D&DN Q&A: Modular Features, Paladin Alignment & Legendary Creatures

I have blogged numerous times about why I do not like wizards, ways I might do magic, and how to make some of the existing classes more interesting, so it was nice to see a positive response in this week’s Question & Answers column as to whether modular features will change the core abilities of a class. Though the answer specifically mentions a “robust point-and-bonus based skill system module”, maybe that means that we will see rules for a magic system that will approach some semblance of sense.

I can dream. After all, they did feature a variety of alternate rules for magic in 3rd Edition’s Unearthed Arcana (hint hint).

The next question asks about decoupling alignment from the rules, something that was mentioned near the tail-end of this week’s Legends & Lore article, despite the paladin still requiring a Lawful alignment. The answer is yes, but they just have not gotten around to it yet because they are working on some “major changes across all classes” in an upcoming packet. Maybe some alternative, understandable, thematic spellcasting systems based on class?

WHAT?

Seriously, as I also mentioned earlier this week I think it would be a lot cooler to have class features tied to something like FATE’s aspects or Exalted‘s virtues and intimacies. Giving paladins class features based on these would go a long way to separating them conceptually from clerics, though this could be great for any character.

Finally more about Legendary status, specifically if an army of peasants can defeat a Legendary creature. The answer uses the tarrasque as an example, which is an iconic unique creature that is virtually impossible to defeat in most editions without a handful of wishes on hand. The part that rubs me the wrong way is when Rodney specifically mentions building in a safe guard that renders it immune to attacks from creatures of a certain level or lower.

Huh? That makes about as much sense as pseudo-Vancian magic.

Sorry, sorry, I will stop. Well, I will try to at any rate. In this article, anyway.

I just have this vision of peasants trying to push boulders on top of it, only to have them harmlessly bounce off. Then a high-level fighter walks up, does the same thing, and crushes its skull. Why not just re-introduce a more granular weapon resistance, like we had in 3rd and 4th Edition? This way the tarrasque can have something like DR 10, making it virtually impossible for a peasant to even damage it, but high-level fighters, what with their scaling damage output suffer a minor inconvenience. Makes much more sense than some arbitrary level-based threshold.

Legends & Lore: Chaotic Magical

Today’s Legends & Lore post is a cornucopia of awesome concerning alignment and spells.

Alignment
Alignment as an option? Yes, please. Alignment as an option, that if entirely cut out, does not break a class/require lots of houseruling to make it work/negates one or more meaningful class features? Hell yes.

Interesting direction to take the detect and protection from series of spells. At the least it sounds like that DM’s will not have to rely on contrived spells and magic items–such as undetectable alignment and a
ring of nondetection–to prevent the characters from just randomly
locating the villain.

Even the paladin, its early incarnations famous for adherenece to both the Lawful Good alignment and a code of conduct, is going to be built to focus on what alignment represents. The example of a Chaotic Good paladin translating into a paladin of freedom reminds me of 3rd Edition’s variant paladins from Unearthed Arcana (the paladins of freedom, slaughter, and tyranny). As before when Mearls mentioned paladins having alignment-based class features, this sounds like a solid, interesting way to differentiate them from clerics.

Finally, Lawful monks will likely end up being an option that DM’s can invoke. In Mearls’s own words, alignment will be in the default rules, but it will not be the rule.

Spells

Their campaign to keep spellcasters from easily taking down an enemy involves–so far at the least–two things. The first is requiring a spellcaster to maintain concentration, preventing a single spellcaster from just piling on debuffs (as well as buffs, meaning that we likely will not see spellcasters transforming into better fighters than an actual fighter).

The second part requires making damage spells actually useful–and maintaining this usefulness–and having hit point-ignoring spells allow multiple saves before they take effect. I have mentioned direct-damage spells multiple times, and that they rapidly become useless without some form of scaling. Thankfully, according to Mearls, this is being addressed.

As for save-or-dies, I really dig the idea of a wizard having to actually work to maintain a spell in order for it to have its full effect. 4th Edition was an excellent start in diminishing the anti-climax of save-or-die spells, but once they kicked in generally a wizard could keep heaping on other spells while the monster tried to shrug it off (occasionally having to funnel Minor actions to keep it going).

Having to concentrate and keep weaving magic on a round-by-round basis sounds awesome, and if you couple this with the bad guys being able to disrupt it could make for some tense situations. Of course, I may be biased because this is similar to a spellcasting mechanic I thought of quite awhile ago, where a wizard would have to take time gathering energy to cast more powerful spells.

As with wizards being able to cast more like clerics, this sounds like another big step in the right direction. The only bad part about this article is where Mearls closes with the statement that DMs can just opt to not use save-or-die monsters, and that they should be confident that players will build characters without making things wildly unbalanced.

Personally I think it would be a small feat to include variant attacks that allow multiple saves, and balance character options–ie, spells–to the point where it would be very hard to make unbalanced characters.