What to do with D&D mages?

[rusty_shackleford]

Most of the time I think it's a good idea to make other classes more powerful, rather than make one weaker. But what do you do when one class has everything? In any video game adaptation of D&D that goes beyond the first few levels it is undeniable that the mage classes, regardless of edition, quickly spiral out of control. And this is with many D&D adaptations missing a variety of niche and more difficult to implement spells.

This also assumes a default, very high magic setting. It is difficult to make survival matter when your mage can just magic up some food. This was obvious in Solasta where the provisions mechanic was quickly made irrelevant. This also expands to obvious world building questions of why would there be farms, etc., .... This could perhaps be explained by rarity of clerics and mages... I suppose.

If someone wanted to grab the 3.5e SRD(or even something like OSRIC, an AD&D SRD) to make a familiar game, they'd inherently be hamstrung by this.

Just some passing thoughts I had about the various D&D adaptations over the years and how they've been shaped by, for better or worse, very powerful spell casters as the default.

---

I'd probably start by creating a significantly cut down list of core spells, and make the mage class revolve around specialization. Similarly with clerics.

[Vergil]

Rape.

[Oyster Sauce]

Scary spell misfires on 1s

[Oyster Sauce]

Scary spell misfires on 1s

Was the mechanic that gave the psyker companion in Rogue Trader the chance to accidentally summon demons cool? Barely played it, and if I did I certainly wouldn't be bringing the black woman.

[rusty_shackleford]

Scary spell misfires on 1s

Was the mechanic that gave the psyker companion in Rogue Trader the chance to accidentally summon demons cool? Barely played it, and if I did I certainly wouldn't be bringing the black woman.

It made you clench your butt when using psyker powers in a **** situation hoping it didn't make things worse.
There's also a cool white guy psyker who has a license for his psychic guns

[Oyster Sauce]

Scary spell misfires on 1s

Was the mechanic that gave the psyker companion in Rogue Trader the chance to accidentally summon demons cool? Barely played it, and if I did I certainly wouldn't be bringing the black woman.

It made you clench your butt when using psyker powers in a **** situation hoping it didn't make things worse.
There's also a cool white guy psyker who has a license for his psychic guns

Does it happen with the player/that guy too or just the lady?

[rusty_shackleford]

Was the mechanic that gave the psyker companion in Rogue Trader the chance to accidentally summon demons cool? Barely played it, and if I did I certainly wouldn't be bringing the black woman.

It made you clench your butt when using psyker powers in a **** situation hoping it didn't make things worse.
There's also a cool white guy psyker who has a license for his psychic guns

Does it happen with the player/that guy too or just the lady?

All psykers, but I think she might have it more often/worse because she's unsanctioned
I killed her

[Irenaeus]

DCC has fun, dangerous and costly spell mechanics.

[J1M]

Most of the time I think it's a good idea to make other classes more powerful, rather than make one weaker. But what do you do when one class has everything? In any video game adaptation of D&D that goes beyond the first few levels it is undeniable that the mage classes, regardless of edition, quickly spiral out of control. And this is with many D&D adaptations missing a variety of niche and more difficult to implement spells.

This also assumes a default, very high magic setting. It is difficult to make survival matter when your mage can just magic up some food. This was obvious in Solasta where the provisions mechanic was quickly made irrelevant. This also expands to obvious world building questions of why would there be farms, etc., .... This could perhaps be explained by rarity of clerics and mages... I suppose.

If someone wanted to grab the 3.5e SRD(or even something like OSRIC, an AD&D SRD) to make a familiar game, they'd inherently be hamstrung by this.

Just some passing thoughts I had about the various D&D adaptations over the years and how they've been shaped by, for better or worse, very powerful spell casters as the default.

---

I'd probably start by creating a significantly cut down list of core spells, and make the mage class revolve around specialization. Similarly with clerics.

There are several solutions, but I doubt modern designers would have the will to try them.

a) No duplicate spells. The first printing of D&D restricted magic users to casting a spell they knew once per day. If you can only use that really good spell once per day, it's less likely to get out of hand. Corollary: the complexity and potential abuses of preparing a spell using a higher level slot or metamagic is also limited.

b) Limit the spells learned. Part of what got out of hand with 3.5 was all of the spells that were printed in splat books. By simply not adding problem spells to the game that is avoided.

c) No spell recovery outside of town. Nothing shatters my suspension of disbelief like being able to camp for a day inside a troll castle for a restful recovery. Make it so you can't rest while in the middle of an adventure.

d) Remove backpack spell slots. Wands and scrolls and potions aren't priced in a way that restricts their use. They need to be removed or restricted in another way or the problems return with the minor inconvenience of a gold cost.

e) Prebuffing. Does anyone enjoy this? Does it seem at all likely that one would have time to do this before catching a bolt in the teeth? If it's intended to be always-on, just let the player sacrifice a spell slot for a passive. Making these more user-friendly would draw attention to the problem.

[J1M]

PS: There's also no interest from the player base. They like the idea that the 'smart' or 'quick' character is better than the 'big' or 'strong' character because that's who they identify with. I've mentioned this before in the context of light armor being strictly superior to heavy armor.

[rusty_shackleford]

PS: There's also no interest from the player base. They like the idea that the 'smart' or 'quick' character is better than the 'big' or 'strong' character because that's who they identify with. I've mentioned this before in the context of light armor being strictly superior to heavy armor.

Not sure if I entirely agree with this.

BG3's most popular class was Paladin, followed by Sorc.
I know what's happening there, as should most here(D&D CRPGs are easy to game by picking CHA-based classes), but I'm a bit surprised at how many people knew to do this in a game so popular.
Fighter came in at #3, followed by barbarian.

Without CHA-classes skewing it, fighter could have easily come out on top. But paladin is still a heavily armored, strongman class, and 3/4 of those are strongman classes.

I think designers, Monte Cook and other 3.5e/Pathfinder designers especially so, just loved that archetype in particular.

[Stack of Turtles]

PS: There's also no interest from the player base. They like the idea that the 'smart' or 'quick' character is better than the 'big' or 'strong' character because that's who they identify with. I've mentioned this before in the context of light armor being strictly superior to heavy armor.

Not sure if I entirely agree with this.

BG3's most popular class was Paladin, followed by Sorc.
I know what's happening there, as should most here(D&D CRPGs are easy to game by picking CHA-based classes), but I'm a bit surprised at how many people knew to do this in a game so popular.
Fighter came in at #3, followed by barbarian.

Without CHA-classes skewing it, fighter could have easily come out on top. But paladin is still a heavily armored, strongman class, and 3/4 of those are strongman classes.

I think designers, Monte Cook and other 3.5e/Pathfinder designers especially so, just loved that archetype in particular.

True, I think "player base" was the wrong word. More like the weird faggy theater kids who are responsible for the current formal and informal marketing.

[J1M]

PS: There's also no interest from the player base. They like the idea that the 'smart' or 'quick' character is better than the 'big' or 'strong' character because that's who they identify with. I've mentioned this before in the context of light armor being strictly superior to heavy armor.

Not sure if I entirely agree with this.

BG3's most popular class was Paladin, followed by Sorc.
I know what's happening there, as should most here(D&D CRPGs are easy to game by picking CHA-based classes), but I'm a bit surprised at how many people knew to do this in a game so popular.
Fighter came in at #3, followed by barbarian.

Without CHA-classes skewing it, fighter could have easily come out on top. But paladin is still a heavily armored, strongman class, and 3/4 of those are strongman classes.

I think designers, Monte Cook and other 3.5e/Pathfinder designers especially so, just loved that archetype in particular.

That's fair. I should have said designers instead of players.

[rusty_shackleford]

Something not mentioned much is despite how popular 3.5e is nominally, it's the era where D&D videogames did the worst. It sort of just blends right into the 4e era too because there really were no 4e games beyond Neverwinter. From Temple of Elemental Evil onward, there was no big-name D&D hit on the same tier as Baldur's Gate 2. Neverwinter Nights did OK… but definitely not the numbers Bioware wanted to see after BG2.
I'm sure in terms of raw numbers they did better than Goldbox, but as far as actual market share went, probably not.

I suspect buildfagging is a major turnoff when trying to actually sell copies of your game. Many of your customers will be quitting before even finishing making their character.
To add to this suspicion, many of the D&D-licensed games of this era either used alternative or simplified rulesets.

Notably, the kotor games had extremely simplified 3e-based mechanics.

[A Chinese opium den]

Mages should be powerful, making them weak or on par with other classes strength wise is a flaw in design. Magic is inherently hamstrung by spell slots because of this, just make it harder to get them back and its all balanced.

[rusty_shackleford]

Something not mentioned much is despite how popular 3.5e is nominally, it's the era where D&D videogames did the worst. It sort of just blends right into the 4e era too because there really were no 4e games beyond Neverwinter. From Temple of Elemental Evil onward, there was no big-name D&D hit on the same tier as Baldur's Gate 2. Neverwinter Nights did OK… but definitely not the numbers Bioware wanted to see after BG2.

Dark Alliance slipped my mind, but it's a good example of:

To add to this suspicion, many of the D&D-licensed games of this era either used alternative or simplified rulesets.

For not having a PC release it sold a very respectable number of copies.

[rusty_shackleford]

Mages should be powerful, making them weak or on par with other classes strength wise is a flaw in design. Magic is inherently hamstrung by spell slots because of this, just make it harder to get them back and its all balanced.

It's really a multi-tier issue. It's not that they're "powerful", it's that they're near all-powerful and end up overshadowing everyone else. Mages with more focused discipline areas would begin to pull back on this, and it's something you see frequently in non-D&D based games at least.

[J1M]

Mages should be powerful, making them weak or on par with other classes strength wise is a flaw in design. Magic is inherently hamstrung by spell slots because of this, just make it harder to get them back and its all balanced.

It's really a multi-tier issue. It's not that they're "powerful", it's that they're near all-powerful and end up overshadowing everyone else. Mages with more focused discipline areas would begin to pull back on this, and it's something you see frequently in non-D&D based games at least.

Are you referring to BG3 with these statements? Because I'm pretty sure my dual-hand crossbow character would deeply embarrass the damage a spell or two can put out.

So you can add that to your list:

f) 5e concentration mechanics.

[maidenhaver]

Magic sucks because everybody puts Intellectual constraints on it. Magic can't be treated as a skill, if its going to feel right. Magic, which is Potentia, must depend on a great deal of Luck. Potentia in itself has no motive or being; it isn't something arrived at by mere reason, which is how these impotent intellects deal with Magic in their systems. Battles and narrative should swing wildly, but a little less so with a high Luck, in a system that's got balls. I don't even want Mages to level. I'd use decks of cards, so they feel special:

[Cipher]

Most of the time I think it's a good idea to make other classes more powerful, rather than make one weaker. But what do you do when one class has everything? In any video game adaptation of D&D that goes beyond the first few levels it is undeniable that the mage classes, regardless of edition, quickly spiral out of control. And this is with many D&D adaptations missing a variety of niche and more difficult to implement spells.

This also assumes a default, very high magic setting. It is difficult to make survival matter when your mage can just magic up some food. This was obvious in Solasta where the provisions mechanic was quickly made irrelevant. This also expands to obvious world building questions of why would there be farms, etc., .... This could perhaps be explained by rarity of clerics and mages... I suppose.

If someone wanted to grab the 3.5e SRD(or even something like OSRIC, an AD&D SRD) to make a familiar game, they'd inherently be hamstrung by this.

Just some passing thoughts I had about the various D&D adaptations over the years and how they've been shaped by, for better or worse, very powerful spell casters as the default.

---

I'd probably start by creating a significantly cut down list of core spells, and make the mage class revolve around specialization. Similarly with clerics.

There are several solutions, but I doubt modern designers would have the will to try them.

a) No duplicate spells. The first printing of D&D restricted magic users to casting a spell they knew once per day. If you can only use that really good spell once per day, it's less likely to get out of hand. Corollary: the complexity and potential abuses of preparing a spell using a higher level slot or metamagic is also limited.

b) Limit the spells learned. Part of what got out of hand with 3.5 was all of the spells that were printed in splat books. By simply not adding problem spells to the game that is avoided.

c) No spell recovery outside of town. Nothing shatters my suspension of disbelief like being able to camp for a day inside a troll castle for a restful recovery. Make it so you can't rest while in the middle of an adventure.

d) Remove backpack spell slots. Wands and scrolls and potions aren't priced in a way that restricts their use. They need to be removed or restricted in another way or the problems return with the minor inconvenience of a gold cost.

e) Prebuffing. Does anyone enjoy this? Does it seem at all likely that one would have time to do this before catching a bolt in the teeth? If it's intended to be always-on, just let the player sacrifice a spell slot for a passive. Making these more user-friendly would draw attention to the problem.

B and C are specially important. If the classic spells per day system must be used, then limiting the number would be a good course. Perhaps also remove generalists altogether. All mages are specialists so they can only learn spells from their respective schools.

But regardless, the attrition mechanic of "once per day" only matters if the party cannot rest when they please. So, resting should only be allowed within a safe environment, like a town. Magic was supposed to be the scarce "nuke" or "cannon shot" in the party's arsenal where the magic user would be mostly a liability in every other situation but when it was time to roll the big guns then they get their moment under the sun.

The problem is people complained. You can even see that still with newbies trying the original Baldur's Gate and complaining they can die to wolves in the forest in the early levels. AD&D had a good amount of spells per day but the problem is that resting everywhere was too easy, even with the threat of being waylaid while sleeping. That's the real factor here with classic D&D spellcasting systems. Recovery is too readily available so the magic user is not treated as a specialized nuke to break in case of emergencies but essentially a requirement to have in any party just out of their sheer power.

As much as I dislike anything from WotC, I agree with their approach on buffs, since now most of them require the "concentration" resource that solves the prebuffing problem. It's mostly permanent but you can only have one active at a time and it can also be disrupted. I think that's a good approach. The problem with just costing 1 spell slot passively is that we get into the same issue of a mage running on 7 buffs and essentially outtanking the figther (mirror image, blurr) and outsneaking the rogue (invisibility and such) while also potentially outdamaging both. Having buffs require the same singular resource makes them situational.

Magic should be extremely powerful but scarce and dangerous to use. This explains why the setting is not just magitech Eberron and more closer to Greyhawk or even Forgotten Realms. Magic users should be rare and even with the talent and the training to actually wield magic, because its dangerous then most would be prudent when using their magic power. Or burn the candle too brightly and pay the price for it.

[Cipher]

PS: There's also no interest from the player base. They like the idea that the 'smart' or 'quick' character is better than the 'big' or 'strong' character because that's who they identify with. I've mentioned this before in the context of light armor being strictly superior to heavy armor.

I agree but in terms of armor, that's a problem with the nonsensical way AC works.

"Dodge bonus" should be separate from armor. A good frontline man at arms should be hard to hit AND mitigate a lot of damage thanks to his plate armor. D&D also puts extreme penalties to wearing heavy armor, nevermind the price in gold, so Dex is the absolute god stat and not wearing armor is objectively better than wearing armor.

Sure, you can eschew Dex if you wear heavy armor, but you could also just use a bow, high Dex and get the best of both worlds, high hit rate and high dodge rate. But, since many of us started with TSR era D&D, very few want to even consider to admit that D&D has a lot of systems that honestly make no sense in any kind of approach, either in a "gamist" or "simulationist" or whatever you want to call it.

But, this is about magic and mages so I'll stop here.

[rusty_shackleford]

I've never seen a single game actually do time constraints "well". I've seen some do them borderline "OK", but still never actually felt any real pressure.

Vancian magic, as neat as it is, just doesn't translate well to CRPGs. Not in any way I've seen, at least. The closest that did it well was probably Dungeons & Dragons Online, which used the 3e-variant spell points system and had a limited number of rest points in adventures. If you couldn't continue, you just quit the adventure, tough luck, try again and play better next time. This doesn't translate well to near all other RPGs tbh.

Here's a fun tidbit: You can only long-rest once every 24 hours in 5e, per the rules.

A character can’t benefit from more than one long
rest in a 24-hour period

How could you enforce this in a single-player video-game in a meaningful way? Even if BG3 had the passage of time, you'd just do a Bethesda-tier stand around doing nothing waiting to be able to rest.


The main constraint on caster power in D&D simply does not actually exist when dealing with video games. Time constraints are much easier to implement on the fly at tabletop than in video games where you have to account for a ton of different possible outcomes.

[Cipher]

Something not mentioned much is despite how popular 3.5e is nominally, it's the era where D&D videogames did the worst. It sort of just blends right into the 4e era too because there really were no 4e games beyond Neverwinter. From Temple of Elemental Evil onward, there was no big-name D&D hit on the same tier as Baldur's Gate 2. Neverwinter Nights did OK… but definitely not the numbers Bioware wanted to see after BG2.
I'm sure in terms of raw numbers they did better than Goldbox, but as far as actual market share went, probably not.

I suspect buildfagging is a major turnoff when trying to actually sell copies of your game. Many of your customers will be quitting before even finishing making their character.
To add to this suspicion, many of the D&D-licensed games of this era either used alternative or simplified rulesets.

Notably, the kotor games had extremely simplified 3e-based mechanics.

Tell that to all the Pathfinder **** that love to spend 4 hours reading guides on how they should play their characters, then spend another couple of horus mapping every single level up choice and how many levels to dip in their 6 to 9 class combo.

Back in AD&D you either had to multi and level up slowly as a tradeoff for the additional power/versatility or dual which also required a time where your character would had to "earn back" his previous class features.

WotC's dragon game did away from all of that and then Paizo sisters just ran with the "muh build and muh customization" faggotry. And now we have Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous which all things considered seem to be fairly successful, nevermind how Paizo literally carved a market out of repackaging 3E and selling it again to that crowd and then one more time with Pathfinder 2e after promising they would never do a 2nd edition and would never abandon their fans like the evil WotC did when they made 4e.

It's funny that all the haters of 4e that call it an MMO forget that the actual D&D MMO used 3e as the rules. And that when 3e came around, everyone called it a "Diablo clone" and a videogame all the same. I've said it before and I'll say it again. D&D died with TSR. WotC's dragon game is trash.

And, if you want a good D&D-like, ACKS and ACKS II is where is at or just go back to AD&D.

[rusty_shackleford]

c) No spell recovery outside of town. Nothing shatters my suspension of disbelief like being able to camp for a day inside a troll castle for a restful recovery. Make it so you can't rest while in the middle of an adventure.

B and C are specially important. If the classic spells per day system must be used, then limiting the number would be a good course. Perhaps also remove generalists altogether. All mages are specialists so they can only learn spells from their respective schools.

I don't see this as an actual limit but just an annoyance of the player on the same tier as pre-buffing in itself.
I went over a very similar situation on my rundown after I played Rogue Trader. It had a wounds mechanic that was largely obviated by simply going back to your ship, and therefore wounds only mattered as much as I was willing to watch my characters run back to the ship and deal with the long-*** loading times.

Pillars of Eternity attempted a similar thing with limited resting supplies before you had to resupply, and it just meant walking back to town to buy more. In the sequel, most(but not all) of your resources simply reset after each encounter. Neither are adequate solutions, the second one is closer to acceptable if you're willing to accept that Pillars games simply don't care about out-of-combat gameplay in the least.

[Stack of Turtles]

Something not mentioned much is despite how popular 3.5e is nominally, it's the era where D&D videogames did the worst. It sort of just blends right into the 4e era too because there really were no 4e games beyond Neverwinter. From Temple of Elemental Evil onward, there was no big-name D&D hit on the same tier as Baldur's Gate 2. Neverwinter Nights did OK… but definitely not the numbers Bioware wanted to see after BG2.
I'm sure in terms of raw numbers they did better than Goldbox, but as far as actual market share went, probably not.

I suspect buildfagging is a major turnoff when trying to actually sell copies of your game. Many of your customers will be quitting before even finishing making their character.
To add to this suspicion, many of the D&D-licensed games of this era either used alternative or simplified rulesets.

Notably, the kotor games had extremely simplified 3e-based mechanics.

Tell that to all the Pathfinder **** that love to spend 4 hours reading guides on how they should play their characters, then spend another couple of horus mapping every single level up choice and how many levels to dip in their 6 to 9 class combo.

Back in AD&D you either had to multi and level up slowly as a tradeoff for the additional power/versatility or dual which also required a time where your character would had to "earn back" his previous class features.

WotC's dragon game did away from all of that and then Paizo sisters just ran with the "muh build and muh customization" faggotry. And now we have Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous which all things considered seem to be fairly successful, nevermind how Paizo literally carved a market out of repackaging 3E and selling it again to that crowd and then one more time with Pathfinder 2e after promising they would never do a 2nd edition and would never abandon their fans like the evil WotC did when they made 4e.

It's funny that all the haters of 4e that call it an MMO forget that the actual D&D MMO used 3e as the rules. And that when 3e came around, everyone called it a "Diablo clone" and a videogame all the same. I've said it before and I'll say it again. D&D died with TSR. WotC's dragon game is trash.

And, if you want a good D&D-like, ACKS and ACKS II is where is at or just go back to AD&D.

There should be randomness in the level up process just to screw with these people.

[Cipher]

I've never seen a single game actually do time constraints "well". I've seen some do them borderline "OK", but still never actually felt any real pressure.

Vancian magic, as neat as it is, just doesn't translate well to CRPGs. Not in any way I've seen, at least. The closest that did it well was probably Dungeons & Dragons Online, which used the 3e-variant spell points system and had a limited number of rest points in adventures. If you couldn't continue, you just quit the adventure, tough luck, try again and play better next time. This doesn't translate well to near all other RPGs tbh.

Here's a fun tidbit: You can only long-rest once every 24 hours in 5e, per the rules.

A character can’t benefit from more than one long
rest in a 24-hour period

How could you enforce this in a single-player video-game in a meaningful way? Even if BG3 had the passage of time, you'd just do a Bethesda-tier stand around doing nothing waiting to be able to rest.


The main constraint on caster power in D&D simply does not actually exist when dealing with video games. Time constraints are much easier to implement on the fly at tabletop than in video games where you have to account for a ton of different possible outcomes.

By having passage of time and time sensitive quests. Even the original BG had a few like that, like Minsc quest to save Dynaheir and Kivan's quest. But, the problem is that because of FOMO, gamers don't find it "fun" to not do absolutely everything in their one and only playthrough, and that's for those that actually finish games. That's why you have all the save scumming.

And even people here, which I consider to be of better stock than the average normiefag "gaymer" where crying about it on that thread where we discussed playing a game the right way, rolling with the punches and embracing the outcomes of your choices as a Player.

That's the real issue. I would be 100% fine with time sensitive quests as long as that is telegraphed to the player, like in the Player's Quest Journal: "Councilor Florrick will be executed in 5 days. I must make haste in preparing to rescue her if I want to save her before that happens". That's also why I loved the original BG quest journal, that it was in 1st person and also even let you write your own notes.

The problem with BG3 is that there is no time passage at all, but then suddenly some quests are time sensitive so that feels cheap. Either all (or most, if that makes sense for them to be) of the quests should be time sensitive or none at all.

But that level of internal consistency is not something most people even care about, so naturally most devs don't care to spend the time to make the game around that.

[WaterMage]

It is difficult to make survival matter when your mage can just magic up some food.

Make like AD&D 2e. You can't pick spells on level up. Want "knock" spell? Fine, find a scroll of it and roll to learn. If the DM don't want you with invisibility, knock, fireball or any other spell, you will not get it.

Mages should be powerful, making them weak or on par with other classes strength wise is a flaw in design. Magic is inherently hamstrung by spell slots because of this, just make it harder to get them back and its all balanced.

I agree that spells should be powerful. But great power should come at great cost and risk.

r all-powerful and end up overshadowing everyone else.

Force specialization like Warhammer fantasy. Instead of a all powerful master of everything Wizards, human mages specialize in the lore of Fire, lore of Heaven, and etc. GURPS also has more specialized casters. As well Shadow of the Demon lord.

That said, mages aren't even the most OP class in D&D.

Psions in AD&D can get disintegrate at lv 3. And in 3.5e, CoDzillas rocks. A cleric or druid do everything that a mage do in medium armor, with self heal and shapeshift.

[Cipher]

c) No spell recovery outside of town. Nothing shatters my suspension of disbelief like being able to camp for a day inside a troll castle for a restful recovery. Make it so you can't rest while in the middle of an adventure.

B and C are specially important. If the classic spells per day system must be used, then limiting the number would be a good course. Perhaps also remove generalists altogether. All mages are specialists so they can only learn spells from their respective schools.

I don't see this as an actual limit but just an annoyance of the player on the same tier as pre-buffing in itself.
I went over a very similar situation on my rundown after I played Rogue Trader. It had a wounds mechanic that was largely obviated by simply going back to your ship, and therefore wounds only mattered as much as I was willing to watch my characters run back to the ship and deal with the long-*** loading times.

Pillars of Eternity attempted a similar thing with limited resting supplies before you had to resupply, and it just meant walking back to town to buy more. In the sequel, most(but not all) of your resources simply reset after each encounter. Neither are adequate solutions, the second one is closer to acceptable if you're willing to accept that Pillars games simply don't care about out-of-combat gameplay in the least.

That's why time sensitive quests should be the norm. You can either go back and lick your wounds, but this could lead to you no longer being able to achieve the best outcome or even failing the quest altogether or you can press on and figure out of to squeeze a win with the hand that you are dealt.

That's why those systems suck, as you say, if the only difference is wasting the player (not the character) time walking back to heal, then might as well not even have it all. However, let's say you cannot leave the dungeon or else the victim dies. The game can either tell you this explicitly, or telegraph this to the player in a tutorial mission in the beginning of the game and then the Player must assume that all of the quests will work like that. And then the Player now has to make an actual decision, to fight another day and fail this quest or to press on and prevail.

Same with healing characters or even reviving them. If that not only requires resources but time, then it becomes an actual choice. Suddenly, healing potions actually matter. Having a healer actually matters. Being methodical and strategic in combat actually matters. Is not just about winning the fight, but winning soundly and with the least amount of resources expended so you can use them when the big fight that finishes the quest comes around.

Attrition has always been a part of D&D, but it only matters if the world (and/or the DM) makes it so it matters.

[rusty_shackleford]

Force specialization like Warhammer fantasy. Instead of a all powerful master of everything Wizards, human mages specialize in the lore of Fire, lore of Heaven, and etc. GURPS also has more specialized casters. As well Shadow of the Demon lord.

This is the main solution I see that works at the system level for video games. Many of the classes in D&D(again, regardless of edition) have narrow, focused niches then you have a handful of classes that cover every niche with their weakness largely removed by the nature of the different medium.
Handling their weakness requires you to craft the entire narrative around it e.g., Mask of the Betrayer, no other singular class(archetype) demands so much from developers at the design level.

[rusty_shackleford]

c) No spell recovery outside of town. Nothing shatters my suspension of disbelief like being able to camp for a day inside a troll castle for a restful recovery. Make it so you can't rest while in the middle of an adventure.

B and C are specially important. If the classic spells per day system must be used, then limiting the number would be a good course. Perhaps also remove generalists altogether. All mages are specialists so they can only learn spells from their respective schools.

I don't see this as an actual limit but just an annoyance of the player on the same tier as pre-buffing in itself.
I went over a very similar situation on my rundown after I played Rogue Trader. It had a wounds mechanic that was largely obviated by simply going back to your ship, and therefore wounds only mattered as much as I was willing to watch my characters run back to the ship and deal with the long-*** loading times.

Pillars of Eternity attempted a similar thing with limited resting supplies before you had to resupply, and it just meant walking back to town to buy more. In the sequel, most(but not all) of your resources simply reset after each encounter. Neither are adequate solutions, the second one is closer to acceptable if you're willing to accept that Pillars games simply don't care about out-of-combat gameplay in the least.

That's why time sensitive quests should be the norm. You can either go back and lick your wounds, but this could lead to you no longer being able to achieve the best outcome or even failing the quest altogether or you can press on and figure out of to squeeze a win with the hand that you are dealt.

That's why those systems suck, as you say, if the only difference is wasting the player (not the character) time walking back to heal, then might as well not even have it all. However, let's say you cannot leave the dungeon or else the victim dies. The game can either tell you this explicitly, or telegraph this to the player in a tutorial mission in the beginning of the game and then the Player must assume that all of the quests will work like that. And then the Player now has to make an actual decision, to fight another day and fail this quest or to press on and prevail.

Same with healing characters or even reviving them. If that not only requires resources but time, then it becomes an actual choice. Suddenly, healing potions actually matter. Having a healer actually matters. Being methodical and strategic in combat actually matters. Is not just about winning the fight, but winning soundly and with the least amount of resources expended so you can use them when the big fight that finishes the quest comes around.

Attrition has always been a part of D&D, but it only matters if the world (and/or the DM) makes it so it matters.

Obsidian created an entire expansion around a tight, time-sensitive quest: Mask of the Betrayer.
Did players engage with the system, and carefully manage their resources?
…No.

You know what players did?
They just picked classes that don't rely on any mechanics which require resting, therefore bypassing most of the hunger system.