D&D (2024) Playtest 8 Spell Discussion

[UngeheuerLich]

The quoted text said nothing about the DMG at all. I would have to add a passage about the DMG to begin with.

And why would they need to state that the rules for running monsters are in the book with the monsters? Natural language, remember? Additionally, I am not assuming the DMG is misleading anyone at all. The PHB does contain rules for making characters and running the game. However, you have gone a step further, assuming that therefore no other rules for the game exist. But that is blatantly fallacious. You can't even support it with evidence, because you have already conceded that optional rules exist in other books. Therefore, rules can exist in other books.

I see you have also completely abandoned any pretense of having an argument as for why your special mystical language must exist, and why it must be completely different than any other language in the game.

There are indeed very few rules to run the game in the DMG or the MM. I could perfectly play 3e and 5e only with the PHB and no other book. Because the other books were not out by then.

The DMG has guidelines to do things. Optional rules. Thise I can take or not or chose between. Or modify to suit my style of play. I can easily make up my own monsters with abilities or chose a 3pp product and play the same game.

If I change the stats of a monster I don't use a house rule. I just change the stats of the monster.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Shocking, how much I agree with you lately

I agree it is shocking.

If my boss handed me three books and said "These are the core rules of your job" I wouldn't be going around telling people that since one of the books said the other book contained rules, but didn't mention itself or the third book having rules, that they are actually both guidelines and suggestions and I only have to follow the rules from the first book. .

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I agree it is shocking.

If my boss handed me three books and said "These are the core rules of your job" I wouldn't be going around telling people that since one of the books said the other book contained rules, but didn't mention itself or the third book having rules, that they are actually both guidelines and suggestions and I only have to follow the rules from the first book. .

Then you misinterpreted your boss when they exactly said this: "here are the legal rules you have to follow and I added two books of examplatory material with ideas and design principles you can use as an orientation for your work here."

Edit: the first time you told me as a player, that my tarrasque can't throw a tree after the poison spraying flying wizard, because they don't have the ability to throw improvised weapons more than 30 ft, beacause it lack an abilitiy in its stat block to do so, you may leave my house and group forever.
Or that my thug may not wear better armor or carry a better melee weapon... Stat blocks are no rules.
Or that my rest variant is nowhere listed in the optional resting rules.
And that you can cleave througg minons by dealing enough damage to bring one from full to zero, even if they are not still at full hp...

 

[Chaosmancer]

There are indeed very few rules to run the game in the DMG or the MM. I could perfectly play 3e and 5e only with the PHB and no other book. Because the other books were not out by then.

The DMG has guidelines to do things. Optional rules. Thise I can take or not or chose between. Or modify to suit my style of play. I can easily make up my own monsters with abilities or chose a 3pp product and play the same game.

If I change the stats of a monster I don't use a house rule. I just change the stats of the monster.

I've never stated that you couldn't play a game of 5e without the Monster Manual. It would certainly be a lot harder, but it would be theoritically possible to do a lite-combat game.

And yes, the DMG does also contain "optional rules" as in they are not fundamental to how the D20 system works. The DMG does not explain how attacks work, or how saves work. However, it does contain other rules. If you decided to state that the rules for how a Ballista works in the DMG are just guidelines.... then are we also saying that the rules for a lance are just a guideline? If we say that how Truth Serum works is just an optional rule... wouldn't how alchemists fire works be an optional rule? Aren't the rules for Extreme Heat or Frigid Water just as much rules as Drowning or Difficult Terrain?

Sure, you don't NEED these rules. But you don't NEED Bards either. You don't NEED gnomes. If we call everything not essential for the game a guideline, then there is very little game left.

Additionally, changing stats is often seen as homebrewing monsters. I've often had discussions with people where that exact phrasing was used. But beyond that, how is tremorsense not the same type of rule as Darkvision? How is burrowing not the same type of rule as flight or crawling? These are rules. Sure, they are again rules that are not fundamental to the function of the game, like how an attack roll is compared against an armor class, but scribing spells isn't that fundamental either, and is still a rule.

And each monster ability is a rule, just like the player abilities and spells are rules. Sure, you could change a basilisk's petrifying glare, but how is that fundamentally different from changing Flesh to Stone or Intimidating Prescence? Merely because it is not player facing?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Then you misinterpreted your boss when they exactly said this: "here are the legal rules you have to follow and I added two books of examplatory material with ideas and design principles you can use as an orientation for your work here."

It isn't called "The Core Rulebook and the books of guidelines". I have not misinterpretted how these books are marketed in the slightest.

Edit: the first time you told me as a player, that my tarrasque can't throw a tree after the poison spraying flying wizard, because they don't have the ability to throw improvised weapons more than 30 ft, beacause it lack an abilitiy in its stat block to do so, you may leave my house and group forever.
Or that my thug may not wear better armor or carry a better melee weapon... Stat blocks are no rules.
Or that my rest variant is nowhere listed in the optional resting rules.
And that you can cleave througg minons by dealing enough damage to bring one from full to zero, even if they are not still at full hp...

Sure, I agree with that you can change things. Don't misconstrue that.

But just because I tell my players "Find Traps sucks as a spell, I made a better version" doesn't mean I didn't change a rule. Sure, giant monster throwing things makes sense. It also makes sense that the Barbarian should be able to throw their Greataxe. That doesn't change the fact that there are rules for how throwing weapons work, and that those rules exist.

And the claim seems to continously be "Those aren't rules, so I can ignore them" followed by "Well, those are optional rules, so I can ignore them" and all for the purpose of limiting conversation to exclusively the PHB and nothing else. And all based on a misinterpretation that somehow the only rules in the game can only and do only exist in the PHB.

 

[Yaarel]

I've never stated that you couldn't play a game of 5e without the Monster Manual. It would certainly be a lot harder, but it would be theoritically possible to do a lite-combat game.

The Monster Manual brings a "monster of the week" genre to the game.

If the 2024 Players Handbook has all of the rules for the Beast creature type, and even rules for creating monster statblocks for NPCs of the Humanoid creature type, for friends and hirelings, then the adventure would be people-oriented, with struggles among the Humanoids.

In other words, moving "core" Beast and Humanoid to the 2024 Players Handbook, means this book is all one needs to play a complete game of D&D.

Meanwhile a later Bestiary book can expand in more detail the vary many different kinds of Beasts, and a Rogues Gallery can expand the diversity of Humanoids. Plus, each official setting will add their own distinctive Humanoids and Beasts as well.

 

[Maxperson]

The quoted text said nothing about the DMG at all. I would have to add a passage about the DMG to begin with.

Get the DMG PDF and do a search for guidelines, will you?

And why would they need to state that the rules for running monsters are in the book with the monsters? Natural language, remember? Additionally, I am not assuming the DMG is misleading anyone at all. The PHB does contain rules for making characters and running the game. However, you have gone a step further, assuming that therefore no other rules for the game exist. But that is blatantly fallacious. You can't even support it with evidence, because you have already conceded that optional rules exist in other books. Therefore, rules can exist in other books.

Of course your fallacious depiction of my argument is fallacious. It can't be otherwise. Here are the facts.

1) All the rules you need to run the game are in the PHB.
2) Any rules outside the PHB in the splatbooks are rules that a) you don't need to run the game, 2) can't be assumed to be in any game being played, c) are worthless in a discussion for how the game is played.
3) guidelines are often written in the same tone as a rule, but because they are explicitly guidelines, are not rules. These would be things like the burrowing guidelines in the MM and the XP guidelines in the DMG.

I see you have also completely abandoned any pretense of having an argument as for why your special mystical language must exist, and why it must be completely different than any other language in the game.

It must exist because it's RAW. Go read the PHB rules on the verbal component.

 

[Yaarel]

Go read the PHB rules on the verbal component.

There is no common magical language.

One Wizard casts Sleep by saying, "La-la-lah", an other says, "Shhhh", an other says, "Sleep", an other says,"Mmmm-mmm-mmmmmm", an other says, "Somniaro!", a Bard softly plays a flute.

Each mage attunes ones own, personal, magical aspect, intention, and expression. The Verbal component is idiolectic.

One Wizard cannot read an others spellbook simply by knowing some shared magical language. Each method of magic is unique.


There might be communal magical rituals, where each participant might perform a ceremony with specific intentions and linguistic traditions, but even these differ from community to community.

 

[Maxperson]

There is no common magical language.

One Wizard casts Sleep by saying, "La-la-lah", an other says, "Shhhh", an other says, "Sleep", an other says,"Mmmm-mmm-mmmmmm", an other says, "Somniaro!", a Bard softly plays a flute.

Each mage attunes ones own, personal, magical aspect, intention, and expression. The Verbal component is idiolectic.

One Wizard cannot read an others spellbook simply by knowing some shared magical language. Each method of magic is unique.


There might be communal magical rituals, where each participant might perform a ceremony with specific intentions and linguistic traditions, but even these differ from community to community.

You cannot escape RAW.

"Most spells require the chanting of mystic words."

These are not a language. They are mystic words. Shamba lamba doodoo!

Whatever words the various wizards use, they are all part of the same mystic word bunch. If you look, it's the combination of sounds that does it, so while you might have 10 different wizards using 10 different mystic words for sleep, the same mystic tones are in all 10 of those words.

 

[Yaarel]

You cannot escape RAW.

"Most spells require the chanting of mystic words."

The "mystic words" include "Shhhhh", "Somniaro", "Sleep", "Mmm-mm-mmmm".

These words dont imply a shared language.

They are a kind of language, because magic can "translate" the unique idiolect of one caster into the unique idiolect of an other caster.

The Bard playing the flute or dancing silently or the Fey or the psionic manifesting innately, has nothing to do with Verbal, anyway.