#2: Things That Go Boom

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/abracadabra/abracadabra2.phtml

Summary:

Thoughts on offensive spellcasting

Go to the column (http://www.rpg.net/columns/abracadabra/abracadabra2.phtml) for more information.

[brianm]

Not as interesting as your inaugural column. I'm not sure you had much to say other than, "Jeez, guys, isn't this a bit out of control?"

And yeah, it is, but why bother with the ability to kill one man with magic missile when you can lay low everyone in the room with sleep? See, it's even worse than you describe.

Magic-users and clerics wreak havoc on all the old tropes of high fantasy. Castles make no sense in a world where people routinely cast fly and stone to mud and dig. What is a locked door to one who commands the forces of knock, teleport, and pass wall?

And that's not even touching the economic consequences of spells like fabricate and plane shift. People just ignore this stuff, knowing that magic is the third rail of campaign construction, and if you touch it, everything falls apart.

That's why I prefer magic to be far less powerful and dangerous. Or at least just dangerous. If you risk having your soul sucked out of your body, or having your bones crushed by some tentacled horror, every time you cast a spell, you're only going to use that sort of power when there are no other options. Yeah, you can go too far and soon nobody wants to play a mage. Finding that happy medium is the trick, as in everything.

- Brian

[Jorgeman]

That's why I prefer magic to be far less powerful and dangerous.

Or out of reach from the PCs, like in Pendragon (http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=198).

[JRM]

I'm surprised nobody pointed out that a D&D fireball covers about ~1250 square feet - it's a 20' radius circle, not a 20' square, so you need to multiply by pi.

Also, in 1st edition the spell had a fixed volume which conformed to any local barriers - the default was a 20' radius sphere, but if you set it against the floor you got a 25' radius hemisphere. That made it dangerous to use in dungeons - it filled 335' of 10' square corridor, and under a 10' ceiling it would expand into a flaming disc of 32' radius. We lost a number of PCs through careless indoor use of fireballs. Ah good days, good days.

Or out of reach from the PCs, like in Pendragon (http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=198).

Aren't there some later editions that allow for PC magic use?

[Geraldine]

I was under the impression, at least from the description of "0th Level" characters in 2nd edition, that the vast, vast majority of people in the world aren't even on par with level 1 PC's.
That being said, wizards who are actually learned and powerful enough to cast stone to mud or dig are going to be very, very rare. Given their scarcity, it'd make more sense to just use conventional methods like siege engines to get things done.
D&D doesn't exactly prepare wizards for stopping damage without a lot of advance notice, either: a "celebrity" arch-mage who becomes court magician for a warlord would probably end up barricading himself in his quarters and casting wards and alarm spells everywhere. Not much of a life, really...
Granted, in 3rd edition, everybody is at least level 1, but if the same rules for gaining XP apply to everybody, then the bartenders, ditch-diggers, and bureaucrats of the world will only gain levels after they've been in a few fights, solved a few particularly vexing mysteries, or something similar. You might get bouncers or city guards with a few levels under their belts, but given the rules on XP and minimum ECL's (you know, once you pass level X, monsters of level Y no longer give XP...), even the most grizzled old watchman will have to fend off some pretty serious threats to the city to keep progressing.
Riots and sieges come to mind.
With all this on the table, that arch-mage mentioned above would have a strong incentive to go off and battle near-legendary foes if he wants to keep getting better at what he does. It wouldn't have to be a strictly linear progression of difficulty, but a series of plateaus, as far as ECL is concerned. One of these days, the scar-faced Captain of the Guard might well feel the call of the road, and decide to set off for tougher challenges.
The number of people who are actually on his level, and who aren't adventurers or monsters or some such, will be pitifully small...
That's another interesting topic that Abracadabra may or may not be able to explore: using D&D "logic" (i.e. rules ideas) and seeing how they apply to day to day life in a fantasy world.