Not always. Go back and look at earlier editions in which far fewer spells were available at lower levels. In which casters did not have an infinite supply of combat-oriented cantrips to be spammed so they can match even martial classes when it comes to delivering damage in a typical combat round.
What 5e does it does exceptionally well. But can we do without the historical revisionism?
It's not historical revisionism. D&D has never been low fantasy, and while it's true that a first level wizard in 5e can cast more spells per day than an AD&D wizard... those spells do less. In AD&D, ten orcs vs a level 1 party was a TPK... unless one of the PCs had sleep available, in which case the PCs instantly won.
Plus an 18(00) strength fighter was pretty much a god at level 1, especially if they also had a decent enough dex to dual wield.
It's not historical revisionism. D&D has never been low fantasy, and while it's true that a first level wizard in 5e can cast more spells per day than an AD&D wizard... those spells do less. In AD&D, ten orcs vs a level 1 party was a TPK... unless one of the PCs had sleep available, in which case the PCs instantly won.
It has always been a fantasy game. But when it was one in which a cleric did not start the game with a single spell and had to wait until Level 2 to get his or her first spell (OD&D and Basic) and no caster could wield an infinite number of "blast-y" spells at any given level because cantrips were spells with the most mundane of effects (AD&D) it did not require all that much hoop-jumping to make magic feel rare and powerful.
The magic system in D&D was originally inspired by how magic works in Vance's Dying Earth series of books. Few books feel more old-school D&D than these books. I would not describe them as "low fantasy." But you won't find wizards spamming spells here.
Plus an 18(00) strength fighter was pretty much a god at level 1, especially if they also had a decent enough dex to dual wield.
18/00? Which granted the fighter a "massive" +3 to hit?
Now to be fair that fighter is getting a +6 to damage rolls. But how this makes him any more "godlike" than a Level 1 fighter in 5e with a STR of 18 and enjoying +6 to both attack and damage rolls is anyone's guess.
That's not to mention that characters who know how to handle a weapon play central roles in the sword and sorcery/heroic fantasy subgenre. What does it have to do with whether something is low or high fantasy?
It has always been a fantasy game. But when it was one in which a cleric did not start the game with a single spell and had to wait until Level 2 to get his or her first spell (OD&D and Basic) and no caster could wield an infinite number of "blast-y" spells at any given level because cantrips were spells with the most mundane of effects (AD&D) it did not require all that much hoop-jumping to make magic feel rare and powerful.
Yes it did. If you wanted to make magic feel rare and powerful... you ban spellcasting classes entirely. To do low fantasy in D&D you'd need extreme rules such as "add 10 minutes to all casting times".
Yes it did. If you wanted to make magic feel rare and powerful... you ban spellcasting classes entirely. To do low fantasy in D&D you'd need extreme rules such as "add 10 minutes to all casting times".
When a Level 1 magic-user begins the game with only ONE spell that one spell matters and magic feels rare and powerful when something as seemingly ordinary as even Sleep is used to subdue a threat. I have been playing since 1983 and have never had any trouble making magic feel rare and powerful using Basic or AD&D.
I gave you specific examples of how 5e is exponentially more magic-heavy than earlier editions. Why it feels like high fantasy much more than earlier editions did.
All those combat-oriented cantrips casters can now spam. How come you have not once yet commented on this?
That isn't even to mention the spell bloat we see in 5e.
Early D&D was inspired by Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, and Vance. Magic exists in their works. But their heroes—and antiheroes—ain't superheroes sending infinite blasts of arcane or divine energy out of their hands.
EDIT: I would remind you that you yourself said that in AD&D a 1st-level magic-user had fewer spells than a 1st-level wizard in 5e but those spells did more. Yeah. That's called magic being rarer and more powerful.
Now to be fair that fighter is getting a +6 to damage rolls. But how this makes him any more "godlike" than a Level 1 fighter in 5e with a STR of 18 and enjoying +6 to both attack and damage rolls is anyone's guess.
It might seem nitpicking, but you're getting details about 5e wrong, and it makes me wonder if you play it.
A level 1 Fighter with Str 8 is not getting +6 to damage, they're getting +4. In an earlier post you claimed that cantrips give casters parity with martials, except they don't. Martials add their Str or Dex modifiers to their attacks, cantrips do not. That modifier will more or less double the damage dealt (most weapons average about 4-5 damage from dice, the modifier is likely to be 4-5, depending on whether you've hit your first ASI yet, what stats you rolled etc). Cantrips increase in damage later, but that's in line with Extra Attack, and when certain martial classes stop getting additional Extra Attacks, they get other goodies to make up for it.
I'm not familiar with previous editions, but these mistakes have a massive effect on how to perceive the dynamics of 5e.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I totally agree with this, but I think I can elaborate a little bit on where the feeling of insult comes from. D&D is very much marketed as "the system that can do anything." There's a pervasive idea among the 5e community that if you just learn this one fairly complicated system, you can play in any kind of setting or story without ever having to learn another one. As you point out, it's impossible for one system to do all that, but a lot of 5e players are only now catching on to the fact that D&D is actually very opinionated about what kinds of settings and stories you can use it to play. Some of those players feel lied to, and I think there's some validity in that feeling. It would be better for everyone if D&D as a product was more honest about what kind of game it is (and isn't).
Where has WotC said this? This is a claim I've heard from fanboys at times, but I don't know if I've ever read or.heard WotC claim it at all. It's a pretty poor claim, while 5e is relatively very flexible, it certainly can't do everything. The usual example people use as a standard is Middle-Earth, and 5e is awful at that. It's good at D&D and can be serviceable at other settings (which is more than the other engines I've used), but it's certainly not universal. I've not really seen anyone else claim it is, though.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
It might seem nitpicking, but you're getting details about 5e wrong, and it makes me wonder if you play it.
A level 1 Fighter with Str 8 is not getting +6 to damage, they're getting +4. In an earlier post you claimed that cantrips give casters parity with martials, except they don't. Martials add their Str or Dex modifiers to their attacks, cantrips do not. That modifier will more or less double the damage dealt (most weapons average about 4-5 damage from dice, the modifier is likely to be 4-5, depending on whether you've hit your first ASI yet, what stats you rolled etc). Cantrips increase in damage later, but that's in line with Extra Attack, and when certain martial classes stop getting additional Extra Attacks, they get other goodies to make up for it.
I'm not familiar with previous editions, but these mistakes have a massive effect on how to perceive the dynamics of 5e.
You are right. They are getting +6 to attack. (+4 for that STR. And +2 for the proficiency bonus.) But only +4 to damage. My mistake.
But does this make a 1st-level fighter with an 18/00 STR in AD&D getting +3 to attack and +6 to damage "godlike" by comparison? Hardly. And if you are following the conversation you will see that is the claim that was made. And mine is whether or not it makes that 1st-level fighter a killing machine once a weapon is in his or her hand it doesn't make him or her evidence of early editions of D&D being examples of the magic-heavy high fantasy game it has turned into. It is not the same game as one in which a 1st-level wizard starts with one spell. And in which cantrips do the most mundane things.
But now you are nitpicking: A caster being able to deliver 1d8 damage every single round at no expense to his or her total spells for the day makes that caster an endless spring of damage. I have lost count of the number of games I have played in which a caster has just spammed the same cantrip round after round in combat. Or two of the things have spammed what is basically the same spell with a different name. Instead of trying to make use of some utility spell. That is what I meant by their matching martial characters even at the lowest levels. They have become just another damage-dealer on the battlefield.
5e is a high fantasy game. That has been my point. It is not heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery. Because users of magic in that subgenre of fantasy aren't just superheroes who can shoot magic beams out of their hands without end.
Ya casters are called Glass Cannons they deal a ton of damage but can't take it that's the point. You should be looking at ways to make melee classes deal more damage more often then calling casters op
Ya casters are called Glass Cannons they deal a ton of damage but can't take it that's the point. You should be looking at ways to make melee classes deal more damage more often then calling casters op
That's what point? The point of casters? You have missed mine. Earlier editions in which magic-users had fewer spells at their disposal felt and looked more like the heroic fantasy of authors like Howard, Leiber, and Moorcock that inspired the original game. In which magic was rarer and more powerful. Casters weren't always capable of spamming damage.
I have said more than once that 5e does what it does exceptionally well. I ain't asking for the game to back to what it once was. I have simply pointed out that it is a different game and that the use of "heroic fantasy" to describe it now is inaccurate,.
It might seem nitpicking, but you're getting details about 5e wrong, and it makes me wonder if you play it.
A level 1 Fighter with Str 8 is not getting +6 to damage, they're getting +4. In an earlier post you claimed that cantrips give casters parity with martials, except they don't. Martials add their Str or Dex modifiers to their attacks, cantrips do not. That modifier will more or less double the damage dealt (most weapons average about 4-5 damage from dice, the modifier is likely to be 4-5, depending on whether you've hit your first ASI yet, what stats you rolled etc). Cantrips increase in damage later, but that's in line with Extra Attack, and when certain martial classes stop getting additional Extra Attacks, they get other goodies to make up for it.
I'm not familiar with previous editions, but these mistakes have a massive effect on how to perceive the dynamics of 5e.
You are right. They are getting +6 to attack. (+4 for that STR. And +2 for the proficiency bonus.) But only +4 to damage. My mistake.
But does this make a 1st-level fighter with an 18/00 STR in AD&D getting +3 to attack and +6 to damage "godlike" by comparison? Hardly. And if you are following the conversation you will see that is the claim that was made. And mine is whether or not it makes that 1st-level fighter a killing machine once a weapon is in his or her hand it doesn't make him or her evidence of early editions of D&D being examples of the magic-heavy high fantasy game it has turned into. It is not the same game as one in which a 1st-level wizard starts with one spell. And in which cantrips do the most mundane things.
But now you are nitpicking: A caster being able to deliver 1d8 damage every single round at no expense to his or her total spells for the day makes that caster an endless spring of damage. I have lost count of the number of games I have played in which a caster has just spammed the same cantrip round after round in combat. Or two of the things have spammed what is basically the same spell with a different name. Instead of trying to make use of some utility spell. That is what I meant by their matching martial characters even at the lowest levels. They have become damage-deliverers.
5e is a high fantasy game. That has been my point. It is not heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery. Because users of magic in that subgenre of fantasy aren't just superheroes who can shoot magic beams out of their hands without end.
Four damage and only on the primary, rather than on both primary and secondary. The 5e character does have an edge on to hit bonus, though, I acknowledge. And if a variant human, then could have a feat in there, too... But 1e melees had their own attack table. Then priests were second for melee and casters last.
1d8 per round (with no bonus to damage) does not equal 1d8+6.
But really any cantrip argument seems to be "Spellcasters don't run out of magic, therefore high magic," but ignores the fact that spellcasters still are around as party members and are and always have been portrayed as more than just comic relief.
Four damage and only on the primary, rather than on both primary and secondary. The 5e character does have an edge on to hit bonus, though, I acknowledge. And if a variant human, then could have a feat in there, too... But 1e melees had their own attack table. Then priests were second for melee and casters last.
1d8 per round (with no bonus to damage) does not equal 1d8+6.
But really any cantrip argument seems to be "Spellcasters don't run out of magic, therefore high magic," but ignores the fact that spellcasters still are around as party members and are and always have been portrayed as more than just comic relief.
Did I say 1d8 is the same as 1d8 + 6? No. I didn't. Stop putting words in my mouth.
I am simply saying that even 1st-level casters can now deliver magical damage every single round. They now have cantrips that enable this.
That was never the case in earlier editions of D&D. It is much more magic-heavy now.
Can you name a single protagonist in S&S/heroic fantasy that does this? Are you intentionally forgetting the whole point of my original post?
D&D is high fantasy. It is not S&S/heroic fantasy. You have tried and tried to make this about something else other than my main point. Because you have no argument against it.
Do you to be reminded how completely and utterly beside the point your mention of Hercules was? How your bringing up Tolkien completely and utterly missed the point?
Answering the OP, I'm not bothered, but it's true that this edition has more magic than any previous edition. Or at least, that's the feeling I have for now.
But... I like magic, I like wizards, so it's fine for me 😅
Not always. Go back and look at earlier editions in which far fewer spells were available at lower levels. In which casters did not have an infinite supply of combat-oriented cantrips to be spammed so they can match even martial classes when it comes to delivering damage in a typical combat round.
What 5e does it does exceptionally well. But can we do without the historical revisionism?
It's not historical revisionism. D&D has never been low fantasy, and while it's true that a first level wizard in 5e can cast more spells per day than an AD&D wizard... those spells do less. In AD&D, ten orcs vs a level 1 party was a TPK... unless one of the PCs had sleep available, in which case the PCs instantly won.
Good old times. Having a wizard in the party with 1 HP.
D&D is high fantasy. It is not S&S/heroic fantasy.
I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing against that, at least based on your particular/academic definition of the terms. The thread literally acknowledges "high fantasy" in the title.
The DMG draws a distinction between "heroic fantasy" and "sword and sorcery," and claims that "heroic fantasy" is the baseline. It, further, distinguishes "epic fantasy" from either, and never actually uses the term "high fantasy." So this is a semantic argument.
D&D has a ton of magic, and whole-ass parties of main characters, and lets the protagonists be powerful mages of various sorts, and doesn't shoehorn magic into a corrupting/evil thing. (As it happens, it has always done this, though at what level the mages start to feel powerful has indeed varied by edition.) That's what people are saying. That's also what the DMG confirms.
It has always been a fantasy game. But when it was one in which a cleric did not start the game with a single spell and had to wait until Level 2 to get his or her first spell (OD&D and Basic) and no caster could wield an infinite number of "blast-y" spells at any given level because cantrips were spells with the most mundane of effects (AD&D) it did not require all that much hoop-jumping to make magic feel rare and powerful.
Yes it did. If you wanted to make magic feel rare and powerful... you ban spellcasting classes entirely. To do low fantasy in D&D you'd need extreme rules such as "add 10 minutes to all casting times".
even in 5e heroic fantasy, low magic can be as easy as 1-2-3: answered prayers are far from the norm, the inquisition warns peasants that arcane magic is demonic (not that they've ever seen any), and then dm removes component pouches / spell foci from the game. add to that a soupcon of witch burnings and rumors that elves steal children. so, can a player be a wizard? yes! but their need for bat guano and sulfur will draw the party to some odd encounters in the woods rather than a quick shop visit. step that up by sending townsfolk as guides and the party now risks rumors of black magic if they cast a spell, heal a wound, seem to often encounter mythical beasts, or even if someone is just suspiciously good at skill checks.
rather than imposing a lot of restrictions, look at it as chance for emergent gameplay. your players don't have to be nervous, they get to be nervous. i would even go so far as to say this could be laid over top of most Forgotten Realms setting modules simply by describing things by the looks or effects instead of by their well-worn names. goblins outside Phandalin become "shabby, crooked forest men who trade only in vicious arrows." no mechanical change, only adding a bit of unknown. rumors of a dragon in Thundertree could include also false rumors of dragons in places where there's just a scary cliff face or naturally nauseating swamp. low magic townsfolk have never seen a goblin or a dragon, and many of them might assume the inquisition would have taken care of it if it were a credible threat. etc, etc, etc.
You point out how casters being able to just spam spells and shoot magic beams out of their fingertips every single round is high fantasy and not sword and sorcery/heroic fantasy and people unable to argue against this still have to argue. Ah, the internet.
Cantrips in AD&D only ever allowed magic-users to perform mundane tasks. Like Prestidigitation does. Spells proper including any spell they had that could deal damage were Vancian in nature. Needing to be memorized again once they had been cast. (Although a spell could be memorized twice.) No spell existed that could just deal damage on repeat. None.
5e is what it is and it is good. But it is a different game. Why is it so controversial for some to have someone say the game is much more magic-heavy than it used to be? It is!
I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing against that, at least based on your particular/academic definition of the terms. The thread literally acknowledges "high fantasy" in the title.
The DMG draws a distinction between "heroic fantasy" and "sword and sorcery," and claims that "heroic fantasy" is the baseline. It, further, distinguishes "epic fantasy" from either, and never actually uses the term "high fantasy." So this is a semantic argument.
D&D has a ton of magic, and whole-ass parties of main characters, and lets the protagonists be powerful mages of various sorts, and doesn't shoehorn magic into a corrupting/evil thing. (As it happens, it has always done this, though at what level the mages start to feel powerful has indeed varied by edition.) That's what people are saying. That's also what the DMG confirms.
I am agreeing with the OP and am perfectly aware of his or her having used "high fantasy." Am agreeing with his or her assessment that the game has increasingly become one of "high fantasy."
The 5e DMG does draw that distinction. But then it also points readers to authors in APPENDIX E as examples of "heroic fantasy" when many of them are representative of the sword and sorcery genre. It may very well be a matter of semantics. But they have made an absolute mess of it in that book. The 1e AD&D DMG also uses the term "heroic fantasy." But "swords and sorcery" is also used. With the game even being described as a "swords and sorcery roleplaying game."
There is no argument that what you have outlined is what D&D today delivers. But earlier editions handled magic in a way where it was rarer but more powerful. As it is in sword and sorcery. Magic-users had fewer spells. They couldn't just spam damage. What they could do however was often a lot with little.
Where has WotC said this? This is a claim I've heard from fanboys at times, but I don't know if I've ever read or.heard WotC claim it at all. It's a pretty poor claim, while 5e is relatively very flexible, it certainly can't do everything. The usual example people use as a standard is Middle-Earth, and 5e is awful at that. It's good at D&D and can be serviceable at other settings (which is more than the other engines I've used), but it's certainly not universal. I've not really seen anyone else claim it is, though.
You know what, you make a good point; it was unfair of me to place WotC as the source of this idea. I don't know where the misconception of D&D as the Everything System comes from exactly, but I do know it's strangely pervasive. I see people all the time on these forums and elsewhere trying to "mod" D&D 5e into what is functionally a completely new game, and it seems like they feel this is a reasonable expectation. Some players--probably not the majority, but enough to be worth talking about--pick up D&D and think they're going to be able to make it a gritty low-magic survival game, or a campy modern sci-fi mystery romp, or a freeform improv theatre experience; and somehow all those people think they're meaningfully playing the same game. You don't really see this with other TTRPGs. Sure, there's the many "Powered by the Apocalypse" or "Forged in the Dark" indie games, but the people working on those generally understand that they are making something new outside the bounds of the base system. I don't know why D&D specifically has this problem with expectations wildly exceeding what the system is made for, but we can't ignore the effect it has on some players' game satisfaction.
Where has WotC said this? This is a claim I've heard from fanboys at times, but I don't know if I've ever read or.heard WotC claim it at all. It's a pretty poor claim, while 5e is relatively very flexible, it certainly can't do everything. The usual example people use as a standard is Middle-Earth, and 5e is awful at that. It's good at D&D and can be serviceable at other settings (which is more than the other engines I've used), but it's certainly not universal. I've not really seen anyone else claim it is, though.
You know what, you make a good point; it was unfair of me to place WotC as the source of this idea. I don't know where the misconception of D&D as the Everything System comes from exactly, but I do know it's strangely pervasive. I see people all the time on these forums and elsewhere trying to "mod" D&D 5e into what is functionally a completely new game, and it seems like they feel this is a reasonable expectation. Players pick up D&D and think they're going to be able to make it a gritty low-magic survival game, or a campy modern sci-fi mystery romp, or a freeform improv theatre experience; and somehow all those people think they're meaningfully playing the same game. You don't really see this with other TTRPGs. Sure, there's the many "Powered by the Apocalypse" or "Forged in the Dark" indie games, but the people working on those generally understand that they are making something new outside the bounds of the base system. I don't know why D&D specifically has this problem with expectations wildly exceeding what the system is made for, but we can't ignore the effect it has on some players' game satisfaction.
D&D's market is big enough that it's the first (and maybe only) ttrpg lots of people have ever played. Combine that with generic "in a game of imagination, you can do/be anything!" marketing that's common to all RPGs, and some people are gonna see D&D as the end-all be-all of roleplaying games.
Four damage and only on the primary, rather than on both primary and secondary. The 5e character does have an edge on to hit bonus, though, I acknowledge. And if a variant human, then could have a feat in there, too... But 1e melees had their own attack table. Then priests were second for melee and casters last.
1d8 per round (with no bonus to damage) does not equal 1d8+6.
But really any cantrip argument seems to be "Spellcasters don't run out of magic, therefore high magic," but ignores the fact that spellcasters still are around as party members and are and always have been portrayed as more than just comic relief.
Did I say 1d8 is the same as 1d8 + 6? No. I didn't. Stop putting words in my mouth.
I am simply saying that even 1st-level casters can now deliver magical damage every single round. They now have cantrips that enable this.
That was never the case in earlier editions of D&D. It is much more magic-heavy now.
Can you name a single protagonist in S&S/heroic fantasy that does this? Are you intentionally forgetting the whole point of my original post?
D&D is high fantasy. It is not S&S/heroic fantasy. You have tried and tried to make this about something else other than my main point. Because you have no argument against it.
Do you to be reminded how completely and utterly beside the point your mention of Hercules was? How your bringing up Tolkien completely and utterly missed the point?
If we cannot agree on definitions, then there is no common point to discuss.
I cannot think of any spellcaster protagonist in any S&S work who does not have at least some form of low level magic that is always there for them. But then, spellcaster protagonists are relatively rare. Actual D&D style parties are relatively rare in fiction. However, to the extent there are caster's in fiction, they pretty much always have some sort of on demand spell.
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Plus an 18(00) strength fighter was pretty much a god at level 1, especially if they also had a decent enough dex to dual wield.
It has always been a fantasy game. But when it was one in which a cleric did not start the game with a single spell and had to wait until Level 2 to get his or her first spell (OD&D and Basic) and no caster could wield an infinite number of "blast-y" spells at any given level because cantrips were spells with the most mundane of effects (AD&D) it did not require all that much hoop-jumping to make magic feel rare and powerful.
The magic system in D&D was originally inspired by how magic works in Vance's Dying Earth series of books. Few books feel more old-school D&D than these books. I would not describe them as "low fantasy." But you won't find wizards spamming spells here.
18/00? Which granted the fighter a "massive" +3 to hit?
Now to be fair that fighter is getting a +6 to damage rolls. But how this makes him any more "godlike" than a Level 1 fighter in 5e with a STR of 18 and enjoying +6 to both attack and damage rolls is anyone's guess.
That's not to mention that characters who know how to handle a weapon play central roles in the sword and sorcery/heroic fantasy subgenre. What does it have to do with whether something is low or high fantasy?
Yes it did. If you wanted to make magic feel rare and powerful... you ban spellcasting classes entirely. To do low fantasy in D&D you'd need extreme rules such as "add 10 minutes to all casting times".
When a Level 1 magic-user begins the game with only ONE spell that one spell matters and magic feels rare and powerful when something as seemingly ordinary as even Sleep is used to subdue a threat. I have been playing since 1983 and have never had any trouble making magic feel rare and powerful using Basic or AD&D.
I gave you specific examples of how 5e is exponentially more magic-heavy than earlier editions. Why it feels like high fantasy much more than earlier editions did.
All those combat-oriented cantrips casters can now spam. How come you have not once yet commented on this?
That isn't even to mention the spell bloat we see in 5e.
Early D&D was inspired by Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, and Vance. Magic exists in their works. But their heroes—and antiheroes—ain't superheroes sending infinite blasts of arcane or divine energy out of their hands.
EDIT: I would remind you that you yourself said that in AD&D a 1st-level magic-user had fewer spells than a 1st-level wizard in 5e but those spells did more. Yeah. That's called magic being rarer and more powerful.
It might seem nitpicking, but you're getting details about 5e wrong, and it makes me wonder if you play it.
A level 1 Fighter with Str 8 is not getting +6 to damage, they're getting +4. In an earlier post you claimed that cantrips give casters parity with martials, except they don't. Martials add their Str or Dex modifiers to their attacks, cantrips do not. That modifier will more or less double the damage dealt (most weapons average about 4-5 damage from dice, the modifier is likely to be 4-5, depending on whether you've hit your first ASI yet, what stats you rolled etc). Cantrips increase in damage later, but that's in line with Extra Attack, and when certain martial classes stop getting additional Extra Attacks, they get other goodies to make up for it.
I'm not familiar with previous editions, but these mistakes have a massive effect on how to perceive the dynamics of 5e.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Where has WotC said this? This is a claim I've heard from fanboys at times, but I don't know if I've ever read or.heard WotC claim it at all. It's a pretty poor claim, while 5e is relatively very flexible, it certainly can't do everything. The usual example people use as a standard is Middle-Earth, and 5e is awful at that. It's good at D&D and can be serviceable at other settings (which is more than the other engines I've used), but it's certainly not universal. I've not really seen anyone else claim it is, though.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
You are right. They are getting +6 to attack. (+4 for that STR. And +2 for the proficiency bonus.) But only +4 to damage. My mistake.
But does this make a 1st-level fighter with an 18/00 STR in AD&D getting +3 to attack and +6 to damage "godlike" by comparison? Hardly. And if you are following the conversation you will see that is the claim that was made. And mine is whether or not it makes that 1st-level fighter a killing machine once a weapon is in his or her hand it doesn't make him or her evidence of early editions of D&D being examples of the magic-heavy high fantasy game it has turned into. It is not the same game as one in which a 1st-level wizard starts with one spell. And in which cantrips do the most mundane things.
But now you are nitpicking: A caster being able to deliver 1d8 damage every single round at no expense to his or her total spells for the day makes that caster an endless spring of damage. I have lost count of the number of games I have played in which a caster has just spammed the same cantrip round after round in combat. Or two of the things have spammed what is basically the same spell with a different name. Instead of trying to make use of some utility spell. That is what I meant by their matching martial characters even at the lowest levels. They have become just another damage-dealer on the battlefield.
5e is a high fantasy game. That has been my point. It is not heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery. Because users of magic in that subgenre of fantasy aren't just superheroes who can shoot magic beams out of their hands without end.
Ya casters are called Glass Cannons they deal a ton of damage but can't take it that's the point. You should be looking at ways to make melee classes deal more damage more often then calling casters op
That's what point? The point of casters? You have missed mine. Earlier editions in which magic-users had fewer spells at their disposal felt and looked more like the heroic fantasy of authors like Howard, Leiber, and Moorcock that inspired the original game. In which magic was rarer and more powerful. Casters weren't always capable of spamming damage.
I have said more than once that 5e does what it does exceptionally well. I ain't asking for the game to back to what it once was. I have simply pointed out that it is a different game and that the use of "heroic fantasy" to describe it now is inaccurate,.
Four damage and only on the primary, rather than on both primary and secondary. The 5e character does have an edge on to hit bonus, though, I acknowledge. And if a variant human, then could have a feat in there, too... But 1e melees had their own attack table. Then priests were second for melee and casters last.
1d8 per round (with no bonus to damage) does not equal 1d8+6.
But really any cantrip argument seems to be "Spellcasters don't run out of magic, therefore high magic," but ignores the fact that spellcasters still are around as party members and are and always have been portrayed as more than just comic relief.
Did I say 1d8 is the same as 1d8 + 6? No. I didn't. Stop putting words in my mouth.
I am simply saying that even 1st-level casters can now deliver magical damage every single round. They now have cantrips that enable this.
That was never the case in earlier editions of D&D. It is much more magic-heavy now.
Can you name a single protagonist in S&S/heroic fantasy that does this? Are you intentionally forgetting the whole point of my original post?
D&D is high fantasy. It is not S&S/heroic fantasy. You have tried and tried to make this about something else other than my main point. Because you have no argument against it.
Do you to be reminded how completely and utterly beside the point your mention of Hercules was? How your bringing up Tolkien completely and utterly missed the point?
Answering the OP, I'm not bothered, but it's true that this edition has more magic than any previous edition. Or at least, that's the feeling I have for now.
But... I like magic, I like wizards, so it's fine for me 😅
Good old times. Having a wizard in the party with 1 HP.
I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing against that, at least based on your particular/academic definition of the terms. The thread literally acknowledges "high fantasy" in the title.
The DMG draws a distinction between "heroic fantasy" and "sword and sorcery," and claims that "heroic fantasy" is the baseline. It, further, distinguishes "epic fantasy" from either, and never actually uses the term "high fantasy." So this is a semantic argument.
D&D has a ton of magic, and whole-ass parties of main characters, and lets the protagonists be powerful mages of various sorts, and doesn't shoehorn magic into a corrupting/evil thing. (As it happens, it has always done this, though at what level the mages start to feel powerful has indeed varied by edition.) That's what people are saying. That's also what the DMG confirms.
even in 5e heroic fantasy, low magic can be as easy as 1-2-3: answered prayers are far from the norm, the inquisition warns peasants that arcane magic is demonic (not that they've ever seen any), and then dm removes component pouches / spell foci from the game. add to that a soupcon of witch burnings and rumors that elves steal children. so, can a player be a wizard? yes! but their need for bat guano and sulfur will draw the party to some odd encounters in the woods rather than a quick shop visit. step that up by sending townsfolk as guides and the party now risks rumors of black magic if they cast a spell, heal a wound, seem to often encounter mythical beasts, or even if someone is just suspiciously good at skill checks.
rather than imposing a lot of restrictions, look at it as chance for emergent gameplay. your players don't have to be nervous, they get to be nervous. i would even go so far as to say this could be laid over top of most Forgotten Realms setting modules simply by describing things by the looks or effects instead of by their well-worn names. goblins outside Phandalin become "shabby, crooked forest men who trade only in vicious arrows." no mechanical change, only adding a bit of unknown. rumors of a dragon in Thundertree could include also false rumors of dragons in places where there's just a scary cliff face or naturally nauseating swamp. low magic townsfolk have never seen a goblin or a dragon, and many of them might assume the inquisition would have taken care of it if it were a credible threat. etc, etc, etc.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
You point out how casters being able to just spam spells and shoot magic beams out of their fingertips every single round is high fantasy and not sword and sorcery/heroic fantasy and people unable to argue against this still have to argue. Ah, the internet.
Cantrips in AD&D only ever allowed magic-users to perform mundane tasks. Like Prestidigitation does. Spells proper including any spell they had that could deal damage were Vancian in nature. Needing to be memorized again once they had been cast. (Although a spell could be memorized twice.) No spell existed that could just deal damage on repeat. None.
5e is what it is and it is good. But it is a different game. Why is it so controversial for some to have someone say the game is much more magic-heavy than it used to be? It is!
I am agreeing with the OP and am perfectly aware of his or her having used "high fantasy." Am agreeing with his or her assessment that the game has increasingly become one of "high fantasy."
The 5e DMG does draw that distinction. But then it also points readers to authors in APPENDIX E as examples of "heroic fantasy" when many of them are representative of the sword and sorcery genre. It may very well be a matter of semantics. But they have made an absolute mess of it in that book. The 1e AD&D DMG also uses the term "heroic fantasy." But "swords and sorcery" is also used. With the game even being described as a "swords and sorcery roleplaying game."
There is no argument that what you have outlined is what D&D today delivers. But earlier editions handled magic in a way where it was rarer but more powerful. As it is in sword and sorcery. Magic-users had fewer spells. They couldn't just spam damage. What they could do however was often a lot with little.
You know what, you make a good point; it was unfair of me to place WotC as the source of this idea. I don't know where the misconception of D&D as the Everything System comes from exactly, but I do know it's strangely pervasive. I see people all the time on these forums and elsewhere trying to "mod" D&D 5e into what is functionally a completely new game, and it seems like they feel this is a reasonable expectation. Some players--probably not the majority, but enough to be worth talking about--pick up D&D and think they're going to be able to make it a gritty low-magic survival game, or a campy modern sci-fi mystery romp, or a freeform improv theatre experience; and somehow all those people think they're meaningfully playing the same game. You don't really see this with other TTRPGs. Sure, there's the many "Powered by the Apocalypse" or "Forged in the Dark" indie games, but the people working on those generally understand that they are making something new outside the bounds of the base system. I don't know why D&D specifically has this problem with expectations wildly exceeding what the system is made for, but we can't ignore the effect it has on some players' game satisfaction.
D&D's market is big enough that it's the first (and maybe only) ttrpg lots of people have ever played. Combine that with generic "in a game of imagination, you can do/be anything!" marketing that's common to all RPGs, and some people are gonna see D&D as the end-all be-all of roleplaying games.
If we cannot agree on definitions, then there is no common point to discuss.
I cannot think of any spellcaster protagonist in any S&S work who does not have at least some form of low level magic that is always there for them. But then, spellcaster protagonists are relatively rare. Actual D&D style parties are relatively rare in fiction. However, to the extent there are caster's in fiction, they pretty much always have some sort of on demand spell.