D&D (2024) My wishes for 6e: less dark vision and spellcasting classes

[James Gasik]

The Avenger was fun, if built a little backwards. Pursuit required you to get a good basic attack, that the class didn't have natively, for example. Not as good as some other Strikers, but unique, which is a big selling point. It's a class I wouldn't mind seeing back.

I didn't get too many chances to play a Warlock, the original "V-design" was strange to me, but I did eventually play one for a little bit, a Water Genasi from Calimshan. I also tried a multiclass Warlock once but...yeah that didn't go over well, lol. The class had a lot of strange utility, and it was funny watching my DM try to find ways to prevent me from triggering Hellish Rebuke.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because players don't use darkvision as a cool but limited back up to having light, they use it as a replacement for having light. And then get surly when you enforce the difference. Eventually, it gets exhausting and you start to feel like the bad guy.

To me, this says your players just don't like the way light and sight work. They've taken a perfectly natural method to avoid having to deal with problems, and you escalated by inventing new problems specifically designed to screw over their effort to avoid problems. That bespeaks of a conflict between you and your players, with each side taking more and more strident, hard line positions. Eliminating or weakening darkvision isn't going to change that dynamic, it's just an attempt to take away the tools the players have used in order to not engage with the thing you have offered.

It seems, to me, that you first need to have a conversation with your players about this issue, since you clearly want an experience or situation that they have displayed a strong aversion to (whether or not they realize that's what they are doing). Second, you need to re-evaluate how you are handling this element of play to see if there is a different approach, or some house ruling, that you can use to make it more functional for your group.

Because as it stands, I don't think anything you could do to merely nerf or eliminate darkvision would solve the real problem you appear to have: you think lighting and sight based challenges are cool or interesting and your players (seem to) think they are onerous or frustrating.

This is my experience as well. Players flatly refuse to use anything but dark vision. If I put in silly traps that require color to solve then I'm the bad guy beings unreasonable punishing them like that & the game devolves into a tedious tomb of horrors style poke everything with a ten foot pole twice slog.

Same as above. If your players are consistently pushing back against your efforts to do this...why assume they are just being petulant? Why not take it as a sign that they just do not find joy or interest in this thing you're doing and look for ways to either make those challenges actually rewarding in their eyes (pun intended), or to make them interesting in their own right?


Why punish, when you could try to find common ground, so that (with a little luck) you can give them vision-based challenges they enjoy, rather than merely endure or actively avoid?

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I'm not sure what the hate out is for Wizards. A lot of 5e spells were nerfed from previous editions: no save or suck spells, concentration etc... I've been playing a high level wizard and am often disappointed how they've changed specific spells.

The issue between fighters and wizards, IMO, is at higher levels is the 'mundane' fighter-types have to rely on caster-types for various things: flying, hitting monster's weaknesses (elemental damage), getting past obstacles ect... It's a lot of 'supernatural' trouble-shooting that spellcasting brings to the table.

Here's the thing - and I think it's been mentioned on this board: At 10th + it seems a wizard is able to do so much more while a fighter continues to be a good fighter. I think if they said, "tier 3 and 4 is god-like superhero tier" and gave those fighting classes special (non-spellcasting) powers - like flight, or amazing leaps or the ability to pick up horses and throw them at dragons or whatever, then they'd feel special next to wizards. Sure, they can find boots of flight and helms of teleport but those are campaign and DM reliant. Nothing is baked into the classes.

As it is, the game really encourages mutli-classing to get some kind of spellcasting in order to get that bit of extra utility.

That said, you can't give every class EVERYTHING. It's a team-based game, after all and you have to pool resources to overcome challenges.

 

[tetrasodium]

To me, this says your players just don't like the way light and sight work. They've taken a perfectly natural method to avoid having to deal with problems, and you escalated by inventing new problems specifically designed to screw over their effort to avoid problems. That bespeaks of a conflict between you and your players, with each side taking more and more strident, hard line positions. Eliminating or weakening darkvision isn't going to change that dynamic, it's just an attempt to take away the tools the players have used in order to not engage with the thing you have offered.

It seems, to me, that you first need to have a conversation with your players about this issue, since you clearly want an experience or situation that they have displayed a strong aversion to (whether or not they realize that's what they are doing). Second, you need to re-evaluate how you are handling this element of play to see if there is a different approach, or some house ruling, that you can use to make it more functional for your group.

Because as it stands, I don't think anything you could do to merely nerf or eliminate darkvision would solve the real problem you appear to have: you think lighting and sight based challenges are cool or interesting and your players (seem to) think they are onerous or frustrating.


Same as above. If your players are consistently pushing back against your efforts to do this...why assume they are just being petulant? Why not take it as a sign that they just do not find joy or interest in this thing you're doing and look for ways to either make those challenges actually rewarding in their eyes (pun intended), or to make them interesting in their own right?


Why punish, when you could try to find common ground, so that (with a little luck) you can give them vision-based challenges they enjoy, rather than merely endure or actively avoid?

You are missing things. The penalty to perception risk of things like traps/puzzles
that can't be seen without color & similar are how 5e handles dark vision.. Period. It's not punishing players to hit that any more than it is for monsters to hit their hp. Unfortunately 5e is tuned so far in favor of the player in so many ways that simply mentioning that players get surly & refuse to accept anything but the perfection of dark vision generates accusations of a gm punishing their players alongside a use your words tall it out backhand. It gets tiring being setup as the villain by an edition.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You are missing things. The penalty to perception risk of things like traps/puzzles
that can't be seen without color & similar are how 5e handles dark vision.. Period. It's not punishing players to hit that any more than it is for monsters to hit their hp. Unfortunately 5e is tuned so far in favor of the player in so many ways that simply mentioning that players get surly & refuse to accept anything but the perfection of dark vision generates accusations of a gm punishing their players alongside a use your words tall it out backhand. It gets tiring being setup as the villain by an edition.

Frankly, I consider this completely irrelevant to what I said.

It doesn't matter if you ARE playing by the rules or not, if the players are so clearly demonstrating that they don't like what you're giving them in the game--whether you consider that dislike appropriate or inappropriate is honestly not all that impactful on how the situation should be resolved. Now, obviously, they must like all the other stuff enough to stick with it, or you wouldn't have a stable enough gaming group to have the complaint in the first place. From there, if you feel you're being "set up as the villain" (unless that's hyperbole, which you don't seem to intend it as), then you want something from the game that your players don't, and vice versa.

I'm not sure whether you are referring to me or them when you mention a "use your words tal[k] it out backhand," but if that's how you feel about your players then there may be even worse problems than I'd previously assumed. You sound like you resent your players. Which, if true, you may want to consider whether you should keep running games for that group. Resentment is very difficult to ameliorate once it takes root.

If you don't actually resent your players and you're just frustrated with the situation, again, I really think that you need to have a long out-of-game conversation with them. There's clearly a gap between you and them, which you seem to be filling with some rather uncharitable descriptions of their thoughts and feelings on the matter (characterizing them as petulant children). It's very likely there's more to it, and given you have the reins of power here, it kinda is your responsibility to find out what they want and why they (from your perspective) are making such perfectionistic demands, that (objectively) extend outside the actual remit of the rules for darkvision. To find out why they (presumably, but I don't think this is a stretch) feel "cheated" when their darkvision is not the cure-all for lighting-based difficulties.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To me, this says your players just don't like the way light and sight work. They've taken a perfectly natural method to avoid having to deal with problems, and you escalated by inventing new problems specifically designed to screw over their effort to avoid problems. That bespeaks of a conflict between you and your players, with each side taking more and more strident, hard line positions. Eliminating or weakening darkvision isn't going to change that dynamic, it's just an attempt to take away the tools the players have used in order to not engage with the thing you have offered.

It seems, to me, that you first need to have a conversation with your players about this issue, since you clearly want an experience or situation that they have displayed a strong aversion to (whether or not they realize that's what they are doing). Second, you need to re-evaluate how you are handling this element of play to see if there is a different approach, or some house ruling, that you can use to make it more functional for your group.

Because as it stands, I don't think anything you could do to merely nerf or eliminate darkvision would solve the real problem you appear to have: you think lighting and sight based challenges are cool or interesting and your players (seem to) think they are onerous or frustrating.


Same as above. If your players are consistently pushing back against your efforts to do this...why assume they are just being petulant? Why not take it as a sign that they just do not find joy or interest in this thing you're doing and look for ways to either make those challenges actually rewarding in their eyes (pun intended), or to make them interesting in their own right?


Why punish, when you could try to find common ground, so that (with a little luck) you can give them vision-based challenges they enjoy, rather than merely endure or actively avoid?

Are you saying that, if the PCs don't like how a rule works, the DM should just change it until they do? Does this apply to other aspects of the game, or just light and vision?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Are you saying that, if the PCs don't like how a rule works, the DM should just change it until they do? Does this apply to other aspects of the game, or just light and vision?

I'm saying that if the players and the DM disagree about things so fundamentally that it actively upsets both parties, they need to sit down and have a conversation about what each side wants. If, coming out of that conversation, they agree that a house-rule is the best solution to the problem, then full steam ahead. If it just requires a change of method or approach for the people involved, awesome, that has fewer knock-on consequences and doesn't require so much "testing" as "monitoring." If they decide that the system they're using is simply unable to furnish their needs, then they may need to consider other options. If they can't come to any kind of understanding at all, the group may need to disband--irreconcilable differences.

The game is a shared social and emotional space. The DM is granted significant authority and autonomy over that space in order to facilitate a more interesting result. If that autonomy and authority are being challenged, something has gone wrong. Finding out what has gone wrong and then considering ways to address it--including the possibility that no such way exists, and therefore the group cannot achieve its ends and should disband or heavily reorganize--is the only productive response. House-rules are but one possible solution.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm saying that if the players and the DM disagree about things so fundamentally that it actively upsets both parties, they need to sit down and have a conversation about what each side wants. If, coming out of that conversation, they agree that a house-rule is the best solution to the problem, then full steam ahead. If it just requires a change of method or approach for the people involved, awesome, that has fewer knock-on consequences and doesn't require so much "testing" as "monitoring." If they decide that the system they're using is simply unable to furnish their needs, then they may need to consider other options. If they can't come to any kind of understanding at all, the group may need to disband--irreconcilable differences.

The game is a shared social and emotional space. The DM is granted significant authority and autonomy over that space in order to facilitate a more interesting result. If that autonomy and authority are being challenged, something has gone wrong. Finding out what has gone wrong and then considering ways to address it--including the possibility that no such way exists, and therefore the group cannot achieve its ends and should disband or heavily reorganize--is the only productive response. House-rules are but one possible solution.

My group doesn't usually have this problem, actually. I have seen it in groups I've visited, at cons and at game stores. I do, however, think it's a problem if the players don't want to follow the rules, and I suspect that, "we're going to keep the lighting rules as they are in the base game" isn't a common point to bring up in session 0.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Are you saying that, if the PCs don't like how a rule works, the DM should just change it until they do? Does this apply to other aspects of the game, or just light and vision?

Pretty much, yes. That's the actual reason for Rule 0; for the DM to adjust the game for the group, not to assert their dominance.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My group doesn't usually have this problem, actually. I have seen it in groups I've visited, at cons and at game stores. I do, however, think it's a problem if the players don't want to follow the rules, and I suspect that, "we're going to keep the lighting rules as they are in the base game" isn't a common point to bring up in session 0.

I mean, that's fair, but there can easily be plenty of things that ideally should have come up in Session 0 but didn't and that thus need to be ironed out later. That's just a fact of life, people don't always know how to fully express all their intuitions and expectations in advance.