Pure magic users' superiority in RPG's

[Mrowak]

Well, several posts have already mentioned that magic should have its own unique challenges in its implementation (casting) to balance power, rather than going the 4th ed. route of just renaming powers and making everyone in a party generic.

One magic system that I'd like to see is one where spells are tied to the geography of the battlefield. A lot of beliefs in magic, particularly pagan ones, subscribe to this idea. Where you are casting is often more important than components or words. Magic draws power from the universe, hence it makes sense that some places within that universe emanate more power than others. Rather than have components or knowledge of spells be the primary ingredients of spells, why not the area and items in the area where you are casting them?

For example, a wizard and his party ends up fighting in a forest. The spells available to the wizard should be nature related--manipulating trees, controlling animals, shaping the earth. The same spells won't be available to the wizard should he find himself, say in a desert or even within a city. This is not a system that just adds bonuses to spells in a certain area, but rather, the spells available to a wizard is actually determined by his surroundings.

Spirits might even be present in an area to grant very powerful spells should the wizard recognize their presence--however, they require difficult or debilitating bargains with the spellcaster in order to grant boons. They might require the sacrifice of a spellcaster's powerful item or even a fellow party member's life in exchange for truly powerful spells.

I think this could even promote better gameplay, as a wizard should always adapt to his surroundings, instead of spamming the same spells everytime.

THIS!!!

Damn, it would be a fine game to implement such magic ruleset correctly. Somehow I see it particularly fitting for more oriental settings (though by no means limited to), with their more spiritual perception of places, landscapes, their attatchment to purity of ritual etc. I'm totally buying a miko, shugenja or yamabushi performing rituals associated with the immediate surroundings and getting effects according to their location. This also could be taken much further by taking into account taking specific time of the day (e.g. a spell being most powerful exactly at midnight and weakest or most dangerous to cast at noon). It be even more demanding if you'd have 'pay respect' to some local deity before even being able to think about doing magic.

I would love to see a game having this mechanic though one would have to think about ways to introduce some spell variety. Perhaps a branch taken from a holy tree could be used to create a wand which then could be used to cast a limited number of forest-related magic.

Anyway, I like the idea

 

[Tycn]

didn't play betrayal at krondor, but what you're saying it's been done. I wonder why it isn't used more

Play it faggot. Now.

 

[sheek]

Aside from that, it smacks of absurdity that a mage capable of summoning an 8000 lb celestial bird to shatter a castle can't light a candle on a whim if he didn't memorize the proper spell that morning.

Lighting a candle is a cantrip.

 

[Mrowak]

Eh, all those first level slots wouldn't break anything. You can already cast 6th level spells. Anything that is a remote challenge for level 4-6 spells isn't going to be scratched by level 1 spells. At 11th level, even a frail wizard can beat the fuck out of a goblin in melee. Doing it in style with a sheet of fire isn't going to change much.

Actually they would. You vastly underestimate the power of 1st level spells especially in the hands of a high level magician. 11th level wizard able to cast 75 magic missiles a day (15 spell slots + 5 missiles per cast for a 11 level spell-caster) is gamebreaking.

Also you can say that 11lvl wizard could beat the crap of the goblin in melee - true... provided that you are in full protective gear and have spells cast upon you and the goblin is at least 5 levels lower than you. And if the goblin has a company... - you get the picture. That 1st level spell out of the sudden could save your sorry exsistence in a nick of a second.

If you can throw a fireball that ignites all the air in a 20'x20'x20' space, it stands to reason you can just as easily light 1000 separate candles one by one. The two tasks should require similar amounts of effort.

Not necessarily. Again you see a spell as a utility. You think, 'if I am able to summon a ball of fire just like that, it stands to reason I should be powerful enough to ignite those 1000 candles'. And indeed you are. But only if you memorise spell called 'Lighting 1000 candles'. Otherwise it would be like using flamethrower to do so - it's just something not feasible with the fireball spell you have. In D&D lore memorising spell amounts to giving it concrete shape and purpose. The spell summoning circle in your brain I wrote about earlier defines the spell function before it's cast. You cannot change it on the fly just because you want to.

By comparison we could say that having napalm in your stash should be enough to ignite 1000 candles. Yes, it is enough, but definitely not one by one, and the effects would not be exactly what you wanted

Another comparison - you have a rocket launcher. It is specifically designed for blowing shit up. Having such an advanced device does not mean you can make a small crack on the wall with it you need for some reason though it might indicate that you are technologically capable of achieving this feat through some other means.

As it stands, the first task requires a level 5 wizard, and the second requires an army of wizards, or a single wizard with an intelligence score numbering in the hundreds of at least level 17 or so. (Since levels, for some retarded reason, stop granting additional slots beyond 4 in a level.)

The keyword here is precision. Tapping into raw power and using it to your ends is easier than shaping it into something more practical and refined.

There are plenty of ways to make spellcaster have limitations without causing some weird situation like the above. School specializations, more tangible costs to using magic, limiting the spells available all make much more sense than some arbitrary spell slot system.

Yes, and a good GM will do all of these. After all, wizards in D&D ARE too powerful and you need someone to limit your lust for power. And again, I fail to see what's wrong with the situation above. To me it's certainly better than herp-a-derp mana-cooldown system most other games use. But I also have to confess though I like the idea Redeye came up with.

Where a guy with a torch can light more candles by the end of the day than the mage who can burn down a village in an instant.

Feasibility and precision. And planing. You could light your candles if you 1) take a torch and go light up each candle like every mortal would do 2) have a spell called 'Lighting 1000 candles' committed to your memory 3) have a scroll/wand/staff you made earlier with the said spell thinking ahead of the time that there might be a rare but important occassion you could need that.

 

[Johannes]

The concept of having an option to take something that's weak early but gets absurd power later is a bad design in a conventional RPG, it's the opposite of how a games difficulty should evolve. Sure inevitably different party setups will have more or less difficult time in different phases of the game anyway, but that's not something you should actively pursue

We were comparing power between fighters and casters at varying levels. Making a mage more powerfull than a fighter at later levels != an easier game. Ideally a game would be easy for a party of fighters in the early levels and then become very, very hard later. A party of casters would have a very, very hard time early on and a rather easy time later. A balanced party would start with a nice challenge. That challenge would increase as time goes by but would never become painfully hard.

I understood what was discussed.

But as I said balancing party composition shouldn't have a goal of deciding when the difficult point of the game is. A good party with mix of warriors, mages, thieves, whatever should be good because it works better than a more 1-dimensional party throughout the game. Not because with such party you just get the difficulty curve the developer intended.

 

[Norfleet]

Exactly, the mage plays completely differently, uses different skills, different tactics, has different strengths and weaknesses but is just like the warrior or rogue...

Well, there's also the playstyle where you beat the entire game wearing every cursed item you find, and kill everything with your BARE HANDS. As the mage. You haven't truly played Diablo until you've killed Diablo himself, on the Hell difficulty, from top to bottom, wearing only cursed items, with only your BARE HANDS.

 

[Mangoose]

Half of this thread is dumb.

Good argument: Magic should much more utility than simple doing damage that any warrior or rogue can do.

Bad argument: Don't like how magic works in this game/setting because it doesnt amke logical sense wahhhh

 

[Damned Registrations]

And where does the 'spells slots are shit because they aren't balanced with the level you acquire those spells at' argument? Not enough straw in it to comment on?

Besides, even fantasy needs to have an internal logic. Nobody wants to go through the Epic of Calvinball.

 

[electrolux]

I think there is some fantasising going on about high level D&D MUs from folk that have never actually earned one here.

In D&D I don't care what level (or edition) they are, without a face-wrecking wall of AC-4 in front of them if the MUs aren't fucked you're doing it wrong, end of story.

CRPG magic always has and always will be about damage as long as CRPGs are about carnage (which will be as long as I'm playing them).

I hate systems in which my hardcore kerb-stomper has magic forced down his throat, no thanks. I don't need shiny hands to stop me getting bored of burying an axe in something. When I do put a bullet in me. It's fine for hybrids to exist but magic-for-all systems make me go play something else.

OP: Yes I agree, casters should either
1) Be glass-cannons.
2) Suck at everything and be called 'bards'.

 

[Shannow]

Besides, even fantasy needs to have an internal logic. Nobody wants to go through the Epic of Calvinball.

None of D&Ds rules are logical/make sense. I used to be just like you and bitch about them (ok, I didn't mind the magic but most everything else). Bottom line is: it's a game system. The fluff around it is just that: fluff. It's there to give the game-system context. And complaining about it not being logical is like complaining about certain movements of chess pieces not being logical/realistic. (And considering the recent alternative game systems I'd rather play around in nonsensica,l broken D&D...)
By all means, make suggestions about how to improve the game system (even if that's moot with the advent of 4th ed), but don't try to apply rules that by definition cannot apply without changing the system into something different. It is futile. If you look for internally consistent fantasy settings, look elsewhere. That's of course just a friendly suggestion.

 

[King Crispy]

I'll admit I've never progressed a Magic-User past the low teens in any PnP campaign. I agree that there may be some stretching of the truth ITT as well, but I still think most of the points raised are valid.

I remember reading somewhere in D&D's history, part of some of the early campaigns that were being run by the old founders up in Wisconsin, that their top M-U's had managed to reach the high teens, or possibly even level 20. As you know, this was considered nigh-impossible by early standards and with good reason.

Because things balance-wise were so strictly monitored back then (can you imagine having Gary Gygax as a DM?) I think the scale of their personal power may have been way past just about any of their other heroes, and most if not all of were either whisked away mysteriously to other places or just generally "retired" to political positions.

And again, a Wish is a Wish. Timestop is/was an extraordinarily powerful spell as well and did exist in those rules as did Gate, etc. These are the kind of powers that a fighter of just about any level simply could not deal with; rather these things were world-changers. Now, because of all the reasons mentioned so far in this thread, they either seem commonplace or are thought of as meh anyway.

Maybe some people here can relate how Wishes and other extreme spells were handled in their own campaigns. I'd actually love to read a transcript of how something like that was handled at an actual GenCon in the form of those classic gameplay examples the 1st Ed. AD&D DM Guide had. Probably span about 20 pages?