jerricocreates

[jerricocreates]

A thought experiment I need to get into words. Please ignore if you see it.

In DnD 5e, is Alchemy magic? Maybe.

For starters, I'm a freak who worries a lot about how Antimagic Field interacts with just about everything in the game. For that purpose, I ask myself all the time, "are curses magic," "are +1 weapons magic," "are healing potions magic?" It just feels nice to have it categorized, you know? I remember being introduced to DnD through 3e, and they had it down pretty well. For instance, if a monster had a magical ability, it would be labeled as "spell-like". Meanwhile, 5e dropped the ball and just kind of left most of it up to DM interpretation. I've heard 6e has made some clarifications, but it's dumb, so I'm not wasting too much time going through it.

Let me try to put into words why this is such a conundrum to me. Alchemy in dnd is a branch of hodgepodge ideas all thrown into one region that feels right together, but mechanically struggle together. Or maybe I'm the one doing that. Fair note, traditional Alchemy (lead into gold and all that) has been thrown into transmutation and we aren't talking about that though. Knowledge included under the branch of Alchemy are: potions, poisons, acids, oils, soaps, fire, presumably medicines, and a whole host of "alchemical items". And so, I have to ask:

Are potions magic? Well, yes, they are specifically labeled as magic items and antimagic causes magic items to cease function.

Well what about healing potions? I've found people who headcannon that they aren't magical. You can make them with an herbalism kit. See, just healing herbs, no spellcasting required, right? A healing potion, no matter the origin, is still legally considered a magic item, however that sets an interesting precedent. You can make something that is considered magical from a completely non-magical source. Put a pin in that.

Okay, but what about poisons? Under no source can I find poisons considered as magic items, so they must be completely non-magical, right? Have you seen the poisons listed in the DMG? They've got a Truth Serum which considers the creature under the effects of Zone of Truth, but isn't magical. There's Midnight Tears which does nothing at first but deals poison damage at midnight exactly, how does that work without magic?

No one in their right mind is going to try and argue that acids, perfumes, soaps, etc are magic items. But don't throw them away just yet.

With all do respect, what in the 9 Hells is an "alchemical item". I'll tell you what it is, it's an excuse to have a magic item that isn't magic. Alchemist's Fire is the primary one, but 3e used to have a bunch of them. Smokestick makes a cloud of smoke, tanglefoot bag makes entangling goo, thunderstone explodes on contact. All really cool stuff, all completely non-magical.

Before I leave the bullet points, I want to take a moment to mention The Artificer and it's Alchemist subclass. In general, I don't like taking away class abilities. For those, I do a case by case basis if they feel magical. Sorcery points are magical, but evasion is not. A rage isn't magical, but storm aura is. Unfortunately for the Artificer, it is a magic item wizard masquerading as an alchemist. As for the alchemist's ability specifically, I'd have to argue that the elixir it can make is magical. RAW it only says that producing it is magical, but RAI would probably argue that the effect itself is magical as well.

So, where did I get with all this? Why is alchemy only magic some of the time? Are only potions magical? What about all of the other magic-ish stuff the other things do? Is it only magic if it copies a spell? What about a truth serum, it's a poison, not a potion? What if I make all alchemy magic? But then what about perfume, soap, and medicine, they definitely aren't magical? Is it entirely based on the effect? Do I need to make a catalog of what is and what isn't magic?

A bit of perspective, I'm a big proponents that DnD needs more things outside of skill checks, talking, and combat. I've personally put a lot of effort into expanding exploration and crafting into more interesting experiences. Obviously, alchemy falls heavily under crafting. Furthermore, I'm always on the hunter l hunt for ways to boost non-casters. 5e weighs heavily on casters, and having alchemy as a parallel system to magic that others can invest into to diversify their character makes a lot of sense. Especially if it can act as a sort of counter to magic.

I might need to think on this one more, but laying out my thoughts has been rather helpful. If for some reason, you've found this post and read it all, why?

[jerricocreates]

[jerricocreates]

DnD 5e stat block of Little Caesar

[jerricocreates]

everyone is meeting me in the grotto

[jerricocreates]

There is only sadness today. The ants can have me.

[jerricocreates]

By LabradoriteKing on Pinterest

[jerricocreates]

I may not be openly vocal about it but I am a certified dndbeyond hater. Have been since day one. Log the fuck off, cancel your account, and stop paying hasbro rent on your imagination. I'm serious.

"OH but it's so useful to help remember all my character abilities and spells"

No it's not. You've only been tricked into thinking it's easy because you're a fucking Ipad baby who's let your brain be sandpapered smooth by corprorate UI design. The moment the wifi cuts out or your app fails to load you're going to forget how to play your character and you're going to eat up precious session time looking it up on your phone.

"but there's so much text, I could never keep track of it all!"

PAPER, motherfucker. Read your abilities and either transcribe them into a word doc to print out or grab a notebook from the dollarstore. Writing them out this way will not only keep them on hand but help you learn how they work in the first place. Doodle in the margins, apply cute stickers, and spill things on them like god intended.

"But how will my DM be able to see my stats and track my damage?"

Why the fuck does your DM need to manage your character sheet? That's your job. Keeping track of your abilities and doing minor math is part of the fun of the game, and the moment you let a computer do the gruntwork you've put up another barrier between you and the character you've created.

Don't even get me started on people who pay for digital dice skins when real dice are right there. Real life illustration of Plato's cave.

[jerricocreates]

the mandela effect is so funny like. imagine being confronted with the fact that you misremembered some trivial detail and you have the deranged self confidence to assume that Reality Itself was Altered rather than admit to yourself you were wrong

[jerricocreates]

I don't ever want to make my hobbies my job or monetize them, because that would make them stop being fun, but it would be SO much fun to work on some kind of dnd homebrew project to share with the public. I love figuring out mechanics and abilities and coming up with all kinds of whacky creatures. And it's a shame that I'm never able to share those with anyone aside from my one DM.

I don't have any kind of platform here, but I'd love to maybe publish some of my homebrew creations to the public someday. Make a PDF of all the statblocks or something, idk.

[jerricocreates]

Oops I dropped my updated drive of DnD resources that I'd NEVER put the 2024 Player's Handbook on, or any other materials.

That would be so reckless of me. Who would leave 100+ DnD materials just laying around?

[jerricocreates]

[jerricocreates]

Bath time

[jerricocreates]

*Climbs on your lap and stares at you*

[jerricocreates]

DnD Players Don't Fear the Dark

In the 5th Edition, Rules as Written, the Darkvision feature allows a creature to see 60 feet into darkness (variations on the distance exist). Where those without would see pitch black, a creature with darkvision sees a grayscale night vision. With one final rule, anything viewed through darkvision is considered lightly obscured, meaning they have disadvantage on perception checks requiring sight which lowers their passive perception by 5.

In most every game I've played in and watched online, that last rule is ignored, darkvision's only numerical penalty is discarded. Even my own games? Why? Should it be? Over the decade or so I've played, I have noticed two metagame trends in every campaign that lasts more than a few months:

The goal of players, whether consciously or not, is to climb the ladder so that every player has some kind of darkvision and some kind of flight. (Don't even get me started on the flying problem.)

DMs use light levels as an obstacle less and less.

This may not be the case for your group, every group is different, but this is something I've noticed in many groups over years of play as the meta of DnD is hacked apart. As much as I do not care for the 2024 edition of DnD, I looked into it to see if there was anything interesting mechanically to borrow from and I noticed that the darkvision stayed mostly the same. Theoretically, I can see two possibilities. Either, they copied it exactly without putting much thought into most people ignoring it, or they felt like the rule that people are ignoring is still genuinely the best ruling for the game they are making. While I'm not a fan of a lot of the changes in 2024e, but I do think changes needed to be made for 5e, I have to pause to think about why this is one that stayed the same.

For some perspective, I first learned DnD 3.5 edition from a roommate in college. That edition had two visions: Low-Light Vision and Darkvision. In this version of the rules low-light ignores the penalty from dim light, and darkvision ignores both dim light and darkness. As far as I can find, 3.5 Darkvision functions the same way people play 5e Darkvision, but having two different levels meant that Darkvision itself was less common. Moving on to 5e, they appear to have given Darkvision to every race that had low-light vision, but altered Darkvision with a penalty so it wouldn't be the end-all-be-all. It didn't really work.

I personally have modded low-light back into 5e and run it like 3.5. It has its benefits, there are fewer races that feel like they ignore darkness, players seem to find it interesting, and the lighting features in Roll20 make different vision types really easy to set up. However, I have to wonder if it has exacerbated this innate push to get everyone to darkvision.

DnD players don't fear darkness. Darkness is an inconvenience to be avoided. The only thing making darkness scary is the DM describing it in a creepy way. Darkness is about as effective at making you afraid in DnD as it is Kingdom Hearts. If your party goes into a cave, but the party is full of Tieflings, they all shout, "I have Darkvision," seconds after the DM has said the word "Darkness." If there's a human or two in the group, they get to stumble around in the dark, desperately cling to the elf, or be the torch bearer who the enemies strike first. As soon as they find a sizable town and have enough money, the Halfling in the group is going to permanently have an attunement slot devoted to being on par with the rest of the team.

So what is a DM to do? Should Darkvision be removed entirely? That feels like a bit of a cop out for underdark races. Perhaps darkvision should be penalized further? But in what way would that feel organic? Do you make magic items like Darkvision Goggles or Truesight Lenses impossible to buy? Now your just being stingy. Is 60ft too long a distance for anyone but an archer? Grasping at straws at this point.

Whenever I've got a fresh campaign under my belt, I want to try making different vision goggles hard to acquire, but replace them with easy to acquire potions that do the same thing temporarily. But the longer I tirade, the more I wonder if I'm overreacting to the effect, even if it is still a problem. I saw a video analyzing the original pokemon games from before it became a huge franchise (I don't remember which one, I'm sorry.) There was a suggestion that, while your starter was designed to carry you through the game, early pokemon like Caterpie, Weedle, Pidgey, and Rattata where never designed to be competitively viable. The thought was that their entire lines were designed to teach you early game mechanics about fighting, catching, and evolution, and then you would move on to other, more interesting, pokemon later. You might be able to say the same for darkness as a threat in DnD. It was only ever meant to be a threat for early game, then you move on to other, more interesting, mechanics as you level up.

Do I think Darkvision is a problem? Yes. Do I think it needs fixing? Yes, something needs done. Do I know exactly how? No, not entirely. Should I be too terribly worried about it? No, not really. But most importantly, Can darkness be an interesting mechanic to play with in DnD? Absolutely. Do not hide from dabbling with sight just because it might be difficult to track. Make them fear the dark. Make them think something is lurking behind them, just outside the edges of their vision. Give them an Amnesia-like experience where the only place they feel safety is huddled around a tiny lantern whose flame barely clings to life. Make them rue the day they thought a measly 60ft of darkvision would save them from the recesses of the darkest void.

*Insert Gruntilda's laugh here.*

[jerricocreates]

Snivy listening to music, probably

[jerricocreates]

Smooth-brained pooch