Do caster out of combat options matter?

[clash]

This may sound controversial but hear me out.

Casters can do a lot out of combat. They can teleport past obstacles, plane shift, open locked doors, fly etc.

But do these options actually matter? If you need to get to the plane of fire as part of the campaign there will be a way to get to the plane of fire that didn't rely on class abilities or make assumptions. Anytime you need to fly to overcome an obstacle there's either a way to fly or another way to overcome it or the only reason flight is required is because you have it. The same can be said of any of those spells. So are those spells as game altering as they seem or are they just good for making you feel useful when in reality they were not required.

[Rynjin]

If out of combat options are not required, your campaign writing sucks.

[Schwann145]

I think about this all the time.
Consider Astral Projection: As a 9th level spell it's one of the most powerful spells in the game, and the only thing it does is let you go somewhere. You can even count on your DM making all the protections of the spell useless, as you'll definitely run into silver swords or creatures who can sever your cord - why wouldn't they, amirite?
So, long story short, you have to cast a 9th level spell to fulfill, "you're allowed to go here now." And how long will that last? Well, since 5e refuses to make high level games balanced/playable, it won't last long.


But, yes, I agree with your premise, OP.
The story your DM wants to tell will accommodate the party as it needs to. If "do you know this spell?" is going to be a wall, the game just grinds to an immediate halt and no one has fun when that happens.

[clash]

If out of combat options are not required, your campaign writing sucks.

So you're saying if you have a campaign with 4 fighters as players and no magic you will both require them to use planar travel and give them no plot hooks, no magic items and no NPCs or quests to help them achieve planar travel? Seems like your campaign wouldn't get very far.

[NichG]

The mistake here is viewing it as being the DM's sole purview what sort of large-scale things happen at the gaming table.

Out of combat options are valuable because they give a player the agency to say what the plot is in a far more open-ended way. Oh, the city I'm in is under siege and the commander of the enemy forces is strutting around expecting a champion from our side to duel him? Eh, I teleport away with the NPC I'm trying to protect - no need to fight that guy. Or, we can just feed everyone with Create Food and Water and wait them out, no big deal. If what you want to do is pass through a sequence of combat challenges posed to you by the DM, the out of combat stuff might not matter to you - but then someone else at the table realized they can drive the plot themselves using things the system has offered to them, and you get table conflict.

It's not a matter of balance between classes, its a matter of disagreement about what 'playing the game' actually encompasses. One person says 'if the DM intends for us to go to the Plane of Fire, we'll get there', while someone else says 'Did you know that the Plane of Mineral just has arbitrary quantities of gemstones lying around? Forget about the Plane of Fire, I smell profit!'.

[GeneralVryth]

If out of combat options are not required, your campaign writing sucks.

This is the exact opposite of correct. If a campaign depends on a specific class ability, that is a bad campaign. The various out of combat options for all classes, should be ways to make things easier or get some kind of benefit. For example a caster with Plane Shift should mean you don't have shell out X amount of gold, or owe a favor to a local Wizard. It should not mean the campaign effectively ends there, that's just dumb.

[Psyren]

I wonder which thread spawned this line of thought

It's your job to make the party's abilities matter. The question is not whether you should create an alternate route along the critical path if the players don't have the innate ability to traverse it themselves - of course you should. If the plot requires the party crossing a collapsed bridge and they can't fly, your job is to provide other ways of crossing for them to discover. But if the party made character choices that do give them a means of surmounting that obstacle, like an innate way to fly everyone across, you should reward that foresight and ingenuity differently than if you were forced to step in and help.

Job #1 is to always keep the action moving, while Job #2 is to make sure the players' choices matter.

[clash]

If out of combat options are not required, your campaign writing sucks.

The mistake here is viewing it as being the DM's sole purview what sort of large-scale things happen at the gaming table.

Out of combat options are valuable because they give a player the agency to say what the plot is in a far more open-ended way. Oh, the city I'm in is under siege and the commander of the enemy forces is strutting around expecting a champion from our side to duel him? Eh, I teleport away with the NPC I'm trying to protect - no need to fight that guy. Or, we can just feed everyone with Create Food and Water and wait them out, no big deal. If what you want to do is pass through a sequence of combat challenges posed to you by the DM, the out of combat stuff might not matter to you - but then someone else at the table realized they can drive the plot themselves using things the system has offered to them, and you get table conflict.

It's not a matter of balance between classes, its a matter of disagreement about what 'playing the game' actually encompasses. One person says 'if the DM intends for us to go to the Plane of Fire, we'll get there', while someone else says 'Did you know that the Plane of Mineral just has arbitrary quantities of gemstones lying around? Forget about the Plane of Fire, I smell profit!'.

This is an interesting perspective to me. Basically you're saying out of combat options aren't about being able to solve a problem they are about choosing how you solve the problem.

[Rafaelfras]

This may sound controversial but hear me out.

Casters can do a lot out of combat. They can teleport past obstacles, plane shift, open locked doors, fly etc.

But do these options actually matter? If you need to get to the plane of fire as part of the campaign there will be a way to get to the plane of fire that didn't rely on class abilities or make assumptions. Anytime you need to fly to overcome an obstacle there's either a way to fly or another way to overcome it or the only reason flight is required is because you have it. The same can be said of any of those spells. So are those spells as game altering as they seem or are they just good for making you feel useful when in reality they were not required.

I agree with that perspective. A party without plane shift will get to the plane it needs to go somehow. The important thing is to provide the options so the party can overcome said obstacles and use those obstacles when you know they have abilities to overcome then so the players can put then to good use.

Job #1 is to always keep the action moving, while Job #2 is to make sure the players' choices matter.

Agree with this. I have a assassin in my group and she got to use her level 9 ability to great effect a couple of times now because I went out of my way not just to include infiltration quests but to make that ability really shine and show its full strength, including not requiring any roll, making her love her subclass choice and never feeling that one of the most frowned abilities of the game was wasted space.

[NichG]

This is an interesting perspective to me. Basically you're saying out of combat options aren't about being able to solve a problem they are about choosing how you solve the problem.

It can also be about getting to choose what problems you want to or have to care about. Lots of out of combat options mean that you have a lot of agency in determining what actually constitutes a 'problem' for you that others can impose on you.

[Rynjin]

So you're saying if you have a campaign with 4 fighters as players and no magic you will both require them to use planar travel and give them no plot hooks, no magic items and no NPCs or quests to help them achieve planar travel? Seems like your campaign wouldn't get very far.

No, I won't require them to use planar travel. They simply will not get to interact with the axis of planar travel, as they have no ability to do so.

If they do end up in an extraplanar situation, their abilities are much more limited. A Wizard or Cleric could casually Plane Shift everyone back to the material, where they could rest, restock on supplies, etc.

Fighters do not have this ability, and I'm not going to have them find a convenient "Wand of Return to Material and Then this Exact Plane" sitting around.

They're stuck until or if they find a way back.

Player choices have consequences. Bending over backward to ensure that their choices don't matter, good or bad, is simply poor campaign construction. End of. You may as well write a novel at that point.

If your campaign heavily requires planar travel to work, it will need to be retooled. Because a party of 4 Fighters with no magic is not going to be able to engage on that axis in the same way a spellcaster can. Sometimes this retooling is going to involve "no planar travel" because the party is incapable of it. There are plenty of adventures to be had on the Material.

In some cases you can provide workarounds but they should inherently add to the plot, not just paper over flaws. Giving them a vehicle that can travel the planes can get the job done, but does not replace the utility a caster would bring. A vehicle can be broken, stolen, or have additional limits. it adds drama, doesn't detract. If you simply give them an item or NPC that functions in the exact same way as a caster, you have completely invalidated the party's choice to have no caster.

In the same sense on the lesser end, if your party comes across a chasm, the utility Flight magic brings is..expediency. You can simply fly across the chasm and be done.

I'm not going to retcon a bridge being there for the all Fighter party just to make life easy for them. They chose to make a party with very limited ways to interact with the world around them, and need to deal with the consequences of that. They'll need to find a way to go around or over the problem in a different way.

If I got into a game and every time I came across a challenge my PC couldn't easily solve, and before I could think of getting around it the GM handed me a "Makes It Easy" button to solve it, I'd be pissed and probably leave that game. Because it's clear that GM has an extremely shallow understanding of problem solving and is unable to improvise in even the slightest way.

This is the exact opposite of correct. If a campaign depends on a specific class ability, that is a bad campaign.

Yes, agreed. So if you write a campaign based around planar travel for the all Fighter party your campaign writing sucks.

[Skrum]

This is an interesting perspective to me. Basically you're saying out of combat options aren't about being able to solve a problem they are about choosing how you solve the problem.

I think that's basically true of the entire game. DM's usually don't write combats that are purposely too hard or are the perfect foil to the group (unless that itself is a story moment). The combat is written with the party in mind. Modules are written such that a Generic Party can succeed - the horde of goblins might be easier to beat if you can cast fireball or sickening radiance, but being nearly unhittable with 25 AC and just hitting them one at a time will work too.

Being a good DM is about writing an interesting story that the players feel like they have agency in. A good class is one that gives the player lots to do, and again, feel like they're impacting the world in meaningful ways.

[Psyren]

No, I won't require them to use planar travel. They simply will not get to interact with the axis of planar travel, as they have no ability to do so.

If they do end up in an extraplanar situation, their abilities are much more limited. A Wizard or Cleric could casually Plane Shift everyone back to the material, where they could rest, restock on supplies, etc.

Fighters do not have this ability, and I'm not going to have them find a convenient "Wand of Return to Material and Then this Exact Plane" sitting around.

They're stuck until or if they find a way back.

Player choices have consequences. Bending over backward to ensure that their choices don't matter, good or bad, is simply poor campaign construction. End of. You may as well write a novel at that point.

If your campaign heavily requires planar travel to work, it will need to be retooled. Because a party of 4 Fighters with no magic is not going to be able to engage on that axis in the same way a spellcaster can. Sometimes this retooling is going to involve "no planar travel" because the party is incapable of it. There are plenty of adventures to be had on the Material.

In some cases you can provide workarounds but they should inherently add to the plot, not just paper over flaws. Giving them a vehicle that can travel the planes can get the job done, but does not replace the utility a caster would bring. A vehicle can be broken, stolen, or have additional limits. it adds drama, doesn't detract. If you simply give them an item or NPC that functions in the exact same way as a caster, you have completely invalidated the party's choice to have no caster.

In the same sense on the lesser end, if your party comes across a chasm, the utility Flight magic brings is..expediency. You can simply fly across the chasm and be done.

I'm not going to retcon a bridge being there for the all Fighter party just to make life easy for them. They chose to make a party with very limited ways to interact with the world around them, and need to deal with the consequences of that. They'll need to find a way to go around or over the problem in a different way.

If I got into a game and every time I came across a challenge my PC couldn't easily solve, and before I could think of getting around it the GM handed me a "Makes It Easy" button to solve it, I'd be pissed and probably leave that game. Because it's clear that GM has an extremely shallow understanding of problem solving and is unable to improvise in even the slightest way.



Yes, agreed. So if you write a campaign based around planar travel for the all Fighter party your campaign writing sucks.

This is such a weird take to me. The DMG has an entire section on Planar Portals (DMG 45). Why do you think they wrote all that, except to allow parties without Plane Shift to travel the planes? It sounds like, in your view, a DM who even thought of using these rules is "papering over flaws" with a "make it easy button" and you would abandon ship immediately.

[JNAProductions]

This is such a weird take to me. The DMG has an entire section on Planar Portals (DMG 45). Why do you think they wrote all that, except to allow parties without Plane Shift to travel the planes? It sounds like, in your view, a DM who even thought of using these rules is "papering over flaws" with a "make it easy button" and you would abandon ship immediately.

It doesn’t read that way to me.

“Quest to find a portal home,” is very different from “Can immediately go home and later come back, regardless of party capabilities.”

[Psyren]

It doesn’t read that way to me.

“Quest to find a portal home,” is very different from “Can immediately go home and later come back, regardless of party capabilities.”

I think this is where both of your disconnects are coming from. "A portal exists" does not have to equal "it is trivial to locate and use." The portal existing means the 4Fighter Party gets to Do the Adventure - not that it will be exactly as easy for them as if they had a Wizard taxi on retainer.

[LudicSavant]

This may sound controversial but hear me out.

Casters can do a lot out of combat. They can teleport past obstacles, plane shift, open locked doors, fly etc.

But do these options actually matter?

Yes, immensely so. Obstacles for any given goal or sub-goal are not guaranteed to be bypassable by 100% of adventurers regardless of their capabilities. And even if they are bypassable by other means, the alternate means may be more costly or less beneficial.

It's one thing to eventually find a key to a locked door. It's another to be able to simply be able to path through not only doors but walls in any pattern you choose, with your entire party in tow, without making a sound or allowing adversaries an opportunity to react to you.

If you need to get to the plane of fire as part of the campaign there will be a way to get to the plane of fire that didn't rely on class abilities or make assumptions. Anytime you need to fly to overcome an obstacle there's either a way to fly or another way to overcome it or the only reason flight is required is because you have it. The same can be said of any of those spells. So are those spells as game altering as they seem or are they just good for making you feel useful when in reality they were not required.

There is no singular ability that is 100% required to resolve any combat-related goal, either -- and often there are ways to bypass an obstacle without combat at all.

Being able to travel the planes is more than just a 'you may participate in an adventure on the Plane of Fire' button. It's the ability to access those environments and their useful properties for any of a thousand purposes, at any time you choose, whether getting there is actually required or merely advantageous. It's the ability to simply make someone be elsewhere, and moreover, have that elsewhere have different laws of physics, powerful alien beings, and so on and so forth.

[Elenian]

Pretty much the same reasoning will lead you to conclude that in-combat options don't matter either, since a good DM will tailor encounters to the party's capabilities anyway. In fact, having fewer options probably makes the DM's job easier.

Like I guess it depends what you mean by 'matter', what kind of story you're trying to tell, and what character you're playing. If you're trying to tell LotR, then it certainly matters whether Gandalf can teleport the party hundreds of miles (it would make the story much worse).

[LudicSavant]

Pretty much the same reasoning will lead you to conclude that in-combat options don't matter either, since a good DM will tailor encounters to the party's capabilities anyway.

Indeed, the argument appears to overlook why any abilities matter, combat or not.

[Amnestic]

If the party needs to get to the Plane of Fire, they're going to have to pay to do so.

Sometimes the payment is character building (investment of personal resources - being a wizard who learned Plane Shift/Gate or the like), sometimes it's paying someone else to get them there (investment of 'group' resources - gold, magic items, etc. that now can't be spent elsewhere), and sometimes it's payment is in time (questing to find a portal).

While they all may ultimately lead to the same place ("The party reaches the Plane of Fire"), their costs aren't equal, especially if there's a time sensitive aspect to needing to reach said Plane.

So, macro story? They might matter, depending on the story being told. Micro moments? They definitely can matter, depending on what the out of combat option in question is.

One relatively moderate example I can point to was one of the casters in my RHoD game used an ability that let them scout ahead by asking nature what's going on. This let them know about a fairly decent sized lizardfolk ambush nearby, which in turn allowed them to spring the ambush themselves, Surprising the enemy and taking an advantageous position that made the encounter way easier than it would have been if they'd been caught off guard.

Another had them come up to a river where the sole nearby crossing was filled with watering animals that would likely be hostile if they got close. They had options: try to soothe the animals and potentially have to fight them, try to swim and potentially fail, or spend time looking for another crossing. The druid said "nope, I cast Water Walking" and the party walked across, bypassing the 'encounter' entirely.

Did it affect the macro story? No, not really in either case. They would still have gotten to where they needed to go regardless of whether they'd sprung the ambush themselves or fought the animals, but the out of combat options changed the 'costs' of getting there.

[Kane0]

Tangentially related, last campaign we discovered that an Amulet of the Planes doesnt have any special requirements on who can attune to it.
Giving it to the Orc Barbarian that rode a 'tamed' wyvern may not have been the best idea...

Edit: and said amulet also has no charges or usage restrictions besides your action and familiarity with the destination, even if you mishap and go to the wrong place!

[Arkhios]

If out of combat options are not required, your campaign writing sucks.

Agreed, that is a bit harsh, but there's a seed of truth in it.

Spells that can, for example, cut a long journey short should be acknowledged when writing campaigns.

Give the long method to travel as what is normally required to get from A to B, but don't punish players for having and using their alternative methods. Keep in mind that you shouldn't place mandatory encounters along the usual route, if there is a possibility that players can avoid them whether they know of them or not. If you insist that players use one method alone, you might as well show them the rails and give them the locomotive.

(Choo, choo!)

[Silly Name]

They do matter, because they allow the caster (and their party) to bypass certain challenges, and to approach new challenges in different ways. As NichG said, they give players more agency.

The classic example is Scry and Die tactics: once you have access to powerful divinations and powerful teleportation spells, you can go in many places you couldn't before, and even bypass many troubles.

Yes, if the DM wants the party to be able to go to a certain place, they will obviously provide means for the party to go there... But being able to go where you want, under your own power, and then go back without having to worry about reaching the ship/the portal/the wizard they hired to teleport for them is a great boon for the players.

And we're only talking movement options. Stuff like Rope Trick can be a lifesaver in a pinch (my players once used it to survive a storm at sea after some bad rolls for managing their ship meant they started sinking); Resurrection spells mean death is no longer the end of a character; Speak with Dead/Animals/Plants allow players to interact with creatures and things they normally wouldn't and receive extra information.

Hell, just look at Passwall: comfortably cutting through walls up to 20-feet thick? That's huge. You can bore a hole in a castle wall, or bypass a bunch of dungeon rooms.

Basically, those spells allow the players to further exert their agency on the world, the same way skills and roleplaying would be, but greatly magnified by the power of magic.

[Mastikator]

If the players choose to not have out of combat options and the DM wants a campaign that involves the use of out of combat options, then it would behoove the DM to throw the players a bone. I think quest items are fine. If- on the other hand players have out of combat options then they should be able to use them. In fact I think the DM should enable and reward that, if a player picks up Plane Shift then they ought to find/be able to make/buy the prerequisite attuned rods. If a player learns the teleportation circle spell they get a few addresses, the DM ought to ask what kind of places the player is interested in and give them something fun and interesting.

I do mostly agree with Rynjin. Don't add a bridge just because the players suck at climbing and can't teleport/fly. They take the long way around the chasm.

[stoutstien]

Opinion 1) plot devices should not be disguised as class features or vice versa.

Opinion 2) The general theme and feel of the game that the GM and other players are going for should dictate what options are available as class features to facilitated that theme. Trying to do it the other way around leads to madness and unfulfilling game play.

Opinion 3) spells cover way too much ground and need a retool. You can't have something like a small localized effect and something that could potentially shatter the world on the same scale and it make any sense.

[Aimeryan]

Two different axis to cater to here: Capability and Agency.

Capability

Here you essentially have three types of DM: ones that will only present challenges the party can handle, ones that will present challenges regardless of capability but will always include a backdoor that the party can handle, ones that will present challenges regardless of capability including the possibility of failing something in the campaign.

In the first, yeah it doesn't really matter what the players can do - they'll always be capable of handling the situation.
In the second, it can matter what the party can do; it may save time, or provide better rewards/no losses, if they can handle the challenge in the more difficult way. Alternatively, it may make no difference - it depends on how the DM handles the players having to use the backdoor.
In the third, it definitely matters what the party can do; whole plotlines, rewards, etc., may be lost otherwise.

So, caster's out of combat options can be very impactful here - but also may not be, depending on the DM.

Agency

With this, it really depends on the player. Some players are just there for the story and could not care less what their character is capable of - it is essentially no different to listening to a non-interactive story in this case. Other players want a game, and so their agency is highly relational to their prospects for fun - afterall, probably the biggest benefit of a tabletop RPG with a human DM is that there can truly be no railroading if desired.

So, caster's out of combat options can be very impactful here - but also may not be, depending on the player.

[KorvinStarmast]

This may sound controversial but hear me out.

Casters can do a lot out of combat. They can teleport past obstacles, plane shift, open locked doors, fly etc.

But do these options actually matter?

The party druid (me = GM) has chosen to cast regenerate on two hostages who were just rescued. One was missing an eye, one missing half of an arm. This costs the party a day during which the bad guys are going to be doing some things. But the party has chosen to heal their allies/friends now. That matters. It was their choice.

If the party needs to get to the Plane of Fire, they're going to have to pay to do so.

This. What will you (the party) trade (be it goods or services) in order to get access to that rare ability/tool? Costs and opportunity costs need to be folded in.
As an aside; Magic Items handle some of this. When you get a legendary item at level 11, cubic gate, as we did in one campaign it made planar travel to five of the planes a lot less difficult.
But that was a bonus item that came from defeating a lich: the DM rolled up "what was in the chest?" after the battle and ended up generating a cubic gate. Some of the other magic items she had used against us we also collected.

Sometimes the payment is character building (investment of personal resources - being a wizard who learned Plane Shift/Gate or the like), sometimes it's paying someone else to get them there (investment of 'group' resources - gold, magic items, etc. that now can't be spent elsewhere), and sometimes it's payment is in time (questing to find a portal).

Yes. Tradeoffs.

Another example of out of combat stuff that matters:
I am a player in this one.

My warlock had, for most of her levels from 7 to 11, the at will casting of disguise self. She used it a LOT for out of combat stuff and opened a bunch of opportunities for intel collection (her deception ability is pretty good, proficient) and misdirection to allow the party to get to some places with nobody being the wiser.

She still has at will Speak With Dead. This has provided some intel collection that allows the party to make informed decisions. It is not an easy button, as our DM does the "cryptic answer" thing, but it's helpful.

Mass Suggestion: our bard broke up the beginning of a riot with that a few sessions back. This got us access to some people in the city council and set up a meeting with the vizier - which we needed.

Out of combat: Rary's Telepathic Bond. Let us split up the party as we hunted down a troublesome mage and then captured him. We were able basically form a dragnet and track them down, mentally communicating the whole time.

[Psyren]

Being able to travel the planes is more than just a 'you may participate in an adventure on the Plane of Fire' button. It's the ability to access those environments and their useful properties for any of a thousand purposes, at any time you choose, whether getting there is actually required or merely advantageous. It's the ability to simply make someone be elsewhere, and moreover, have that elsewhere have different laws of physics, powerful alien beings, and so on and so forth.

Exactly - just because the DM can make a portal available for an OnlyFighters party to participate in a planar adventure, doesn't mean the players' choice to have or not have a wizard becomes invalidated. Having a wizard that can plane shift the PCs gives more benefits than being a taxi to the plot.

I do mostly agree with Rynjin. Don't add a bridge just because the players suck at climbing and can't teleport/fly. They take the long way around the chasm.

I disagree that "adding a bridge" is automatically bad. The bridge can be every bit as challenging/onerous as "the long way around the chasm," just faster. I would do both.

Baldurs Gate 3 is illustrative here; every critical plot path and even a number of the non-critical ones have at least 3 avenues of approach. That "rule of 3" is a good practice for GMs in general.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Another had them come up to a river where the sole nearby crossing was filled with watering animals that would likely be hostile if they got close. They had options: try to soothe the animals and potentially have to fight them, try to swim and potentially fail, or spend time looking for another crossing. The druid said "nope, I cast Water Walking" and the party walked across, bypassing the 'encounter' entirely.

Yes! The Druid is Druiding their way through the encounter. Choices matter because they let you show your character's approach to a problem.

[LudicSavant]

Baldurs Gate 3 is illustrative here; every critical plot path and even a number of the non-critical ones have at least 3 avenues of approach. That "rule of 3" is a good practice for GMs in general.

To further illustrate with BG3, even with its much more limited ability to interact with the world in comparison to true tabletop, non-combat features are enormously powerful at every stage of the game.

[Sorinth]

I do think there are a subset of out of combat spells that aren't actually that important and are basically just the simple/straightforward way of doing something. But even then they can still matter, if you need to go to the Fire Plane to get some McGuffin then yeah you don't need plane shift, but having it does present options. If the McGuffin is guarded by an army that they can't fight their way out then the people without plane shift who are using a portal have to steal it and escape undetected, the plane shift team can grab it and bounce so it's not as concerning if they are detected which opens up options for planning.

But it's also about the DM style, if things are setup where the expectations are the PCs win the day and that challenges are all beatable that's going to lean into those spells not be as important, whereas expectations are that some challenges aren't beatable then they will matter more because they present options to bypass some of those unbeatable encounters.