Interrupting Spellcasters

>>49800213
they cant cast magic when they're dead

>>49800213
Yeah, you go and try to kill a high level wizard in D&D.

>>49800213
Interruptible casting was one of the best parts of older D&D editions. It meant that the caster actually needed the warrior in front of him to keep enemies from interrupting his spell, which meant that you could have higher-power spells without breaking encounter design, because you could give them a long wind-up time that the caster had to be protected for. Now it's basically point-and-click, which renders a large part of the fighter's role invalid, with the other parts being destroyed by Leomund's Tiny Hut or similar.

>>49800367
Yeah, I heard this story before which has prompted this thread. Is there an actual good reason for why they did this? Did gamers complain about it? Was it too cumbersome?

I don't get it.

>>49800399
I think it's due to the same philosophy that Paizo used to make weapon cords useless: magic should be able to do anything, fighty guys should be constrained by physics except in useless situations.

It was also a bit of extra bookkeeping, but there are ways to make it simpler, and instead they decided "fuck it, make the wizard more powerful."

>>49800399

It's pretty much a thing that happened in the shift over to 3E. Wizards of the Coast had just bought this D&D thing, and it's pretty clear looking back that they didn't understand much about it. They tried to treat it like a card game (a la Magic) in some ways, adding "trap options" so that more knowledgeable players would have things about the system to learn and avoid, for example.
Screwing up so that wizards became even more powerful was probably accidental?

>>49800461
>>49800477
Sounds terrible. Why hasn't the player base complained harder to bring this back? Are only the casters left?

>>49800477
This is really just an exaggeration based on something one of the designers tried to explain long after the books were printed that's not wholely true (and, even the designer explained that it's a matter of options being better under more specific circumstances, which is not the same as 'trap options'), but detractors enjoy spinning up as if it was a defining characteristic of the system.

>>49801828
Because it's not really as bad as people like to pretend it is. When actually playing the game, class imbalance is far less dramatic, especially because it's a cooperative game, the DM is quickly able to balance parts of the game on the fly, and also because playing spellcasters takes more effort.

>>49800213
No good reason. But it's not so much bad design as ignorant design, IMO.

In the original design of Vancian magic, the caster spends a fucking long-ass time pre-casting most of a spell, holds the mostly-cast spell in his head (which is HARD, especially when concentrating to hold multiple spells), and when he gets into a fight, finishes casting the less long-ass but still non-trivial remainder of the spell he's been holding.

And this is a thing it's easily, obviously understandable to interrupt.

Then came several generations/iterations/etc of copy-paste from previous edition, new devs not understanding WTF is up with this weird legacy magic system, and "vancian" becoming ever more a fluff term disconnected from its roots as the magic became less Jack Vance and more Harry Potter: say word, wave wand, instant magic. Sometimes you don't even need the word or the wand.

Potterian magic is nowhere near as interruptable as Vancian magic.

As for
>>49801828
>Why hasn't the player base complained harder to bring this back? Are only the casters left?
I'd say it's more like there's only the Harry Potter readers left. It's not the same player base any more, as a generational thing. Everyone's heard "vancian"; but how many have actually read a single book of the Dying Earth? (Published between 1950 and 1984.)

>>49800213

Because players want to be able to do something every turn. If you put a two or three turn casting time on a spell, then that's basically two or three actions in even a long combat. Or one spell in many more routine combats.

It means that a spell you're trying to cast may be no longer relevant in a combat, which means you might waste the spell. If you're interrupted, then you might as well not be in the battle at all, and you're usually depending on another player to cover for you.

Basically, casting times became much quicker so the game would be fun for wizard players. Which reduced the time and effects of spellcasting interruption, which also is a buzzkill. Because even a character who's game-breakingly powerful can be boring or frustrating to play if his player is sucking his own dick for most of the encounter getting ready to whip out his one cool trick.

THe tradeoff is supposed to be that wizards are less gimped by vulnerability than in previous editions, but also less powerful compared to martial characters. In practice, they got the buff but never the balancing nerf.

Remember, keeping the game fun isn't purely about keeping it balanced. It's also about pacing, a feeling that your character can impact the storyline, and keeping every player engaged and active as much as possible. In this case, they fixed one problem but in doing so created a new one.

>>49802206
>there's no trap option guys... right?
It's pretty clear 3e was designed by committee with a lot of executive input.

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>>49802206
>Because it's not really as bad as people like to pretend it is.

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>>49802206
>This is really just an exaggeration

>>49803075
>>49803107
>>49803149
>There's only one game with designer oversight

Wow, a game with an almost overwhelming amount of material doesn't have everything balanced, more at 11.

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>>49802635
>Because players want to be able to do something every turn. If you put a two or three turn casting time on a spell, then that's basically two or three actions in even a long combat. Or one spell in many more routine combats.

This wasn't an issue back then because of the way casting and the turn order worked.

At the beginning of each combat round, participants would roll initiative (using a d6) to determine the order of turns for that round. Many actions worked the way they do today: you decide what to do when your turn comes up. However, if someone wanted to do a special action (like casting a spell or disengaging from melee), he would need to declare that action *before* initiative was rolled for that round, and then it would take effect when his turn came up. In the case of a spell, the caster's spell and action would both be lost if he took any damage or failed any saving throw during casting.

So what happened was that a caster would say "I'm going to cast this spell" at the beginning of the combat round, and then his enemies would notice, and most likely have a brief window to interrupt him before the spell actually happened (unless of course the caster rolled higher initiative than his enemies). It all happened within the same combat round.

The possibility for interruption is one reason why spells were written to be so powerful (I'm looking at you, Sleep): It was quite likely for a spell to be interrupted before it could be cast, so if you got one off it could basically decide the encounter. But a caster could only achieve that if he had people to defend his squishy 1d4 hit point ass during those vulnerable times.

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>>49803199
>trap options totally don't exist guys

>>49803237
It was one of the neat perks of being a bard in 2e; you were usually way harder to hit (and thus interrupt) than the potentially more powerful mage (among other things).

>>49803270
Plus Bards leveled so fast you'd out-power the Wizard at spellcasting for a good chunk of a campaign.

>>49803199

I can almost hear the GURPS fans laughing at your transparent rationalizations.

>>49803241
It's funny, because the Samurai is an example where the class is mechanically weak, but it's still one of the more powerful classes in Oriental Adventures because it comes with a lot of social and political powers.

>>49803458
That's not the OA Samurai.

>>49803408
>transparent rationalizations

What are you even talking about?
Also, if you were unaware, Magic in GURPS also tends to be rather broken, and GURPS has its own wealth of terrible options spread throughout the game.

>>49803458
Yeah that's hilarious.

>>49803494
Well aware, but I was hoping to illustrate that people often leap to conclusions in a rush to decry a system, and there are subtleties to a game that can be often overlooked.

>>49800367
The real thing is that there was no way for the fighting man to actually protect the magic caster, unless the monsters were just being polite. D&D didn't have fucking MMO aggro meters where the monsters must attack this guy before that guy because this guy is closer.

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>>49803535
If only there were some way to have mechanics reflecting defenders (say, shield-bearers) without having aggro meters. Shame that no game has ever come up with such a thing.

>>49803237
There were also spell segments, units of time for how it took a magic user to finish casting the spell. This changed your initiative and sometimes took 2 rounds to get the ppwerful spells off.

In the Gold Box games party order was incredibly important and ambushes very deadly because enemies interrupted you like half the time. Very frustrating for spellcasters but it balanced their great power nicely.

>>49803586
>not D&D
Unless you feel like posting up the full page?
I know there are rules for such formations in later AD&D in terms of armies, but not by the adventuring group.

>>49804171
The point is that it would've been possible for WotC to keep casters at a manageable power level and incentivize party balance, rather than doing what they did and causing the power of casters to spike. Although now that you mention it, I might make an OSR game that uses that rule, in a modified form.

>>49803535
4e did it

>>49800367
>>49803237
Man, this sounds pretty nice. It's kind of a shame that 5e didn't bring casting times back, what with their whole "go back to D&D's roots" schtick.

I mean, the idea of casting times kind of just makes sense. It also offers incentives to use your lower level spells even when high level spells are available: sometimes you just don't have time to get that powerful fireball or whatever off, so a quick firebolt will have to do.

>>49803494
I actually ran a game in OA where as well as the feats I allowed characters to gain access to BoNS maneuvers depending upon their clan. It was actually rather fun.

>>49800213
Here's some food for thought. The game started doing the caster supremacy thing when it was bought by a company called "Wizards of the coast".

>>49803107
Man, i wanted to use truenamer so badly, but its so poorly put together that its obvious whoever wrote it barely cared.

So me and my DM are ruling out the more exhorbitant "Fuck yous" to the class and making it a bit more viable.

>>49803241
Honestly, the biggest issue with samurai is how its worded.

Most of its class abilities give you feat-type abilities, but its only for "when you use katana and wakizashi". That means they can't be used for PrC's, because its not the actual feat.

Take out that caveat and i actually like their skill set.

>>49802635
that's a really good point about pacing. however... isn't it kinda okay, if a really powerful spell takes 2 turns to cast?

>>49808131
>It's kind of a shame that 5e didn't bring casting times back, what with their whole "go back to D&D's roots" schtick.

An interested GM could bring it back using a modified version of speed factor initiative.
>reroll initiative at start of each combat round
>characters must declare all non-reaction spellcasting and disengage actions before that initiative roll is made (I think it's fair to make players name the spells they wish to begin casting, but let them can change their targets or other specifics at will).
>Other actions do not need to be declared in advance.
>When someone declares spellcasting, this fact is immediately known to combatants who can hear or see him casting, though they might not know exactly what spell it is
>spell's level applies as a penalty to the caster's initiative roll (3rd level spell = -3 to initiative). Only the highest level spell applies. Cantrips do not penalize initiative.
>The spell takes effect at any point of the caster's choosing during his turn (i.e. a caster may take movement or other actions before finishing his spell), or after (treat as readied action).
>If the caster takes any damage or fails a saving throw before his spell takes effect, he must make a concentration save as normal for each spell (con save, DC = half the damage taken or 10, whichever is higher)
>On a failure the spells do not take effect, any spell slots involved are expended, and any actions or bonus actions he would have spent casting them are wasted. A character with War Caster may retain those actions and re-purpose them for other things like dashing or attacking.

For simplicity, I recommend leaving out other modifications to initiative, such as weapon type or creature size, as I find those to be quite cumbersome in play. I'd also strongly recommend that combatants not be required to declare other actions such as attacking or movement: unless a character is casting a spell or disengaging from melee, he can change his mind during the round.

>>49803535
>The real thing is that there was no way for the fighting man to actually protect the magic caster, unless the monsters were just being polite. D&D didn't have fucking MMO aggro meters where the monsters must attack this guy before that guy because this guy is closer.
Naw, man. 2e's positioning rules were were left entirely up to the DM's discression and qualitative judgement based on the role-play of the characters. For example, "backstab" required the rogue to be "behind" the target, though there were no hard and fast rules about facing, or what that even meant.... that was up to effective role-playing, and convincing the DM your plan was good. I imagine the physically large fighter putting himself physically in-front of the physically small mage was similarly handled..... actually I don't imagine, that's exactly how my DM handled it back then.

TLDR: we were perfectly capable of dealing with things like that through common-sense-judgement-positioning (it DID sometimes devolve into child-tier "nu-uh" battles)

>>49800213
In my ideal game casting spells in combat would be more difficult than it is in d20, but spellcasters would have more to do when not casting spells.

>>49809573
such as?

>>49804670
I use a mechanic for defending in my homebrew system.

Basically you can make an "attack" roll to parry an attack aimed at a friendly, if you have the appropriate skill.

There's no spell interruption (turn order is attacking party 1st counting down DEX scores), but since you risk breaking some items when defending with them...

I also have spellcasting require the use of a pre-prepared arcane device, so spellcasters can be disarmed and need to be able to aim the device in order to cast.

Honestly, just saying something like "[caster] takes a -4 penalty when not using a wand or staff" would curb caster power a lot. The ability to effectively "disarm" a caster class would add tactical options on how to disable them, and a (weaker) class immune to disarming could be an alternative.

>>49809537
I think he means that there is no way for an intelligent foe to be prevented from bypassing a shield man in front, either mechanically or thematically, especially if insetting, the threat a mage presents is a known thing.

>>49808753
That barely matters and no one would actually rule that you don't qualify - the rules themselves actually say that conditional qualification works but you lose every feature as soon as you stop qualifying.

The biggest issue is that it's just a Fighter with feats pre-selected to mostly bad options. Being totally fucking outclassed by one of the game's worst classes is some of the most extremely bad design even possible, no ifs ands or buts about it.

arent only combat spells really uninterruptible because you cast it quickly, you can interrupt spells with minute-long castings times i think, ando anything with concentration

>>49802267
Read it long before I heard the term Vancian Magic. Having played D&D and seeing the Dying Earth publication date it was a bit hard not to see that D&D had ripped a lot of Vance's ideas with Excellent Prismatic Spray and IOUN stones running around the novel. But I think even the early D&D uses were quite far removed in practise if not in also theory. I know a lot of people when playing D&D overlooked or raced by the act of studying spell books for hours to memorise so that while wizards had terrible hit points at early levels, they became far too powerful at midlevels because:

Day 1: start with full memorisation load, go adventuring, encounter situations, cast all spells, successful day

Day 2: more adventuring, more encounterings, cast all spells again because somehow found time before adventurings and encounterings and after taking 2 hour watch and getting at most only 6 hours of sleep after a big day 1 and leaving camp straight after breakfast to still memorise full spell load ready for first encounter.

Then there was a huge disregard for material components with magic users not being walking apothecary shops and casting spells in while crushing a 5000 GP jewel in their fingers whenever they wanted.

>>49809888
Thematically it's easy to argue against. Race past the guy with the shield & sword facing towards the guy behind him. Get stabbed in the nethers by enemy now behind you.

yeah, yeah, then he gets attacked in the back by your friend who was behind you except he's probably heading for the spellcaster too

>>49809174
Combat moves fast. The spell might not suit the situation 2 turns later

>>49810357
what's wrong with introducing a little risk? if the players have the choice between cantrip now and meteor strike in 2 rounds, they have an actual choice to make. it prevents going for the clearly more powerful spell every time.

>>49810496

Yeah, by raw in 2e, you have to target your fireball spell at the beginning of the round, and if the enemies have moved by the time your initiative comes up, tough shit.
OTOH, most folks I knew allowed a mage to move the target point while casting anyway. Because by RAW that's pretty harsh. Still, it's great when you're fighting evil wizards to be able to scatter when he starts casting a meteor storm or something.

>>49809888
>no way for an intelligent foe to be prevented from bypassing a shield man in front

If your mage is running into a dungeon with only one or two people functioning as his personal bodyguard, then that's a risk he has to take. If he can surround himself with some NPC flunkies or hench-people (forming a demihuman wall between mage and monster), then his life gets a little easier.

>>49810496
The more powerful spell has limited uses. If it was limited uses and made you useless for several rounds while rhe battlefield changed up enough to render your spell needless anyway, no one would ever use them and you'd just end up with cantrip spam.

>>49813254
>give the mage his own npc protectors in addition to reality warping cosmic power
This is how they made the fighter obsolete in the first place

>>49816079

No, they gave the mage ways to protect himself. Hiring a bunch of flunkies was a thing from the earliest editions, but a flunky, while cheap, is a poor substitute for a Fighter.

>>49816180
And to convince someone to follow you into a dungeon, you usually need to offer a (smaller) share of treasure, so it can get more expensive than it sounds.

>>49803509
>using magic in gurps
>using gurps for anything other than grandios gun toting adventures in space

>>49815987
you don't know that. against powerful enemies, it's a risk as a spell-caster that you have to take.