THINGS), asskicking (massive area damage and save-or-die effects), and a multitude of other things. The logic behind this versatility and efficacy is that casters can do pretty much anything they like once or twice a day while non-casters can fulfill their more specialized roles until the cows come home. But the harsh reality is that once or twice a day per issue is often enough.

The entire "maximum effect, minimum duration" setup. As I mentioned above, what I mean here is the notion that casters can do anything very well, for a very short time (in contrast to non-casters' comparitively steady mediocrity.) I'd like to see casters evened out more, so that they don't dominate everything very briefly, then become pretty useless for the rest of the day.

The entire "glass cannon" concept. In combat, most casters, at least theoretically, can cause a huge amount of damage, but they're relatively pretty fragile: hence the term "glass cannon." I don't like that setup. I want to see the role of "dedicated face-wrecker" default to non-magical combatants-- and not just when the mages have run out of spells, either! Conversely, I want to see spellcasters that aren't so fragile in battle. I don't buy the idea that magical strength precludes physical toughness.

I don't like systems that aren't explained. I don't have a problem with Vancian magic, strictly speaking. I've seen literary examples where Vancian magic is used to great effect-- check out Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, if you haven't already. (The last five books feature a protagonist who is a Vancian-style spellcaster, and most interestingly, give the reader some insight as to why that magic works the way it does, and why it's prepared ahead of time.) D&D, on the other hand, presents an unusual system without any explanation for why the system is there, or for what it looks like to the actual characters who'd use it. I think that's a big part of why Vancian magic turns so many people off: not just because it's Vancian magic, but because there's no effort taken to make that system make sense.

Magic's invasive. Societally, it's everywhere. Largely a game-world-flavor-specific complaint, sure, but the mechanics make that flavor situation very logical and natural. Magic's everywhere. It's everywhere because it's useful. It's everywhere because it's necessary to counteract the abilities of spellcasting characters. It supplants mundane equivalents everywhere. If a character gets injured and looks for medical care, does he see a doctor? No, because a first level cleric of any faith is a better healer than a non-spellcasting doctor will ever be, ever.

It's too fast, and it's too flashy. Magic as-written is a system based around the idea of instant gratification. That's well and good, I suppose, for a certain kind of game. I'd much prefer to take out all the swift, flashy "I'm killing you with a snap of my fingers!" business and reduce magic to a matter of rituals and runes-- powerful and slow, in the manner of glacial movement, or continental drift. There's a time and a place for everything, and the place for magic is not in the middle of a melee, and the time for magic is not right this instant.

Magic makes a lot of interesting hardships trivial. In conventional fiction, even a small wound can be a huge deal-- it can fester, it can bring a fever, and it can basically kill you dead, even if it's in a non-vital place (say, your arm.) A first-level divine spellcaster can laugh that off, and help others do the same. Sickness is a powerful idea in fiction, but in DnD, it's a non-issue, because every sickness can be dealt with by relative novices in the spellcasting community. (As DMs, we could always use special diseases that resist magical healing, but we aren't fooling anybody: that's a cop-out answer, and it's lame.) Even death is not a problem, because with the exception of some fairly rare circumstances, getting someone brought back to life is pretty simple to accomplish.

Magic short-circuits a lot of plot ideas. Life-restoring spells undermine the effectiveness of "the King has been killed!" story ideas. "Speak With Dead" solves a murder-mystery while completely bypassing all the things that make murder-mysteries fun. Getting revenge on the orcs that killed your family (or whatever) becomes a less potent motivator when you consider that lots of adventurers could (eventually) afford to pay to get his parents resurrected if they wanted to sell off that +4 battleaxe of pwnage. I know that a lot of writers have done really good jobs about working around these sort of issues (Jurgen Hubert, with Urbis, springs quickly to my mind with some really clever examples,) but my point is that they shouldn't have to do that. The fact that anyone should have to work so hard to assemble a logical game or a logical setting in spite of the magic system... that indicates to me that the magic system has some serious problems.

And that's my two (dozen) cents.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: SilvercatMoonpaw on August 21, 2006, 03:52:29 PM
Let me preface by reminding people that I never assume that you shouldn't be allowed to follow your own ideas.

@Luminous: I agree with #1-5, I can get around #6 on my own, (#7) I like it when magic pervades society (it actually strikes me as odd sometimes that low-level pratical-use magic isn't more common), (#8) slow-acting magic actually switches my disbelief back on and up to high, and I highly agree with #9-10.

Where we differ, I think, is that there are some things magic can do that I've always felt just need to be done, just like some modern technology gives people more opportunity and flexibility.  Magic is essentially super-technology with different complex fiddly bits.  What D&D does is propose magic that more than 90% of the population won't use, and that's even in the low-level range (0-2 level spells).  What we see in the proliferation of spells is just new ways to kill things.

When I said that magic in stories could only be trumped because there is a narrator pulling all the strings, part of what I meant is that magic is supposed to be better than mundane stuff in myths and legends.  Magic lets you do what was previously impossible or really hard.  Magic is a plot-excuse, a facillitator for getting the story from A to B.  D&D, or indeed any other high-fantasy game, does is split the story between the characters and the narrator, and once the plot-excuse is no longer completely contolled by the one creating the plot it can circumvent the plot rather than be part of it.

So what do we have to do to fix magic?  Start by remembering that the system being designed is for a game and not a story.  Magic must be designed to fail on its own probability rather than on the whims of some omniscient author.  Various rule-sets try to do that, so it's been covered.  Second is that there should be a toss-up between magic and mundane.  The most common method is the price, which many of you here at the CBG do well.  Other methods make magic hard to gain, or slow to apply, or reduce its overall power.  The method you use depends on what image you want to invoke.  One thing that could be done is to look at how technology today is "balanced": it costs energy that you don't always have access to, anyone can use it (with maybe a little training), it requires a lot of work to make from scratch and may also have bulky parts.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Matt Larkin (author) on August 21, 2006, 05:36:47 PM
I'm not sure you can "fix" magic because different people have different conceptions of the problem with it and how it should be.  All you can really do is create it the way you envision it, and hope those playing in your game, setting, or reading your work appreciate your vision.

One reason magic in D&D is problematic because the game is balanced around high-magic.  The thing is, if it was balanced around lower magic, the game would be easier to scale up for high-magic worlds than it is to scale down power-level presupposes a high number of magic items.  You can scale up by giving everyone more stuff.  You cannot as easily scale back, without tweaking lots of stuff.  Classes, monsters, everything is ripe with magic and the need for magic to balance it (if balance is even possible).
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Hibou on August 21, 2006, 08:43:04 PM
I believe that with balancing magic vs. matter, the best answer is a little bit like the Gestalt optional rule, and its approach is somewhat cruel: a system where there is no real class distinction, or restriction on the use of magic and powerful combat abilities. A system where it only takes practice to achieve amazing levels of power in both areas is not unbalanced, but appears to be because one character with the equal amounts of earned XP may be ultimately greater at one than the other. However, it is one's choice of abilities and skills that he pays for with the XP he earns, and if he chose to spend it one way then there should be no complaining.

A friend of mine once showed me a system like this that his dad had created in disgust over AD&D and several other roleplaying systems a long time ago. I thought it was totally cool, but I never got into it because very few other people were willing to try playing it.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: beejazz on August 21, 2006, 08:54:35 PM
Quote from: Epic Meepo
Quote from: Luminous Crayon
QuoteA fighter doesn't get Imp.Uncanny dodge, wich totaly baffles me.
Definately. I mean, honestly, how do you flank a high-level monk? You shouldn't be able to.
There's a feat that prevents flankage in the CW... but it's kind of half-assed.

On an unrelated side note, has anyone but me noticed how often casters die? They've got nil defensive capabilities without spells. And death costs precious xp... as does item creation... as do some of the more "broken" spells... It's no surprise to see a party wizard one or two levels lower than the rest of the party.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Epic Meepo on August 22, 2006, 02:43:51 PM
Quote from: Luminous Crayon
Quote from: Epic Meepo
Quote from: the_takenThat's a Paper, Rock, Scissors sceneario. Which is totaly unfair.
The entire class and level system is a Paper, Rock, Scissors scenario. That's the point. Some classes will almost always win in certain circumstances, others will almost always win in others.
This is true. The artificial part of a rock-paper-scissors scenario is that one-on-one fights between equal-levelled characters of Class X vs. Class Y are not the way issues in-game are typically resolved.

If you're playing Mortal Kombat-style d20, then "Class X beats Class Y" discussions are very useful. Most games don't happen that way, though, and consequently I don't care whether Class X knocks the stuffing out of Class Y nine times out of ten or not. That's because characters of Class X, Class Y, and Class Z are all working together to achieve goals cooperatively, in a forum where (ideally!) all of their varied strengths cover each others' varied weaknesses.

Because gaming is typically a cooperative effort, not a battle royale, "Class X beats Class Y in a fight" is not a useful statement on its own. If that's someone's only evidence of a problem, it's not enough to make me care. However, "Class X makes Class Y unnecessary and redundant" is a very different issue-- and a pretty serious one.


Hey! Why am I the one being quoted as an example of "Class X beats Class Y" mentality? I argued against that very thing several dozen posts back! (In the above quote, I am using "wins" to mean -roughly - "has a chance to shine.")
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Lmns Crn on August 22, 2006, 02:51:59 PM
Quote from: Epic MeepoHey! Why am I the one being quoted as an example of "Class X beats Class Y" mentality? I argued against that very thing several dozen posts back! (In the above quote, I am using "wins" to mean -roughly - "has a chance to shine.")
I didn't quote you to argue with you; I quoted you because you reminded me of something I wanted to rant about anyway. :)
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Epic Meepo on August 22, 2006, 03:43:10 PM
Post moved to Off Topic Rant (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?13080) thread.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: CYMRO on August 22, 2006, 05:22:39 PM
QuoteArcane means that you can't do it perfectly in armor and you need a few extra material components; divine means that you can and you don't. That's really about it, mechanically speaking.

That is not what they mean, those are mechanical istinctions built into the rules.

It is all about the source of the power, just as psionics represents a third source of power.  

Quote[blockquote]Magic is the skeleton key-- it fits every lock-- especially at high levels.

I agree with that statement.[/blockquote]

Concur.  Maybe a liitle judicious paring of spells, as well as a stricter separation of divine/arcane/psionic speels/powers.

Quote[blockquote]I don't like systems that aren't explained.

Justifying the game mechanics is the DMs job.[/blockquote]

I would think that justifying game mechanics is the game creator's job.


QuoteMagic makes a lot of interesting hardships trivial.

Again, a paring of spells and powers can rectify this.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: snakefing on August 22, 2006, 08:21:23 PM
Quote from: Phoenix Knight
Quote from: snakefingOne approach I've been playing around with is to make the really powerful magic available, but very expensive. Thus, a mage could hypothetical through out that sixth level spell, but it will really tax them and leave them basically helpless. Or they can throw out lots of smaller spells.
Unfortunately, there can still be the issue that even low-level spells allow a wizard to do things a fighter cannot hope to match.
Hold person can often be the low-level equivalent of save-or-die.  Fly is hard for a fighter to counter.  Invisibility, well, you get the idea.  Even something as simple as mirror image can totally tie-up a melee guy while he tries to sort it out (though that's more in-line with the kind of power that makes sense; we'll say close on on-par).

I do agree with you that my general approach (allowing plenty of low-power magic with much less high power magic) will not entirely resolve the issue. Even low power magic can be pretty deadly in the right circumstances. To some extent this needs to be resolved primarily by avoiding the save or die type spells. (E.g., hold person could do something less extreme, like reduce speed, or allow a save per round, or something.)

But overall, the main goal is not necessarily to reduce magic to the level of the mundane, but to make it sufficiently less overwhelming that it doesn't negate all the things other characters can do at equivalent character level. I'm not sure my ideas do anything to help that, I've mainly been playing around with them.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Epic Meepo on August 23, 2006, 01:03:19 PM
Post moved to Off Topic Rant (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?13080) thread.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: beejazz on August 23, 2006, 01:53:17 PM
On an unrelated side note, we've lost sight of the idea that the *world* is magic and that magic has its own agenda and ideas about how the world should work. We no longer have porcelain figurines on the countertop escaping up the stovepipe to elope on the rooftops, as in the tale of the shepherdess and the chiminey sweep. Animals and the dead and inanimate objects don't talk unless you make them in this system, thus reducing the awe one feels when something that shouldn't happen does because it's magic! Thus, what we have here is a crude, manufactured magic. Just another tool. Just another weapon. What we have is not a high-magic world! What we have is a low-magic world with high-magic characters! I do not feel so much that we have spoiled game balance as that we have spoiled the original sense of wonder that magic represents! And what ever happened to questing for power? The maddened alchemist who searches almost blindly for the ultimate mystery... never wielding magic, but doing remarkable things without it in the pursuit of his goal? This has been replaced by simple xp penalties for cross-classing. You know, there is a big diference between fantasy and sword-and-sorcery. This is pretty much it.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: SilvercatMoonpaw on August 23, 2006, 03:51:31 PM
Well, part of what people want to do in D&D is be superheroes.    So they need high magic.  A way to put the super back into supernatural is to take it away from the players.  But that can be unsatisfying.  Of course, D&D magic is hack-and-slash magic.  As much as they may try, Wizards makes a majority of spells matter most in combat.  Combine this with an unwillingness of players and DMs to allow mages to do things not covered under the rules, and magic simply becomes a form of very powerful sword.

The dead don't talk?  Animals don't talk?  Inanimate objects don't talk?  That's not the fault of the system, that's the fault of all these DMs who get too wrapped-up in trying not to be "corny" or something like that.  Animals talk in the Chronicals of Narnia, and its the best part.  I, personally, think that people shouldn't limit themselves when they create worlds.  If you want talking X, have talking X, and to HELL with what anyone else thinks.

beejaz does have a point that the magic of D&D doesn't fit its core feel of Medievil Europe.  Magic items galore, classes with magical abilities out the wazoo, magical monsters, etc.  Even when worlds like Eberron they only go half-far enough.  Eberron has a few moments where it really picks up the high-magic thing and runs with it: there is an item in City of Towers that lets one scribe non-magical tatoos magically.  No useful game function!  But it sounds cool!  I actually don't expect the people who make D&D stuff to do that anytime soon, so it's up to us to realize the tiny details of a magical world.

My own personal peeve is that magic made mysterious or rare can get boring if it doesn't do anything.  Mages toil away for years seraching out rare components and the esoteric knowledge needed to create a spell to doâ,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦what?  Invariably the "long and difficult" process only holds our interest if at the end is a big explosion or something similarly dangerous or something spectacular.  I prefer my magic to do something like clean the house, which isn't allowed in a "magic is hard" setting.  beejazz moans that magic has become a tool, but in my estimation if you don't want magic to be a tool than don't let anyone get a hold of it, PC or NPC.  "Magic should bring about wonder" I agree with, but my wonder takes into account that I am a person living in this world: if animals talk then there is no reason they can't live among humans and do all sorts of jobs that only they could do.

(Sorry, sometimes you just have to rant.)
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Lmns Crn on August 23, 2006, 04:05:13 PM
Here's a thing: Luminous Crayon responds to a thread!
Quote from: Phoenix Knight'm not sure you can "fix" magic because different people have different conceptions of the problem with it and how it should be. All you can really do is create it the way you envision it, and hope those playing in your game, setting, or reading your work appreciate your vision.
expect[/i] people to agree with all of them. 8)

Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawWhen I said that magic in stories could only be trumped because there is a narrator pulling all the strings, part of what I meant is that magic is supposed to be better than mundane stuff in myths and legends. Magic lets you do what was previously impossible or really hard. Magic is a plot-excuse, a facillitator for getting the story from A to B. D&D, or indeed any other high-fantasy game, does is split the story between the characters and the narrator, and once the plot-excuse is no longer completely contolled by the one creating the plot it can circumvent the plot rather than be part of it.

So what do we have to do to fix magic? Start by remembering that the system being designed is for a game and not a story.
imitate[/i] that sort of thing all day long, but we can't just copy it, because gaming and literature have different safeguards.

Quote from: Epic MeepoIncidentally, it's also nearly impossible to use the plot device where a messenger stumbles up to the PCs and keels over dead before fully explaining his presence. The line between alive and dead is so clearly defined in D&D that you can almost never have a mortal wound and be walking around, talking about it.

(Also, its nearly impossible in d20 Modern to hold someone at gunpoint, since they don't become helpless and can thus fight back by just sucking up one readied attack that deals normal damage.)
On an unrelated side note, we've lost sight of the idea that the *world* is magic and that magic has its own agenda and ideas about how the world should work.[/quote]mine[/i] to make.

Me, the writer. The writer who doesn't want mechanics and rules systems stepping on his creative toes.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Wensleydale on August 23, 2006, 05:10:07 PM
I like literature-esque magic systems; that is, ones that can be adapted and used for any purpose. I've developed this with Aelwyd's druidic system, using MP to, in effect, create whole new spells (take fire damage, extend it from touch to short range, make it cover a cone, make it do 2D6 damage, and hey presto!) I too dislike the arcane/divine divide...
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Matt Larkin (author) on August 23, 2006, 05:40:06 PM
Quote from: Luminous CrayonWe've lost sight of it, in the sense that I haven't seen many settings lately that ascribe to that idea.  Then again, I think it's an idea that not every setting needs to ascribe to; for example, it's not something I want for my own work. If it were an idea built into the system, I'd be complaining about that, too. Again, not because it's a bad idea on it's own, but because I don't want a system of mechanics making choices that should be mine to make.

Me, the writer. The writer who doesn't want mechanics and rules systems stepping on his creative toes.
Well said.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: snakefing on August 23, 2006, 09:49:44 PM
Quote from: Epic MeepoTrue, though paring spells without also eliminating the ability to reproduce literary tropes can be tricky. For example, you couldn't stay faithful to the fantasy genre and eliminate all pesky scrying spells at the same time. Scrying spells are part of the fantasy genre.

This is true, which is one of the confounding factors. We want magic to be as powerful as its literary inspirations, and at the same time we want to be able to play magic-using characters who can cast spells as they see fit. (Within mechanical limits, of course.)

One problem I think D&D has always had is they try to include all the literary models in one agglomerated system. Priestly magic, death magic, nature magic, summoning, pacts with demons, flying, invisibility, flame blasts, the parting of the Red Sea, aetherial projection, it's all there, and then some. Small wonder it is hard to make coherent sense out of it.

I wonder if it wouldn't make more sense, when creating a world, to take a more coherent subset of magic that respects just one or a few cultural sources. Or perhaps to have a world where different cultures have such different takes on magic that the spells are different, the mechanics are different, the classes are different, ...

I'm not sure how to do that, starting from the D20 system. I mean, you could use the core mechanics for most skills and combat, but all the spell casting classes would have to be redesigned from the ground up I think. Perhaps by representing spell casting abilities as a collection of feats, you could create a base spell-casting class that could be customized for a world by changing the spell lists, feat availability, etc. It would be tough.

Alternatively, you could just create specialized magic systems and classes for each world, with mechanics to match the associated tropes and styles. Other DMs could borrow or modify to suit. That would hard to do well too.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Epic Meepo on August 24, 2006, 12:29:24 AM
Quote from: http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?13080Off Topic Rant[/url] thread.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Wensleydale on August 24, 2006, 09:10:06 AM
QuoteNow, if you want to say that the wizard/sorcerer divide is arbitrary and redundant because now you have two glass canons with few differences between them: that argument I understand completely...

Hear hear!
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Lmns Crn on August 24, 2006, 02:47:57 PM
Quote from: Epic MeepoSecond, I have to admit that now I'm completely confused about what we're referring to as the arcane/divine divide. Is your objection to the fact that there is more than one spellcasting class?
any[/i] sufficiently advanced cleric of Erythnul (or any setting's equivalent god of slaughter and dismemberment) can heal wounds and raise the dead, acts arguably counter to his deity's doctrines, while no wizard, no matter how advanced in his arcane art and how knowledgeable in first aid, can ever magically mend so much as a papercut? Why is it that no cleric of a god of slaughter and destruction can ever match the arcane destructive power of even the most timid wizard, who has Disintegration, Horrid Wilting, and Meteor Swarm at his fingertips?

QuoteI really am confused. What works well as an optional rule? If we're not talking about game mechanics, what exactly is the distinction between arcane and divine that a setting might not want? Wizards are just bookish clerics and clerics are just tough wizards.
I suppose you can argue that the word "cleric" has a religious connotation, but that's no less troublesome than the fact that the word "bard" has a blatantly Celtic connotation.[/quote]in-game[/i] connotations of a term like "cleric", not the linguistic ones. But that, for the most part, I've already expressed.
Quote
QuoteThis goes back again to my desire for a system that is as simple as possible, and therefore, as flexible and customizable as possible. Every unnecessary addition to a system of mechanics makes statements about a campaign world that uses those mechanics; maybe those statements are things I don't want to say.
We should be able to have, for example, tougher casters that aren't tied to gods, and more fragile-yet-potent casters that aren't tied to book learning. Let the players choose the "flavor direction" of their characters based on their preference, not because they were forced into Flavor Column A or Flavor Column B based on the class they selected.
QuoteAny generic spellcasting class that is supposed to represent both clerics and wizards as a unified whole is either going to restrict player options or be so insanely customizable that no two members of the class will be even remotely similar, at which point it may as well be two different classes.
distinct[/i] types of adventurer vocations, a situation which strikes me as almost comically contrived.

For my money, I prefer a system of classes where each class provide the sort of customization flexibility that players can use to create diverse individuals within each class, and that's the sort of system I tried to create when I did my massive magic system revision. (My "channeler" spellcasting PrC, for example. You could make about a hundred different types of channelers, and they'd be totally distinct from one another. I consider that one of the class's greatest strengths.)

If I absolutely have to use a class that's more of a "character template" than a flexible framework, I want that template to be something I've tailor-made to match my setting's workings, especially when we're talking about magic users. A sword swings pretty much the same way no matter where you are, but magic can work so very drastically differently from one setting to the next that it almost requires setting-specific alterations to the magic system, unless you're willing to overlook a lot of glitches that I, personally, am not willing to overlook.
QuoteNow, if you want to say that the wizard/sorcerer divide is arbitrary and redundant because now you have two glass canons with few differences between them: that argument I understand completely...
I don't have a problem with the fact that there are two different classes there. I think the difference between somebody who's magical because of decade of study, and someone who's magical because they just started to develop weird powers, X-Men style, is a pretty significant one. I don't think WotC handled wizards and sorcerors very well at all, but that's not because I don't think there should be two classes there-- I just think there shouldn't be two versions of the same class, which is essentially what we have.


I remember really liking the system for supernatural stuff that Fuzion System used. They basically gave a list of powers that you could purchase individually with your character creation points: super strength, flight, mental powers, energy blasts, all that sort of thing. You get to pick all the "special effects" freely, like whether your energy blasts, if you have them, are fireballs or waves of radioactivity or whatever.

And that was pretty much the whole superpower system. If you wanted to buy a bunch of mental powers and call yourself a psychic or psionic, that's cool, but you could also call yourself a pointy-hat-wearing mind-wizard, or a Neo-like figure in a Matrix-like world, or Charles Xavier, or Miss Cleo. The actual game mechanics made no assumption about the flavor you get from using them, which was part of why I liked it so much.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Wensleydale on August 24, 2006, 04:44:40 PM
I <3 Luminous' channeler. :P
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Epic Meepo on August 24, 2006, 06:10:20 PM
Post moved to Off Topic Rant (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?13080) thread.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: beejazz on August 24, 2006, 06:25:15 PM
Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawWell, part of what people want to do in D&D is be superheroes.    So they need high magic.  A way to put the super back into supernatural is to take it away from the players.  But that can be unsatisfying.  Of course, D&D magic is hack-and-slash magic.  As much as they may try, Wizards makes a majority of spells matter most in combat.  Combine this with an unwillingness of players and DMs to allow mages to do things not covered under the rules, and magic simply becomes a form of very powerful sword.

The dead don't talk?  Animals don't talk?  Inanimate objects don't talk?  That's not the fault of the system, that's the fault of all these DMs who get too wrapped-up in trying not to be "corny" or something like that.  Animals talk in the Chronicals of Narnia, and its the best part.  I, personally, think that people shouldn't limit themselves when they create worlds.  If you want talking X, have talking X, and to HELL with what anyone else thinks.

beejaz does have a point that the magic of D&D doesn't fit its core feel of Medievil Europe.  Magic items galore, classes with magical abilities out the wazoo, magical monsters, etc.  Even when worlds like Eberron they only go half-far enough.  Eberron has a few moments where it really picks up the high-magic thing and runs with it: there is an item in City of Towers that lets one scribe non-magical tatoos magically.  No useful game function!  But it sounds cool!  I actually don't expect the people who make D&D stuff to do that anytime soon, so it's up to us to realize the tiny details of a magical world.

My own personal peeve is that magic made mysterious or rare can get boring if it doesn't do anything.  Mages toil away for years seraching out rare components and the esoteric knowledge needed to create a spell to doâ,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â¦what?  Invariably the "long and difficult" process only holds our interest if at the end is a big explosion or something similarly dangerous or something spectacular.  I prefer my magic to do something like clean the house, which isn't allowed in a "magic is hard" setting.  beejazz moans that magic has become a tool, but in my estimation if you don't want magic to be a tool than don't let anyone get a hold of it, PC or NPC.  "Magic should bring about wonder" I agree with, but my wonder takes into account that I am a person living in this world: if animals talk then there is no reason they can't live among humans and do all sorts of jobs that only they could do.

(Sorry, sometimes you just have to rant.)
In certain varieties of fiction, half the fun of magic is the just plain finding it!

Like in Fullmetal Alchemist... sure they've got the basic "mage" shiz, but they're looking-for the be-all end-all of magic: the philosopher's stone. Magic is no longer the ends but the means... just kill some monsters and *pop* OMG WHERE THESE SPELLS COME FROM?! A freaking barbarian can "study over the party wizard's shoulder." Wizard: "WTF?! It took me 42 years pre-play to learn that cantrip!!! This just isn't fair!"

Likewise even with clerics: Moses had to friggin' climb mount Sainai to talk to God! That's an adventure in itself! Especially at his age.
Now...
*ring!*
God: Hello?
Cleric: Hey, whassup? (loud thumping noises in background)
God: Can it wait? I mean, I was just sitting down to dinner... about to spend some time with my wife and kids...
Cleric: Do you have any idea how much xp I just spent? I need answers now! (load moaning noises)
God: What... where the fuck are you?
Cleric: In a brothel... You gonna answer my question or what?
God: I'm hanging up now.
Cleric: Aw... C'mon, God! Don't be like that!
*click*

Just a fucking tool. Nothing special about magic.
[/rant]
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: CYMRO on August 25, 2006, 01:10:36 AM
QuoteWell, character-point-buy systems are skill-based systems, not class-and-level systems, so you'll never see D&D do that. D&D is the grandfather of all class-and-level systems, so I doubt that any designer will ever make an official D&D product that doesn't use a class-and-level system as its default mechanic; it would be contrary to the roots of D&D, like putting a modern engine in a classic car instead of rebuilding the original, authentic one.

I don't think so.  It is "contrary" to the roots of D&D that non-human PCs have the ability to gain max levels in their classes.
It is "contrary" to the roots of D&D that good and evil are alignment options.
As gaming has evolved so has D&D.  I do not doubt that WoTC, or the next owner of the D&D franchise, will follow the market;  and if the market cries for a skill system, then that will be the basis of Edition X.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Epic Meepo on August 25, 2006, 02:06:00 AM
Post moved to Off Topic Rant (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?13080) thread.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: CYMRO on August 25, 2006, 03:16:52 AM
:offtopic:
QuoteI consider the roots of a game to be the first 3 or 4 years of its existence, meaning that both Basic and Advanced D&D are the roots of present-day D&D. (And no, I don't count Chainmail.)
Then you are discounting the roots of the game.

QuoteIf you want a skill-based system, use a skill-based system. Don't trash D&D in an effort to reinvent the wheel!

I am not trashing D&D, but it is now in its seventh or eighth incarnation, and each rule change has had its defenders and detractors, and each change has been an effort to market to the tastes of the masses.  Some have been failures, some have not.  I am old enough to have seen most incarnations from the get go, and was cognizant of the industry enough to see how D&D has adapted and changed.  It will continue to change to meet the needs of a changing market and audience.  Moreso now that Hasbro owns it.  This does not make that change good or bad, just a thing.

QuoteSo if D&D can't transform into a skill-based system when half of its players and the designers are pushing a move towards a skill-based system, it will never transform into a skill-based system.

Dungeons and Dragons is whatever Hasbro, or their successor, says it is.  If that means losing levels, then that is what it means.  TSR had the marketing savvy of baboon feces.  Hasbro is different.  Note how they successfully market, and profit thereby, all of those supplements they swore, just three years ago, they would never sell.  

QuoteAnd if it did, who would play it anyway? If skill-based roleplaying is your thing, then you should already be playing GURPS or Storyteller or any number of other skill-based systems. Compared to them, some late-comer wannabe skill-based system that isn't even true to its own history is just lame, no matter how famous its name.

The same people who now play the current, or any version, of D&D that are looking for a change in their game.
I have never, nor will never own or play a GURPS game.  Many people feel the way I do.  We would rather modify our favorite, D&D/d20, than play another system.  That is one of the great marketing secrets Hasbro knows about the brand they bought.  Slap the D&D label on something, and you guarantee a reasonable return.  
And the famous name, repackaged for a contemporary audience, is part of the selling point.  

And how exactly is D&D changing with the times and the people untrue to its own history?  Is that not what each edition has been about?  Trying to keep the game fresh and fun for the old hands, while attracting new players to the hobby?
How can introducing a skill-based system betray that history?

If the mistitled 4th Edition has skill-based PCs rather than level-based, there will be some, maybe many, who will howl in rage and not buy it.  Just as many will buy it.  Hasbro will make a profit.  New gamers will come to the hobby.  Old gamers will buckle, or wait for 5th edition.

I, myself, gave 2nd Edition a complete miss.  I went straight from 1st edition to 3.5.
I have friends who still play the original D&D.
Do not think because we want our D&D gaming experience to get better or grow with us that we are trashing it.  Obviously the opposite is true, or we would not be trying to find ways to better our hobby.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Epic Meepo on August 25, 2006, 02:23:05 PM
Post moved to Off Topic Rant (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?13080) thread.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Lmns Crn on August 25, 2006, 02:27:26 PM
Note that I wasn't advocating ditchting levels and classes when I brought up Fuzion System. I was just making an example of a magic system that's highly flexible, and that doesn't make automatic statements on the way magic works in a setting that uses it.

For the most part, other than that refreshing quality, Fuzion System was really terrible.
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: SilvercatMoonpaw on August 25, 2006, 02:38:24 PM
I recently thought about something: as I have said before, literary magic works because only one person is controlling it.  Maybe we need to do that somehow with whatever we decide to call the game (since, according to Epic Meepo, it won't be D&D if we completely rebuild the magic system).  I don't know how that, I just think it's a cool idea.

@Epic Meepo and Luminous Crayon: What's all this going on?  If you want to rant at each other, us PMs.

@Epic Meepo: So are you against any changes to D&D magic?  Or am I reading you wrong?
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Lmns Crn on August 25, 2006, 03:06:10 PM
Quote@Epic Meepo and Luminous Crayon: What's all this going on? If you want to rant at each other, us PMs.
I'm not ranting at anybody. I'm just trying to clarify and explain my answers to the topic question: "What don't you like about magic?"
Title: [Question] What don't you like about magic?
Post by: Epic Meepo on August 25, 2006, 04:01:26 PM
Quote from: http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?13080Off Topic Rant[/url] thread.

Quote@Epic Meepo: So are you against any changes to D&D magic?  Or am I reading you wrong?
I am not saying that the magic system should remain unchanged. I would merely claim that the magic system as-is reflects some of the character that makes the D&D game what it is. Personally, I would try to rely less on completely new mechanics and more on minor changes that can be made to the existing system.

I agree with previous suggestions that changes to spell lists can do a surprising amount to change the feel of the magic system without greatly altering game mechanics, as can mixing in psionic powers as though they were spells. Creating arcane versions of divine classes and vice versa can change things. So can restricting some spells to casters who meet certain prerequisites (such as ranks in a related skill).

In my mind, when we're talking D&D, all of the above tweaking can produce a surprising amount of variety without needing to tear the rules apart and start again from ground zero. On the other hand, there's also nothing wrong with building your own magic system from scratch, or using existing spells but none of the existing mechanics for casting those spells.

My only caution about redesigning the magic system from scratch would be this: if someone invites me to play a session of D&D, I have certain expectations about the upcoming game. Learning a magic system radically different from anything in an official D&D product isn't one of those expectations.

(Incidentally, that was the point of my off-topic rant. The name "Dungeons and Dragons" has certain expectations attached to it. So long as those expectations exist, calling something that does not come close to those expectations "Dungeons and Dragons" can lead to confusion. Some amount of standardization of terminology is necessary to maintain meaningful discourse.)