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Shephard said:
hrm. That actually reminds me. I've been looking for variant/homebrew spellcasting rules for 5E other than the Spellpoints variant. Anyone familiar with any? Only thing I've found is I think some psionics stuff.
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Spell Points seem reasonably balanced, though they give more flexibility with respect to non-scaling low-level spells (e.g. Shield), and a ton of Divine Smite flexibility to Paladins.

Some people feel like Sorcerers are under-powered, and use Spell Points as a mild boost to encourage Sorcerers to take some non-scaling low-level spells.

Shephard said:
Yeah, saw those. Bleedin' new spells. Where's the additional options for martials?
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Elemental Evil would have been a fantastic place to fix the Elemental Monk.

Grumble mumble rabble rabble.
 
jerkface said:
Spell Points seem reasonably balanced, though they give more flexibility with respect to non-scaling low-level spells (e.g. Shield), and a ton of Divine Smite flexibility to Paladins.

Some people feel like Sorcerers are under-powered, and use Spell Points as a mild boost to encourage Sorcerers to take some non-scaling low-level spells.

Elemental Evil would have been a fantastic place to fix the Elemental Monk.

Grumble mumble rabble rabble.
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Yes, I'm actually using a (modified) form of spellpoints in my upcoming homebrew campaign(because seriously, screw spell slots. There is not a single magic system that works like that. :confused:). I was just curious as to any other possibilities.

And it would have been a fantastic place to do...Stuff other than more spells. We have so many spells as is my caster characters are going "Why are there so many?" Couldn't the other classes who need it more have gotten more options instead?
 
Shephard said:
Yes, I'm actually using a (modified) form of spellpoints in my upcoming homebrew campaign(because seriously, screw spell slots. There is not a single magic system that works like that. :confused:).
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Eh? D&D's spell system was in significant part lifted from the Dying Earth novels of Jack Vance.
 
grommile said:
Eh? D&D's spell system was in significant part lifted from the Dying Earth novels of Jack Vance.
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That's not actually true, from what I understand. I've heard it complained repeatedly that the Vancian magic in D&D bears little recognition to the magic in the actual Jack Vance books. At least from what I've heard.
 
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Shephard said:
That's not actually true, from what I understand. I've heard it complained repeatedly that the Vancian magic in D&D bears little recognition to the magic in the actual Jack Vance books. At least from what I've heard.
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DnD added levels to spells, whereas IIRC the original novels just had spells that were mor dangerous to cast, but anyone that knew magic could do it.

DnD just seemed to remove the backfire/dangerous thing from "higher level" spells. Oh, and IIRC save/die spells were easier in Vance's novels.
 
The Imperator said:
DnD added levels to spells, whereas IIRC the original novels just had spells that were mor dangerous to cast, but anyone that knew magic could do it.

DnD just seemed to remove the backfire/dangerous thing from "higher level" spells. Oh, and IIRC save/die spells were easier in Vance's novels.
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Yeah, it seems that Vance still had the "Memorize and forget" thing (though I do't think you used a spellbook for that) but there were substantial differences based on a quick doublecheck. In any case, I'm more interested in any casting variants people have found than discussing Vancian magic...
 
Either way, I'd personally prefer a magic system no one else is doing, so vancian spellcasting is fine by me.
 
Antumbra said:
It has rules for owning land, directing serfs, out of combat actions, raising fortifications, collecting taxes, enchanting magical architecture and making a flying interplanar castle made of walls of force layered with prismatic disintegration fields?
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Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Maybe.

The last isn't essential, but it is amusing. The 3e Stronghold Builders Guide had some fairly straightforward flaws, but it had a lot of potential.
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It doesn't list such things explicitly but building magical stuff is just an extension of basically all other non combat actions.

You get some plans, you take some time, you spend some money. If the DM feels the action is risky, you make a skill check. If all of the above is done you succeed.

So building a flying city would just be the GM assigning a cost and timeframe to it. He'd probably say you need some specific stuff to accomplish it, like an ancient tome explaining the process and some rare reagents so your wizard had an excuse to go explore The Fetid Tunnels of Doom or wherever.
 
On the topic of save or die spells. Does anyone have any houserules on them? My group just hit 20 on our gestalt campaign, and Save or Die spam became a bit of a problem. The way we fixed is by making it where a foe or PC has to fail 4 saves on Save or Die spells in a 1/min period to get dropped instantly.
 
The most common rule I've seen basically breaks them apart and makes most of them save vs unconsciousness-leading-to-death.

So a spell that would usually be save or die will knock you out, and if you aren't treated in some way in 5 rounds, you die. This changes their paradigm a bit, because players who have them can use them to KO enemies MGS style instantly.

The other ones like the 'swallowed up by threshing stone' and shit where you're obviously messily dead immediately are handled differently, namely: they're treated like ranged attacks. The caster has to actually hit you with the spell. It doesn't just 'happen'. So concealment and cover works against them, heavy armor using armor-as-deflection can cause the spells to miss/target the armor, and it becomes much harder to just end someone with them.
 
The Legendary Resistance system from 5E, which is "3/day, if creature fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead".
Yes, you could use that against other spells as well. But given that Save-or-Suck is very much a thing, that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Your system works too against SoDs, of course.
Alternatively, you can either introduce the "Power Word" solution and add a "only if creature is below X HP" clause.
Or just plain make SoDs deal hit-point damage.
 
The thing is that 3e combat is sort of supposed to be that swingy. The general equilibrium such that can exist is people go down to 2-4 rounds of actions from equivalent level opponents and SoD tend to be right on that balance point. If [Death] effects are sort of problematic for long term games. I'd suggest having them reduce people to -1 hp instead, that way they function similarly in combat but don't force PCs to roll new characters.
 
Mistborn said:
The thing is that 3e combat is sort of supposed to be that swingy. The general equilibrium such that can exist is people go down to 2-4 rounds of actions from equivalent level opponents and SoD tend to be right on that balance point. If [Death] effects are sort of problematic for long term games. I'd suggest having them reduce people to -1 hp instead, that way they function similarly in combat but don't force PCs to roll new characters.
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Missing the point. Yes, you can build über-chargers who basically have "AC save or die" since thus deal more HP damage than any non epic thing can possibly have, and D&D combats are supposed to be less than half a minute long by default.

The really issue with save or dies is that they destroy the sense of effectiveness or agency of players who focus on damage dealing. If you put a lot to effort into this game of maneuvring around to hit things and wear down their HP, and someone else comes in playing a different game where he just guesses the enemy's weak save and bam they're dead, it really feels like your effort has been wasted and devalued. Having half the classes play the Hitpoint game, when other classes can just negate the point of the Hitpoint game and just insta-win is terrible, unfun game design. It's a bad idea and 4e getting rid of it was a wonderful thing.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
The really issue with save or dies is that they destroy the sense of effectiveness or agency of players who focus on damage dealing. If you put a lot to effort into this game of maneuvring around to hit things and wear down their HP, and someone else comes in playing a different game where he just guesses the enemy's weak save and bam they're dead, it really feels like your effort has been wasted and devalued. Having half the classes play the Hitpoint game, when other classes can just negate the point of the Hitpoint game and just insta-win is terrible, unfun game design. It's a bad idea and 4e getting rid of it was a wonderful thing.
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I kinda wish 5e had kept the Bloodied mechanic, and tied some spells to it.

Specifically, the save-or-die spells.

Thus, you'd need to beat the BBEG up for a while before your special move even has a chance of working.
 
Ottriman said:
You are assuming some things, that don't work like that in my games. Like the assumption that magic items can readily be made or gained, it simply doesn't work like that in quite a few of my games and thus this makes perfect sense. I do play one setting with the default magic system and that one is mostly the silly Beer and Pretzels games.
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You seems to be confused. My statement was simply about the logic of living a life full of combat in a world where magic items can help you survive combat.

I said nothing about the contents of your game. You can have whatever you like in your games.

But by default, if it is possible to gain advantages in combat by having magic items (or for that matter, by having lemurs) people who expect to see combat are probably going to go to significant effort to secure magic items (or lemurs) for themselves. That's just natural human behavior where we act to ensure our own survival.

D&D is, once again, by default based around a technological world where you use technology (in most settings, magic) to your best advantage. If you don't like that, there are RPG's which don't have this as a basic assumption to both their settings and mechanics, and they will be more mechanically competent for running a game where people don't invest heavily in tools for their trade.

As has been pointed out many times in this thread, D&D is a good mechanical implementation for playing D&D and really not much else. If you want to play low-magic fantasy or political intrigue or shadowrun, D&D mechanics do not necessarily support that very well.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
The really issue with save or dies is that they destroy the sense of effectiveness or agency of players who focus on damage dealing. If you put a lot to effort into this game of maneuvring around to hit things and wear down their HP, and someone else comes in playing a different game where he just guesses the enemy's weak save and bam they're dead, it really feels like your effort has been wasted and devalued. Having half the classes play the Hitpoint game, when other classes can just negate the point of the Hitpoint game and just insta-win is terrible, unfun game design. It's a bad idea and 4e getting rid of it was a wonderful thing.
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No switching from RLT to padded sumo was literally the worst decision 4e made. Making people grind on mobs long after the encounter stopped being interesting sucked clocks, because having fights stretch for 7-9 rounds is just not acceptable when people a manually rolling dice and writing things down. Having the Red Dragon go down in one round because of a lucky roll is just better than the Red Dragon never going down at all because the party all committed Sudoku out of boredom before the fvcking thing was even bloodied.
 
@Mistborn
@Kerrus
@Serafina
Thank you very much for the suggestions.

I'll introduce some of those ideas to the group when we next meet. Getting ganked by a single SoD isn't to much of a problem as its a gestalt game, pretty much everyone has +12 on all saves. It's just the sheer quantity thrown around is problematic. Though its certainly not the GM's fault.

Hell I think we once had five finger of deaths in one round. But hey, we invaded a multidimensional lich 'party boat'. That was kinda expected.
 
Mistborn said:
No switching from RLT to padded sumo was literally the worst decision 4e made. Making people grind on mobs long after the encounter stopped being interesting sucked clocks, because having fights stretch for 7-9 rounds is just not acceptable when people a manually rolling dice and writing things down. Having the Red Dragon go down in one round because of a lucky roll is just better than the Red Dragon never going down at all because the party all committed Sudoku out of boredom before the fvcking thing was even bloodied.
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HP bloat was a problem in 4e, but that's entirely tangential to the problems with 3e's implementation of save or die spells.

You're insistence on turning everything into edition wars is neither charming not helpful. Stahp.

There are plenty of ways of not having encounters drag without having two separate play styles that don't integrate well.
 
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Mistborn said:
No switching from RLT to padded sumo was literally the worst decision 4e made. Making people grind on mobs long after the encounter stopped being interesting sucked clocks, because having fights stretch for 7-9 rounds is just not acceptable when people a manually rolling dice and writing things down. Having the Red Dragon go down in one round because of a lucky roll is just better than the Red Dragon never going down at all because the party all committed Sudoku out of boredom before the fvcking thing was even bloodied.
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Congratulations, you've pointed out that giving monsters 8,000 HP is a fucking waste of time. This is relevant to Save or Die...how?

You realize other RPGs avoid this problem without using insta-win effects, right?
 
MiracleGrow said:
@Mistborn
@Kerrus
@Serafina
Thank you very much for the suggestions.

I'll introduce some of those ideas to the group when we next meet. Getting ganked by a single SoD isn't to much of a problem as its a gestalt game, pretty much everyone has +12 on all saves. It's just the sheer quantity thrown around is problematic. Though its certainly not the GM's fault.

Hell I think we once had five finger of deaths in one round. But hey, we invaded a multidimensional lich 'party boat'. That was kinda expected.
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Anyone remember the system they said they were going to implement in 4e originally, where save or dies were incremental?

Eg, failing the first save against flesh to stone results in some rigidity and mobility loss, giving you a -2 which may eventually wear off on it's own, failing again if they cast it again increases the penalty and requires magical aid to reverse, and failing a third time actually turns you into a stone statue, essentially removing you from play until your friends find a way to fix that.

Makes it rather less antagonistic to the HP system.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
HP bloat was a problem in 4e, but that's entirely tangential the problem with 3e's implementation of save of die spells.

You're insistence on turning everything into edition wars is neither charming not helpful. Stahp.

There are plenty of ways of not having encounters drag without having two separate play styles that don't integrate well.
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If people are keeping up with the leveling treadmill than PC damage should work just fine alongside SoL effects. Like if you actually do the math the saves progression vs DC progression is actually pretty tight and people tend to overestimate the effect of those spells. Once the more blatant SoL effects show up the PCs probably aren't doing enough damage for the game to work but that's a different issue.
 
Mistborn said:
If people are keeping up with the leveling treadmill than PC damage should work just fine alongside SoL effects. Like if you actually do the math the saves progression vs DC progression is actually pretty tight and people tend to overestimate the effect of those spells. Once the more blatant SoL effects show up the PCs probably aren't doing enough damage for the game to work but that's a different issue.
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Are you implyIng there is a standard progression of damage? Because IME that varies greatly with optimization and play style.

But leaving aside that, you are still fundamentally ignoring the issue that players are not playing the same game. One set of players are cooperatively playing a game where they do clever tactical things to reduce enemy hitpoints as much as possible while minimizing loss to their own Hitpoints. The other player walks into their game and disrupts it by changing the nature of the game to "did I pick the right weak save and did the bad guy roll badly?"

It's extremely disruptive on the mechanical, social and narrative levels and is highly likely to ruin someone's fun.
 
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