Quote from: Sacrosanct;754166Yeah, I don't get

Asked and answered many times.  It's a setting thing as well as an overall game feel thing.  You don't have to agree.

It's weird though saying you don't understand how the baseline assumption of unlimited magics can alter a setting because the GM can alter the rules.  It's like saying you don't see the problem with putting the Borg in Greyhawk either, because the GM can always say it didn't happen.

WotC has a very bad habit of making rules for a supposed generic ruleset that say a whole lot of specific things about a setting.  They almost seem incapable of seeing it.

Quote from: Warthur;754175My understanding is that that at-will Ray of Frost requires a to-hit roll. So I would not be surprised if actually, on average a fighter using a standard weapon would actually end up doing out more damage than a wizard zapping with ray of frost every round after the first few levels. (At low levels they might hit at around the same rate, but the fighter would survive longer in combat due to his superior armour - making it possible for the wizard to get off those frost rays in the first place.)

They do, as i showed above.  What we have here are a few folks who have no idea how 5e actually works, and are assuming things that aren't true, and/or are taking away conclusions from statements that were never actually made.

In the example you quoted, I said compared to a standard attack, the MU's at will isn't overpowered.  EW assumed that meant that the damage was equal based on his statement.  Note that nothing in my statement remotely says that they are equal, just that one isn't overpowered compared to the other.

Quote from: Bobloblah;754144So how about spells? Concentration, on the other hand, I do all day on a fairly regular basis. Even tasks requiring very intense concentration, there's just no comparison to vigorously swinging an object. You trying to say it's obviously the same appears to be a tacit admission that the alternative (i.e. you can cast cantrips ad infinitum) is pretty stupid.

Spellcasting in D&D typically involves more than concentration though - remember spell components? Remember verbal and somatic components? If you have to chant and wave your arms about to do your spells then that's going to set a limit on how long you can spend spellcasting - even opera singers trained to belt out Wagner from hours on end need to rest their voices.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754176Asked and answered many times.  It's a setting thing as well as an overall game feel thing.  You don't have to agree.

It's weird though saying you don't understand how the baseline assumption of unlimited magics can alter a setting because the GM can alter the rules.  It's like saying you don't see the problem with putting the Borg in Greyhawk either, because the GM can always say it didn't happen.

WotC has a very bad habit of making rules for a supposed generic ruleset that say a whole lot of specific things about a setting.  They almost seem incapable of seeing it.

Stop being such a hypocrite.  You're lambasting the existence of at-will spells based only on reasoning that you're perfectly willing to accept with your own preferred edition of D&D.  I'm pretty safe in saying that I'm sure you don't play your preferred edition exactly RAW with no houseruling or omission of rules.  And your hyperbolic analogies don't help your case.  In most campaign settings of D&D I have ever played in, spells are pretty much part of the core game.  Borg are not.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754176It's weird though saying you don't understand how the baseline assumption of unlimited magics can alter a setting because the GM can alter the rules.  It's like saying you don't see the problem with putting the Borg in Greyhawk either, because the GM can always say it didn't happen.

Except this only implies what you suggest it implies about the setting if you assume that the rules directly map to the physics of the setting, rather than being a loose approximation of them.

I am sometimes stunned by the willfull idiocy people display on forums, and this place is better than many, but good grief.

I am not pointing out the real world understanding we all have of physical fatigue because I think we need to track the number of swings a Fighter can make (c'mon...you seriously can't be so stupid as to think that's what I was saying). We don't need rules for that because we can make reasonable judgements about it, it would needlessly slow down the game, and the places where it's an issue don't come up much. Saying magic is the same is nothing more than an assumption. An assumption those making it appear blind to.

So, I can project a "ray of frost" so cold it burns the target badly enough to be close to as damaging as a sword blow. Alright, as there are no limits on how often I can cast it, can I create an ice bridge across a pool with it? Why not? Can I "smash" open multiple chests from a distance by just targeting the locks over and over? Why not? Can I start an ice-making business and make a profit (and shouldn't some equivalent of ice cubes be ubiquitous in my setting?) on it? Why not? The answers to these questions might be, "Of course not! Don't be stupid!" but that is completely arbitrary. And by arbitrary, I do not mean simply mean DM judgement as opposed to RAW, so spare me that garbage (as CRKrueger pointed out, "But houserules!" means you haven't got an argument). It's arbitrary in that the DM plays the world, and at will cantrips say something about how that world works. Something that should feed into DM rulings.

When you're constantly having to rule against clever, otherwise reasonable uses of a spell or ability because it would have silly implications, then perhaps there's a problem with said spell or ability (or unlimited uses thereof, in this case). Put another way, I don't think anyone here said there were limits to how many times you could cast a cantrip because it made any kind of in-game sense (in the way the sword-swinging limit did), but because not having that limit was obviously going to create absurdity. Yeah, that's the problem. It's not some weird cult of RAW, it's a rather obvious implication of the rules that says something about the setting.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754152Wizards need to be limited, wizards need to have limitations on magic, otherwise they can do everything anyone else can, PLUS stuff no one else can.

Because a limited set of at-will cantrips gives thieves turning of undead and lockpicking and the ability to wear full plate and use a greatsword?

Oooooooooookay.

Quote from: Haffrung;754153Cantrips are to spell/day spells as walking around in platemail holding a shield is to trading blows with an ogre: beneath the level needed to be captured by rules, but fatiguing enough to put some kind of limits on out-of-combat behaviour if you want to run a 'realistic' world model.

Aaaaand we have a winner.

I hate to sound cliche, but if people actually played the game, most of these concerns wouldn't even come up because they aren't an issue.

And here I thought most people on this forum were against theorycrafting.

Guess not.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;754173Maybe you might want to actually get familiar with 5e before you start accusing me of being wrong.

You're assuming that the Fighter has that Strength.  Your argument was that the Fighter did more damage, but that damage is totally based on Strength.  So the only difference between Ray of Frost and a Fighter's normal attack is Str at that level, not exactly a great argument for this not being a primary form of attack, is it?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;754173Thirdly, the fact that a mage can only cast ray of frost once per round as opposed to the fighter's standard two attacks is pretty relevant.  Those are standard attacks, not using any special ability to do so.

Are you saying it matters whether 2d8 are delivered 2d8x1 or 1d8x2 or not?  Or does it change depending on how you argue?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;754173Fourthly, you don't understand basic math.  

...and you need to get out of the white room.  I give you a 50% to inflict 100pts of damage or I give you 4 50% chances to inflict 25pts of damage.  Which one will you use?  Depends entirely on the situation and what you're facing.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;754173What strawman?  Who's argument was I making a strawman with.  I only said that "at-will" magic existed as early as AD&D1e.  Which it did.  Even used the same term.

You understand what a strawman is, right?  I never said that at-wills were new to 5e.  What I said was that at-will spells for mages changed baseline assumptions for settings that previously did not have such things.  So you deciding to reply by saying at-wills were introduced in 1e was either a random synapse fire, or you meant that as a point to counter what I did not say, ie. strawman.

The fact that at-will magics existed somewhere means absolutely nothing when we were talking about it being a feature of one of the 4 core classes.

Quote from: mcbobbo;754167As with the first quote above, if magic is free and easy why would anyone pick up a shovel ever again?  If you can summon infinite water, why not start your own oasis in the desert?  Why would there be deserts at all?

Presumably because it requires a certain amount of sustained training and dedication to even get to the point where you can do at-wills?

If magic is rare it's because wizards are rare, which means presumably there's some reason why everyone doesn't just become a wizard (it requires intensive study that few can afford and fewer can master, or it requires you to be blessed by the gods of magic at birth, or it requires you to make horrifying pacts which most mortals would quail at... not hard to think of reasons). If wizards are rare, then there's the answer to all your questions: people pick up shovels because they don't have the High Art, deserts still exist because there isn't massive armies of wizards who are happy to go around creating water all day, and so on.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754190You're assuming that the Fighter has that Strength.  Your argument was that the Fighter did more damage, but that damage is totally based on Strength.  So the only difference between Ray of Frost and a Fighter's normal attack is Str at that level, not exactly a great argument for this not being a primary form of attack, is it?

My answer to this was in the part you conveniently deleted from your quote of me.
 
Impressive.

QuoteAre you saying it matters whether 2d8 are delivered 2d8x1 or 1d8x2 or not?  Or does it change depending on how you argue?

...and you need to get out of the white room.  I give you a 50% to inflict 100pts of damage or I give you 4 50% chances to inflict 25pts of damage.  Which one will you use?  Depends entirely on the situation and what you're facing.

I'm not going to explain 1st grade math to you.  Clearly you don't have a fucking clue as to how it works.

QuoteYou understand what a strawman is, right?  .

I do. And a key requirement of being a strawman is being directed at someone else's argument.  My comment about at wills being in 1e wasn't quoting anyone.  It was just a statement.  Therefore, it cannot be a strawman because it wasn't addressing anyone else's argument.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754190...and you need to get out of the white room.  I give you a 50% to inflict 100pts of damage or I give you 4 50% chances to inflict 25pts of damage.  Which one will you use?  Depends entirely on the situation and what you're facing.

What crackspawned version of D&D do you use where wizards consistently have the same to-hit chances as fighters?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;754189I hate to sound cliche, but if people actually played the game, most of these concerns wouldn't even come up because they aren't an issue.

And here I thought most people on this forum were against theorycrafting.

Guess not.

You forgot the shrug, too long out of high school I guess.

It's interesting that you don't realize the main point of the contention has nothing to do with simulations or math.  It has to do with how magic feels and what that says about the setting.  Some people either are incapable of seeing it, or just don't care.  Others are bothered by the idea, so they respond (oddly enough) that they think it is a bad idea and why.  It's not a point that can be argued.  You're

You're basically pulling the same playbook the 4vengers used against fighter daily criticisms or that the narrative crowd uses against metagame criticisms. Seriously, almost down to the sentence, go look it up if you don't believe me.

You don't have to defend 5e against all comers, especially when they're talking about something that you can't refute because it's a feeling, opinion or obvious fact (like common at-will magics do affect the baseline assumptions of a setting and game).

Quote from: CRKrueger;754197It's interesting that you don't realize the main point of the contention has nothing to do with simulations or math.  It has to do with how magic feels and what that says about the setting.  Some people either are incapable of seeing it, or just don't care.  Others are bothered by the idea, so they respond (oddly enough) that they think it is a bad idea and why.  It's not a point that can be argued.  You're

You're basically pulling the same playbook the 4vengers used against fighter daily criticisms or that the narrative crowd uses against metagame criticisms. Seriously, almost down to the sentence, go look it up if you don't believe me.

This. It's stunning who it's coming from.