Quote from: Omega;798074Greyhawk added the stat bonuses for Strength and exceptional Strength.

estar said "In OD&D with the three original books"; Greyhawk also changed weapon damage from d6 (daggers were d4, d3 versus larger than man size) and hit dice (so nobody got 10d6 anymore), so Greyhawk couldn't have been included given that context.

Quote from: rawma;798086estar said "In OD&D with the three original books"; Greyhawk also changed weapon damage from d6 (daggers were d4, d3 versus larger than man size) and hit dice (so nobody got 10d6 anymore), so Greyhawk couldn't have been included given that context.

True, but its still pre-AD&D and adds onto/expands OD&D. The elements are there that give the fighter a little more oomph - and at the same time put some limiters on magic users as Greyhawk also introduces Intelligence thresholds for what level spells you can cast.

Quote from: Omega;798089True, but its still pre-AD&D and adds onto/expands OD&D. The elements are there that give the fighter a little more oomph - and at the same time put some limiters on magic users as Greyhawk also introduces Intelligence thresholds for what level spells you can cast.

But it weakened archers, which was my point; they've never recovered the superiority they enjoyed in the first three books.

I think estar's point is served by lots of early versions of D&D, but the strength bonuses and other "oomph" features muddy it up a bit.

(I never played without Greyhawk, but that wasn't because of any deep thought about the content.)

Quote from: jibbajibba;798072This might be a fair point.
The Warlock might be meant to be a magical archer
I think it causes some knock on effects and I can't recall a caster in any source material who does this apart from that ranger on the D&D cartoon and surely that was his magical bow.

It also seems a waste of background fluff. Pacts, fiendish alliances etc all to get a guy that can cast the Eldrich Blast cantrip really well a lot.
I had expected Warlocks to be more binding, summoning and dickering with demonic forces that it seems to be revealing itself to be. I am sure the options will emerge.

Yeah. Weirdly, a more 'warlocky' warlock would probably be a cleric or a wizard. But class names are weird.

This observation about 'magic archer' comes from the common system mastery point that while a lot of people in 3e made wizards into blasty mages, 3e wizards are _way_ more powerful if you focus on non-blast powers. Playing them for dps was a mugs game, you wanted to just neutralize threats outright with no-save stuff, like reverse gravity or whatnot.

Which then lead naturally to the 'ok, so wizards shouldn't be blasty. But then we are missing a concept... who SHOULD be magic blasters?'

Quote from: Will;798137Which then lead naturally to the 'ok, so wizards shouldn't be blasty. But then we are missing a concept... who SHOULD be magic blasters?'

It has nothing to do with rules and how the setting works. In this case how the implied setting of the 5e rules works.

Each class is given flavor text at the beginning of its write up.

QuoteAs flames spring to life in her hands, a wizened human whispers the secret name of her demonic patron, infusing her spell with fiendish magic. Shifting his gaze between a battered tome and the odd alignment of the stars overhead, a wild-eyed tiefling chants the mystic ritual that will open a doorway to a distant world.

Warlocks are seekers of the knowledge that lies hidden in the fabric of the multiverse. Through pacts made with mysterious beings of supernatural power, warlocks unlock magical effects both subtle and spectacular.

From the warlock is meant to be rather flashy and dramatic in his use of magic. Flaunting rather than hiding his connection to the supernatural.

estar: (pained look) Of course that's what the flavor text in 5e says.

I'm talking about how we got a class like the warlock in the first place, back in 3e.

Which is an outgrowth of how wizards work in 3e.

Quote from: rawma;798093But it weakened archers, which was my point; they've never recovered the superiority they enjoyed in the first three books.

And my overall  point is that the power curve of OD&D is quite distinct from any other edition of D&D except for the recent introduction of 5e. I play a lot of different retro-clones so I probably mixed up a +1 strength bonus from one of them.  Doesn't change my point.

It was the introduction of the Greyhawk supplement that made D&D into what people recognize as classic D&D. A system that was largely the same from Greyhawk Supplement I to AD&D 2e just before skills and powers.

And yes I realize that there were difference between OD&D + Greyhawk, Holmes, B/X, BECMI, RC, AD&D 1st, AD&D 1st + UA, and AD&D 2nd. But those systems were separated by inches compared to the miles that separated them from the other RPGs of the industry.

That not the point. Because OD&D core book relied on a 1d6 for damage and a 1d6 for everybody hit points and its attack matrix was relatively flat progression the net effect make for a game with a flatter power curve than subsequent edition. Just like 5e low level monster remained deadly for longer.

Quote from: estar;798149And my overall  point is that the power curve of OD&D is quite distinct from any other edition of D&D except for the recent introduction of 5e. I play a lot of different retro-clones so I probably mixed up a +1 strength bonus from one of them.  Doesn't change my point.

I reiterate that I was making a separate point, and that my quibbles did not affect your point.  

The bottom line for me isn't that cantrips are ok because they only do 90% of the damage an archer does, so archer is still superior. That's a silly argument, since cantrip classes also get "real" spells (from the list of every possible spell) that dwarf anything an archer can do anyway.

Those spells only get cast 1/day or whatever, and I can see that as a balance...if the cantrips were much, much, weaker.

On the other hand, I can't wrap my mind around a world where folks have infinite magic. I just don't see why such a world would *bother* inventing, say, a lantern, when every third guy has infinite light. Who needs lumberjacks to gather firewood when nearly every household can have someone with infinite fire? Why have cooks and cleaners when it can be done magically an infinite number of times every day anyway? You certainly don't need tinkers in a world where every 5th person can cast "mending" infinitely often. Farming would be completely different with "druidcraft", although admittedly it would be less useful at the industrial level (unless you get lots of druid farmers, anyway). "Friends" a cantrip for many classes, should be almost criminal to use...or not?

Cantrips and infinite "trivial magic" could easily warp the world into something unrecognizable from fantasy pseudo-Europe, into a very different place. I'd love to see someone sit down and really think it through, and not just from a (n already screwed up) game balance perspective.

for the same reason you have torches in 1e instead of continual light spells in every house, or why clerics in 1e don't cure hunger and thirst in their towns by casting creat food and water every day

If the DM is running a milieu where every third person is a spellcaster, the presence of cantrips is only a teeny tiny portion of what makes it difficult to visualize a pseudo-medieval milieu.  

Being a bit of a demographics wonk, I am leaning toward maybe two or three spellcasters per hundred hides (I do so love the hidage system).  While there are plenty of things such spellcasters would do to diverge society from medievallishy, cantrips are not that big a part of it.  

Running a game where every hide or two includes a spellcaster does sound a bit interesting, though.

Quote from: Old One Eye;798534If the DM is running a milieu where every third person is a spellcaster, the presence of cantrips is only a teeny tiny portion of what makes it difficult to visualize a pseudo-medieval milieu.  

Being a bit of a demographics wonk, I am leaning toward maybe two or three spellcasters per hundred hides (I do so love the hidage system).  While there are plenty of things such spellcasters would do to diverge society from medievallishy, cantrips are not that big a part of it.  

Running a game where every hide or two includes a spellcaster does sound a bit interesting, though.

One of the mitigating factors though has been that that spell takes effort to learn and can only be cast once per day and costs this much.
If you remove all of that so that a caster can cast a spell with no need to learn or mateiral componets and no limits...

Take Mending you can easily see a castle having three guys who can cast mending to replace 100 servants.

So it all comes down to how hard is this stuff to learn and what are the entry requirements.
the barrier seems to be "PCs are special" No explantion of why or how but they are special.
Under RAW if you used the alternate rules for Humans any human PC can have cantrips (they just pick the right feat) all elves have a cantrip etc etc
So up tot he DM to decide how that affects the world.

Quote from: jibbajibba;798545One of the mitigating factors though has been that that spell takes effort to learn and can only be cast once per day and costs this much.
If you remove all of that so that a caster can cast a spell with no need to learn or mateiral componets and no limits...

Take Mending you can easily see a castle having three guys who can cast mending to replace 100 servants.

So it all comes down to how hard is this stuff to learn and what are the entry requirements.
the barrier seems to be "PCs are special" No explantion of why or how but they are special.
Under RAW if you used the alternate rules for Humans any human PC can have cantrips (they just pick the right feat) all elves have a cantrip etc etc
So up tot he DM to decide how that affects the world.

Not understanding how that is categorically different than the ADnD DM who plans a milieu where everyone with a 9 intelligence learns to be a magic user.  Sure there will be failures on learning particular spells, but with a huge portion of the populace being spellcasters it will be easy to fing someone with any given spell.  And it is not like every 5e caster will know every cantrip.  Maybe the village mage knows mending, maybe she don't.

Most material components are fairly trivial to acquire, like a cricket or something, with many spells needing no components.

And there is a fairly discrete number of cantrips that will have all that much impact on a milieu (I agree mending is one of them).  Most will not change society.  The cleric constantly seeking guidance is quite genre appropriate for a medievallishy milieu.

Quote from: Old One Eye;798553Not understanding how that is categorically different than the ADnD DM who plans a milieu where everyone with a 9 intelligence learns to be a magic user.  Sure there will be failures on learning particular spells, but with a huge portion of the populace being spellcasters it will be easy to fing someone with any given spell.  And it is not like every 5e caster will know every cantrip.  Maybe the village mage knows mending, maybe she don't.

Most material components are fairly trivial to acquire, like a cricket or something, with many spells needing no components.

And there is a fairly discrete number of cantrips that will have all that much impact on a milieu (I agree mending is one of them).  Most will not change society.  The cleric constantly seeking guidance is quite genre appropriate for a medievallishy milieu.

I think the difference is volume.
So if you have 3 casters in the old school they could fix 3 things, cast burning hands 3 times a day, magic missile thrice

Now they can each fix 1,000 things so the whole process moves from a cottage industry to full scale industrialisation.

Quote from: jibbajibba;798545One of the mitigating factors though has been that that spell takes effort to learn and can only be cast once per day and costs this much.
If you remove all of that so that a caster can cast a spell with no need to learn or mateiral componets and no limits...

Take Mending you can easily see a castle having three guys who can cast mending to replace 100 servants.

So it all comes down to how hard is this stuff to learn and what are the entry requirements.
the barrier seems to be "PCs are special" No explantion of why or how but they are special.
Under RAW if you used the alternate rules for Humans any human PC can have cantrips (they just pick the right feat) all elves have a cantrip etc etc
So up tot he DM to decide how that affects the world.

Yes, 5e seems to be following the 4e paradigm that PCs are unique special snowflakes, not the pre-4e paradigm that the PC classes and their powers exist in the world. So PCs with Mending might be the only characters with Mending, or at least part of a tiny, tiny number of characters with Mending in the world. (Incidentally I always assume that cantrips & such are tiring to use, similar to combat - you can cast Mending a good few times in a day, but not cast solidly for 8 hours).