D&D General What Should Magic Be Able To Do, From a Gameplay Design Standpoint?

Reynard · Wednesday at 2:15 AM

What magic can do in a fantasy setting in general, or in a D&D like setting in particular, is a complicated conversation.

What I would like to do is narrow that conversation a little bit and focus a discussion here on what D&D magic should be able to do or accomplish specifically in the hands of PC casters, and specifically from a game design standpoint with an eye toward balance and playability.

Note that I am tagging this D&D general but I understand we are likely to discuss this primarily from a 5E perspective because it is the current game and one that is very hackable. But we can also certainly talk about it with regards to earlier editions, retroclones, and adjacent systems.

I feel like there are a couple schools of thought folks might fall into, summed up broadly as "Anything, but not very often" and "Damage and status effects." I feel like utility spells are generally the most controversial and lead to discussions about spotlight stealing, among other things.

I don't want this discussion to be too focused on the traditional debate about casters versus martials, although that is going to come up. I am more interested in what role folks see D&D magic as filling in the game design and play experience, and by extension what that looks like in a theoretical PHB.

Scribe · Wednesday at 2:33 AM

I think if there is little to no risk or opportunity cost, utility needs to be very tightly controlled, so as to give other classes room to breath.

As this is D&D General tagged, I'll just say that I prefer Magic (Wiz/Sorc) to fall under.

1. Damage.
2. Control.
3. Teleport.

Thats kind of it.

I dont like it as Utility, as 'Social' and I dont like it as a buff to self in regards to 'look at me, look at me, I'm the Fighter now.' type stuff outside of specifics like Bladesinger, but even that they got wrong recently.

Pedantic · Wednesday at 4:09 AM

I'm firmly in the "anything" school, but I'd prefer it be significantly better distributed. The Wizard spell list already could easily support 7-8 classes. It would hardly be D&D if it couldn't support the basic utility of stoneshape, invisibility, and summon monster, but I don't particularly think that should all be the domain of a single class.

I want players to have weird abilities and be constantly looking for edges to push to exploit them. Magic is most interesting when you have a set of niche abilities you have to leverage against problems, and you're hacking together a plan using a rock with silence cast on it and an animated rope.

Hussar · Wednesday at 4:28 AM

Personally? I would LOVE to see magic get reined WAAAAAY back in. There are far too many spells that negate the need for planning or though. And it goes all the way back to the early days of the game. Why did we get spells like "Continual Light"? Well, because back in the day, gaming was mostly dungeon crawling and time keeping was a major thing. So, it meant that as you delved deeper into the dungeon, you needed a light source. Tracking light was fun for a while, but, it became a chore, so, out comes Continual Light and we no longer need to track light sources.

The fact that a permanent, non-heat generating light source would massively warp a game world wasn't even a consideration because, back then, no one really cared about world building to much of an extent. That all came later.

Of course, back in the day, the easiest solution to limiting all these kinds of spells was simply the fact that casters just didn't get that many spells to begin with. Not a lot of clerics are going to take Create Water over Cure Light Wounds. So on and so forth.

But, now, with casters gaining so much versatility and choices in how they cast spells, all those limits have been removed. And the fact that so many of the spells are just too damn useful means that they get used over any other choice.

IMO, the spell list for casters needs to be pared down to about 6 spells per spell level.

James Gasik · Wednesday at 5:36 AM

I don't really think that spells themselves are the problem- it becomes quite a chore to justify why a spellcaster can do X but not Y. Personally, the big problem is being able to swap out your spell list easily.

Look at the Sorcerer class. They get very few spells that have to be carefully chosen. Take a useful utility spell? Then you do without another spell. Niche spells become very difficult to justify, so you select only those ones that are useful most of the time.

I remember a conversation I had with someone griping about Goodberry in modern D&D and I was like "now wait a minute, that's been a Druid spell since AD&D! How come it's a problem now, and it wasn't back then?"

And his reply was simply that 2nd-level Druid spells (which Goodberry was at the time), were generally as many Cure Light Wounds as you could cast (since CLW was a 2nd-level spell for Druids)! The opportunity cost for having Goodberry meant there was little magical healing you could provide!

If we didn't have modern Clerics and Druids able to swap their spell lists around daily, that would cut back a lot of issues, I think. As for Wizards, since it takes time + money + opportunity to greatly expand their spell lists, I don't think it's as big a deal for them to be able to swap spells around, but YMMV.

TheSword · Wednesday at 8:24 AM

1. Single person damage (limited to less than a competent martial)
2. Area damage
3. Buff - limited largely by concentration
4. Debuff - limited largely by concentration
5. Utility - lightly limited but able to fill gaps in a party.
6. Battlefield control - usually limited by concentration
7. Entrenchment - wardings that come with material costs.
8. Information gathering - methods learning about the world
9. Healing/de-debuffing - To keep PCs going
10. Reality reshaping - spells that change the world - reverse gravity etc that make the world a bit bizarre.

All of these things should be possible with magic in my opinion.

They should be limited in uses. Scrolls and potions should be tightly controlled. There’s nothing wrong with being able to craft them but it should be expensive and time consuming. Staff similarly should focus on regular use powers than gimmicks.

Never never never give out a Rod of Absorption in any but the most gonzo campaigns - it destroys spell slot balance.

James Gasik · Wednesday at 11:00 AM

TheSword said:
3. Buff - limited largely by concentration

A question about this one. Ever since most buffs became concentration in 5e, I've noticed very little buff casting from my casters, as they always have better things to do with concentration. Which means that the non-spellcasters receive very few buffs, which used to be a big deal in older editions. Have you had a different experience, or are you concerned about self-buffing?

GobHag · Wednesday at 11:32 AM

TheSword said:
1. Single person damage (limited to less than a competent martial)
2. Area damage
3. Buff - limited largely by concentration
4. Debuff - limited largely by concentration
5. Utility - lightly limited but able to fill gaps in a party.
6. Battlefield control - usually limited by concentration
7. Entrenchment - wardings that come with material costs.
8. Information gathering - methods learning about the world
9. Healing/de-debuffing - To keep PCs going
10. Reality reshaping - spells that change the world - reverse gravity etc that make the world a bit bizarre.

All of these things should be possible with magic in my opinion.

They should be limited in uses. Scrolls and potions should be tightly controlled. There’s nothing wrong with being able to craft them but it should be expensive and time consuming. Staff similarly should focus on regular use powers than gimmicks.

Never never never give out a Rod of Absorption in any but the most gonzo campaigns - it destroys spell slot balance.

Everything execpt 10(maybe) should also be something that non-magic can do.

DEFCON 1 · Wednesday at 11:35 AM

To me, magic is technology. So if the game is going to have the ability to allow spellcasters to cast spells at 7th, 8th, 9th levels of power... then there's really nothing that shouldn't be able to be accomplished via magic.

Because to me it makes absolutely no sense to remove basic magic utility such that not a single magician out there somewhere would not create a way to comprehend other people's languages or let them walk faster... while at the same time the ability to plane shift was available to them if they just studied hard. Once people learn they can bend reality to suit their needs via the ability to Wish for things... there's no reason why mundane functionality would not exist. Magic builds on itself. If we are allowing Plane Shift in the Spells section, then we we absolutely should see Misty Step, Dimension Door, Teleportation Circle, and Teleportation in it as well... as the "technology" of magic shows the evolution of magicians building up their abilities to eventually porting to different worlds.

If it was me and I felt the proliferation of magic was really an issue... I would personally create individual spell lists for every class and subclass that might only give a handful of spells of each level. But I'd make sure to do it across the board for every single caster so that every potential caster at my table has only those spells available in the game that I would personally want to see able to be played. But I'd never ask WotC make those choices for me (or anyone else).

Shardstone · Wednesday at 11:40 AM

Are we talking Magic and not Spells? Then it should have no limits and should be continually sprinkled on all classes.

D&D General What Should Magic Be Able To Do, From a Gameplay Design Standpoint?

Reynard

aka Ian Eller

Scribe

Legend

Pedantic

Legend

Hussar

Legend

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun

TheSword

Legend

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun

GobHag

Adventurer

DEFCON 1

Legend

Shardstone

Hero

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