|
1 year ago ::
Apr 06, 2012 - 11:20AM
#1
|
|
|
D&D without vancian magic and the huge spell list that goes with it doesn’t feel at all like the game I grew up with. And I’m not talking about 4th-edition style vancian magic, that’s a fraud. I’m talking about a wizard that has 10-20 spells to pick every day and try to make the best out of these. I know a lot of you guys hate this idea but I think that a lot of your grudges with vancian magic aren’t tied to vancian magic at all but to how it was implemented in the former editions. I’ll start this thread by revisiting a few of the things I heard on vancian magic. Myth n°1: vancian magic is the 5-minute work day Spoiler:
Show
The 5-minute work day is a fraud and 4th edition is here to prove it. The optimal strategy in 4th edition is to burn all your dailies and action points in the first fight and then sleep. Why doesn’t anyone complain about this?
I think the biggest problem with the older editions is that a cleric’s mace swing or the wizard’s crossbow is so unbelievably inferior to spells that casters need to use a spell every round to be useful.
So yes, I’m saying it, the 5 minute work day problem is not a vancian magic problem but a lame at-will attack problem. I know for a fact that, as the DM, if you give your party cleric a cool mace that actually does damage and the wizard a nice wand or staff, you get your 5 encounters a day without forcing your players to go on.
The only situation where the 5 minute work day problem occurred I my games is when you need to use your spells for out-of-combat stuff (you know, when 5 out of your 10 spells are invisibility). Good thing we’re going to have rituals to fix this. Myth n°2: vancian magic is the wizard going nova Spoiler:
Show
This is another misunderstanding on how vancian magic worked back then. Before 4th edition, your spells were your only valid thing to do each round of combat. The purpose of your spells with vancian magic is the same as your at-will attacks in 4th edition.
Is attacking every round with an at-will attack “going nova”?
You might be tempted to argue that you can burn all your higher level spells, but let’s be honest here, your damaging spells scale with level and “deep slumber” pretty much has the same effect “finger of death” has, so you have a little nova effect but it’s really not so bad that your best option is always to use your higher level spells.
People argue that it’s not fair for the wizard to be able to choose when to use his cool toys. I believe they are wrong, the wizard is not choosing when to use them; he has his cool toys all day long because those are his basic attack. The real question is why fighters were so incredibly boring in the earlier editions. Myth n°3: vancian magic is quadratic wizard, linear fighter Spoiler:
Show
1d6 damage per level is linear. Once you realize that spells are to casters what arrows are to archers, you realize that your damage actually scales linearly and that the only effect the extra spell slots have is to increase the size of your quiver. Fact n°1: Too many spells gives casters too much versatility. Spoiler:
Show
“Oh godly wizard” that outshines all the other classes is indeed a problem. If you assume 5 encounters a day of 5 rounds each, then a caster should not have more than 25 spells per day. Any excess spell is going to be a long duration buff or one of those utility spells such as invisibility, knock or charm person. A 3rd edition wizard has roughly 50 spells per day at level 20. He only needs 25 for combat, so we’re talking about 25 spells such as charm person, heroism, knock, invisibility, greater mage armor, stoneskin, wizard’s eye, etc… I personally see a problem with this. Fact n°2: The caster vs. non caster balance was a total fail in the previous editions (especially 3rd edition). Spoiler:
Show
A 3rd edition wizard had a 75% chance to disable his opponent with one spell (save or die). Your spells are supposed to be your at-will attacks. How is this balanced? That’s the balance problem. And beyond the pure balance issue, why is a wizard’s everyday attack a cool Wall of Fire when the fighter gets a boring sword swing (or even a trip)? So that’s it for how I think vancian magic should fit in the whole system. Now I’ll talk about daily powers and encounter powers. I don’t want dailies as implemented in 4th edition. It’s just too swingy. You want your hard fights to be challenging; you want your players to actually experience the fear of losing. To achieve this with daily powers, you pretty much have to make a wild guess on how many daily powers your players will have by the time they get to the hard fight. If the PCs make it to the boss with too many dailies, the fight is trivial and boring, if the PCs don’t have enough of them and you actually wanted to challenge the PCs, they’ll probably die. I don’t want encounter powers as a damage scaling mechanism. An encounter power shouldn’t deal more damage than your at-will attacks. Encounter powers should either be a tactical move or a cool cinematic move, depending on whether you want tactical combat like in 4th edition or more cinematic like in the previous editions. I see a potential option paralysis if encounter or daily powers deal more damage. Two things can make the difference in a battle: taking out your first opponent as quickly as possible and using your tactical moves at the right moment. In the first case, you want to use your most damaging attacks at the beginning of the fight; in the second, you want to delay until the right moment. These two options are incompatible and that’s why I think it can lead to option paralysis. Anyways, with all of this in mind, this is what I would do:
- Get rid of encounter powers and daily spells that deal extra damage. Each class starts with an at-will attack that is boring and only does damage. All of these at-will attacks are roughly equivalent. This attack scales with level.
- Each class gets a limited amount of cool moves to use in combat. If a wizard or cleric gets vancian spells then the fighter gets encounter powers that do cool things. If you assume that 5 encounters per day is normal, then for every encounter power a fighter has, your wizard or cleric should have 3 to 5 spell slots. The exact exchange rate really depends on how much you value the extra versatility. The whole trick to make things balanced here is to have encounter powers roughly as efficient as vancian spells.
- If a wizard or cleric has a spell that deals damage, the damage should be roughly equivalent to an at-will attack. Magic Missile with no attack roll would make a great spell because it’s reliable. Fireball that does 20%-50% less damage than an at-will attack would also be fine because of the AOE and the save half part. Get rid of all the rays and turn them into other at-will attack forms. Spells need to scale with level.
- If a wizard can cast sleep, then by the time the wizard gets his 3rd spell slot, the fighter should be able to use an encounter power that has the same effect as sleep. It might be more than 3rd spell slot depending on what else the fighter has. You might also decide that some classes should be better at applying some effects than others. For instance, maybe immobilized or slowed is the fighter’s business, weakened is the rogue’s business and unconscious is the wizard’s business.
- Casters need to lose access to their lower level spell slots as they gain the higher level ones. We want to restrict a caster’s versatility a bit.
- Combat spells that mimic and out of combat utility spell should have shorter durations. Invisibility or Fly might have a duration of 1 minute making it nearly useless outside of combat.
And that’s about all I can think of. The trick here is to give non casters a believable mechanism that gives them cool moves once in a while. Once you do that, vancian magic really isn’t that bad. It’s just added versatility. This is an example of what such a mechanism could look like: Spoiler:
Show
The fighter gets 1 fatigue point per level that he can spend on combat maneuvers. At the end of an encounter, a fighter may spend a minute to catch his breath and regain all his fatigue points.
At level 1, a wizard can cast Sleep once per day. At level 1, a fighter can combine the effects of an attack and a bull rush once per encounter using that fatigue point.
At 3rd level, the wizard can cast 3 spells per day including a Sleep. The rogue can select a new maneuver “Knockout” that costs 3 fatigue points and allows the rogue to knock out an opponent using a sap.
At 13th level, a wizard can cast 3 spells of level 6 or higher, including Disintegrate. The fighter can select a new maneuver “Decapitating Strike” that costs 13 fatigue points and allows the fighter to make an attack that potentially can kill his opponent.
This is just a quick and dirty example but you get the overall idea. Maybe 1 fatigue per level is no good. Maybe it should be something similar to what you have with 3.5 psionics except that you divide the daily power points by 5 to obtain your power points per encounter. I really don’t care to be honest, as long as the fighters and rogues are fun to play too. Anyways, I hope I managed to convince the vancian haters that it doesn't have to be broken.
|
|
|
|
1 year ago ::
Apr 06, 2012 - 11:47AM
#2
|
Date Joined:
Apr 23, 2009
|
@Gnarl
Bless you for trying Gnarl and your ideas for a new system seem interesting. Your defenses of vancian in general were not as good but hey I'm with you bud.
I am leaving now though because I smell the discernable scent of a fireball approaching. Good luck my man.
|
|
|
|
1 year ago ::
Apr 06, 2012 - 11:54AM
#3
|
|
|
I understand the desire to defend vancian-style casting.
But to be honest, many groups did have problems with the wizard/fighter disparity.
High int granted extra spells but high str didn't grant extra attacks. Fighters extra attacks required them to remain stationary and nearly always missed.
Higher caster level added damage to spells (fireballs, etc). But higher levels didn't add damage to fighters attacks.
Evards tentacles locked down a group in a single action. 3rd ed grappling was like doing your taxes.
4th wasn't a fraud. It was a sincere response to address certain problems.
I've played every edition thoroughly and had my most fun in 3rd and 4th.
I have found each edition better than its predecessor.
That said. I like your fixes - but I don't like fatigue points per se.
Then again, I never saw a problem with "encounter exploits."
|
|
|
|
1 year ago ::
Apr 06, 2012 - 12:19PM
#4
|
Date Joined:
May 28, 2003
|
@Gnarl
If I'm reading you correctly, you're suggesting that all classes get at-wills that scale with level, while non-casters get the equivalent of encounter powers with no dailies and casters get Vancian spells but no encounter powers.
This is an improvement over pre-4e mechanics, but still problematic.
A basic attack with a push (or whatever level-appropriate effect) is not even close to having the encounter-winning power of a Sleep (or whatever) spell. And even if fighter maneuvers were balanced with wizard spells, giving one an encounter power mechanic while giving another a daily mechanic requires a relatively narrow range of encounters per day to remain balanced.
The other problem with Vancian spellcasting as a whole is that the preparation mechanic leads to HUGE amounts of decision paralysis. Which spells do I prepare today? What mix of combat and utility spells? How many of each spell? This was the main reason lots of people (including me) couldn't stand playing a wizard back in the day. Even playing a cleric or druid was annoying (though being able to swap spell slots for heals or summons helped a bit; my druid in 3.5 wound up putting most of his spell slots into a standard set of animal companion buffs and letting his dire wolf pet go to town). Being free from that decision paralysis (while still being able to throw down big spells) meant that 4e was the first edition I had fun playing a wizard.
|
|
|
|
1 year ago ::
Apr 06, 2012 - 12:25PM
#5
|
Date Joined:
May 20, 2011
|
Fact 1: Ok, true, but not coompletely. True they had a lot of spells at high level, and they basicaly became at will powers, but there are some things I disagree. With your analysis you assumed fighting to last for 5 round each. And it can be as false as religion for an atheist. It all depend. In my experience we hardly ever reached 5 fights a day, but all of our fight were thought and lasted much more than 5 round, and, after the day was over, we either faced no fight at all, or more than 25 rounds. This said, low level spell when you reach high lever are of very, very little utility in combat. You came to say me that any spell lower than 4th level, in a battle of c.r. 20 or more, is actualy going to make any difference?
Fact 2: This is mere a personal opinion. Call it unluck with master's save or what you want, but i always found save or die mechanic unreliable. High dc were backed by fearsome high saves from most of high level monsters. The problems can came from no save spells or sometimes too strong support ones. Damaging spells were ridicoulus in my opinion, I'm not even going to onsider them. Usefull only in case of loads of weak opponents.
Then, if you are a fighter, what else could you do over than swinging your weapon? If you want to make a fighter as the idea of a medieval warrior (as it was) then there isn't much more you can do.
As for the solution I've something to say as well:
1: You want to balance a wizard and consider at will spells? Am I the only one who see contradittion in this? And, furthermore, I dislike at will spells over than 0 level ones.
3: what? It's the same old thing: wizard can teleport so I want my fighter to teleport too. I see no sense in this. You role a fighter? Than you are cool at fighting and damage dealing, but no funny effect like hipnotyze an enemy. If you pick a barbarian I do not belive you want to be skilled socialy and if you pick a bard you know fighting isn't your thing. So if you pick a fighter all you have is fighting, and maybe some use of diplomacy if your fighter comes from nobles etcetera. Thow there can be some interesting things a fighter can do, you can give him moves to disarm and opponent, to hurt him in some particoular body part to give a malus, like you aim to the leg and he gets a move penality, but I belive they should be not detached from the sword swinging thing.
If you want to have more with a fighter make a good character that gives rolistic satisfaction. That's how I see it.
4: Better, since forgetting them is just a rolistic nonsence just make them so in high levels re useless. Otherwise it's like I'm a mathematician and as I learn new and more advanced theories I forget the bases, like the addition.
5: This is because you see wizard as a fighting stuff. I'd prefer no combat utility and out of the combat spells. That's all a matter of what you think magic should do.
|
|
|
|
1 year ago ::
Apr 06, 2012 - 12:27PM
#6
|
Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2010
|
Regarding linearity, yes 1d6 per caster level is linear. But what's not linear is a 3.5 caster's total power level, because in addition to the 1d6 per caster level increase in each spell's power you also get more spells. Linearity can be achieved if the spells don't get more powerful when the caster levels up. At that stage, the caster increases in power through access to more powerful spells, but not an increase in the power of spells already available.
If you misunderstand relationships like this, your overall conclusions will inevitably be incorrect, though I do approve of the overall goal. Many of the criticisms of Vancian systems (such as 5-minute workday) are present in any system with resource management, so they have to be dealt with regardless. Most of the rest of the criticisms are largely due to the fact that balance, linearity, and all those other 4e-style design goals weren't design goals for previous systems. That there hasn't been a balanced Vancian system should not be a surprise because none of them even attempted to be balanced. And lack of proof that Vancian can be balanced is not the same thing as proof of lack.
D&D Next = D&D: Quantum Edition
|
|
|
|
1 year ago ::
Apr 06, 2012 - 12:34PM
#7
|
|
|
If I'm reading you correctly, you're suggesting that all classes get at-wills that scale with level, while non-casters get the equivalent of encounter powers with no dailies and casters get Vancian spells but no encounter powers.
More importantly, I'm suggesting that a fighter's encounter power should be as powerful or more powerful than a caster's vancian spell.
The only added value of the vancian caster is versatility but the cost of this versatility is that you might not have the option when you need it.
A basic attack with a push (or whatever level-appropriate effect) is not even close to having the encounter-winning power of a Sleep (or whatever) spell. And even if fighter maneuvers were balanced with wizard spells, giving one an encounter power mechanic while giving another a daily mechanic requires a relatively narrow range of encounters per day to remain balanced.
You start with a push at level 1 because a fighter that can use a sleep maneuver once per encounter is not exactly balanced compared to a wizard that can cast sleep once per day. But the moment the wizard has enough spell slots to be able to cast sleep once per encounter (i.e. 5 times per day), then the fighter should be able to use his sleep maneuver once per encounter.
And since I think versatility is worth a lot, I think that by the time the wizard can cast sleep 3 times per day (not even once per encounter), the fighter should be able to use his sleep maneuver once per encounter.
The other problem with Vancian spellcasting as a whole is that the preparation mechanic leads to HUGE amounts of decision paralysis. Which spells do I prepare today? What mix of combat and utility spells? How many of each spell? This was the main reason lots of people (including me) couldn't stand playing a wizard back in the day.
That's why it's important to have other classes that don't use the vancian mechanism.
Being free from that decision paralysis (while still being able to throw down big spells) meant that 4e was the first edition I had fun playing a wizard.
The decision paralysis is because you have to chose between your 'good options' and 'no option'. If your only choice is cool option (encounter/vancian spell) vs. boring but as effecient option (at-will), then you don't have decision paralysis. Either it's the right moment to use your cool spell and you use it, if you don't see any use for any of your spells, you just attack with your at-will.
|
|
|
|
1 year ago ::
Apr 06, 2012 - 12:46PM
#8
|
|
|
But to be honest, many groups did have problems with the wizard/fighter disparity.
Not a vancian problem. It's a class design problem. Why did the game designers think that having a fighter with boring infinite swings was fun to play?
High int granted extra spells but high str didn't grant extra attacks.
Not a vancian problem.
The extra spells was a failed attempt to avoid the 5-minute work day problem at lower levels.
Fighters extra attacks required them to remain stationary and nearly always missed. Higher caster level added damage to spells (fireballs, etc). But higher levels didn't add damage to fighters attacks.
Not a vancian problem.
I agree with you though. All of these are a problem that are solved by giving the fighter something fun to do.
Evards tentacles locked down a group in a single action. 3rd ed grappling was like doing your taxes.
That spell certainly needs a fix. Having a saving throw every round should probably do the trick.
But once again, this is not a problem related to vancian magic.
4th wasn't a fraud. It was a sincere response to address certain problems.
I wouldn't dare say that of 4th edition. What is a fraud is people that basically say: "stop bitching gnarl, you have vancian spellcasting in 4th edition. Look you have 10 spell slots at level 30 and you get to choose between 2 spells for each of these slots". That's not satisfying at all for an old school vancian magic lover and that's what I called a fraud.
That said. I like your fixes - but I don't like fatigue points per se. Then again, I never saw a problem with "encounter exploits."
I have a hard time explaining why encounter powers work like that. I also have a hard time explaining the recharge mechanisms of Tome of Battle. Back then I was so happy to finally have something fun to do with a melee guy that I didn't really mind.
But if I have to choose between no option and weird mechanics, I choose weird mechanics. If I have to choose between believable mechanics and weird mechanics, I choose believable.
|
|
|
|
1 year ago ::
Apr 06, 2012 - 1:12PM
#9
|
Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2010
|
But to be honest, many groups did have problems with the wizard/fighter disparity.
Not a vancian problem. It's a class design problem. Why did the game designers think that having a fighter with boring infinite swings was fun to play?
Lack of imagination, mostly.
What a high-level fighter should be:
D&D Next = D&D: Quantum Edition
|
|
|
|
1 year ago ::
Apr 06, 2012 - 1:14PM
#10
|
|
|
Regarding linearity, yes 1d6 per caster level is linear. But what's not linear is a 3.5 caster's total power level, because in addition to the 1d6 per caster level increase in each spell's power you also get more spells. Linearity can be achieved if the spells don't get more powerful when the caster levels up. At that stage, the caster increases in power through access to more powerful spells, but not an increase in the power of spells already available.
Your total damage per day is finite and increases quadratically with level. That's true.
In any encounter where you will be able to cast one spell per round, your average damage per spell is 1d6
damage per level and that's linear.
I'm saying that if you assume that the wizard doesn't stop and shouldn't stop when he runs out of spells, then it's quadratic, if you assume that the wizard stops when he's out of spells, then it's linear because your damage per spell scales linearly with level.
If you misunderstand relationships like this, your overall conclusions will inevitably be incorrect, though I do approve of the overall goal.
I'm looking at it from a different perspective. More specifically, I'm looking at what vancian spellcasting looks like if you include an at-will attack that deals 1d6 damage per level.
My thoery is that none of the critics of the vancian system stand the moment you include an at-will attack that is a viable option.
Many of the criticisms of Vancian systems (such as 5-minute workday) are present in any system with resource management, so they have to be dealt with regardless.
Agreed. And I'm saying that 4th edition did a better job than the other editions because casters always have something to do and fighters finally have something fun to do.
I'm also saying that most of the problems we had in the older editions were not related to the vancian mechanics.
|
|
|
