D&D 5E A simple houserule for martial/caster balance.

[James Gasik]

If I had to guess- spells that trivialize skills. Spells that trivialize combat. Spells that trivialize travel/exploration*. Spells that no game world is designed to handle and require excessive DM oversight to even consider being allowed.

*depending on the campaign. Some games are fine with players being able to rest safely wherever, or to cross long distances quickly.

 

[Joshy]

If I had to guess- spells that trivialize skills. Spells that trivialize combat. Spells that trivialize travel/exploration*. Spells that no game world is designed to handle and require excessive DM oversight to even consider being allowed.

*depending on the campaign. Some games are fine with players being able to rest safely wherever, or to cross long distances quickly.

Any that jump out at you more than most? Is there any chance you know of a place where this has already been discussed?
I would love a remake of the spells I think there are to many as is and I would prefer a more generic set of spells. So they can easily be fluffed anyway the player wants.

 

[Asisreo]

This seems way over the top. Level 1 spells, really?

Well I'm not saying that it would be balanced with only level 1 spells or cantrips. I'm saying that as long as casters have more utility options, it won't matter how trivial they are.

Let's assume that spellcasters only get these 1st-level spells. They get undercut in combat, but they still have unique tools that can instantly solve some encounters, especially encounters outside of combat. So a giant ravine separates the party and its goal, while the wizard can no longer fly, they can send a familiar with a rope on the end. And even if you wouldn't allow that in your games, as long as one DM does and a player goes "that ruined the encounter!" Then you'll see the complaints.

Wouldn't it be better if, rather than nerfing or buffing spellcasters/martials, we gave them a different design that prevents this altogether? You could make spells more powerful and world-changing, but even combat spells might take several actions and spells with outside utility could take hours or days to cast. Like Find Familiar took 8 hours rather than 1, but they are also under the effects of whatever spell is affecting the wizard.

Or, rather than forcecage taking 1 turn to cast, it took the spell's level in rounds to cast. But once it's activated, there is no means of escape possible for its duration and it might even be a bigger cage.

 

[Jer]

How about capping cantrips i.e. remove the automatic scaling of cantrips?

This forces casters to consume their spell slots faster.

I don't think this would have the effect you think it would have, because low level spells cast with low level slots don't do enough damage to make it worthwhile - that's why cantrips scale damage in the first place. So if the choice is burn a 1st level spell slot and do almost the same damage as a cantrip or cast the cantrip and keep the 1st level spell slot to use for a charm person spell, they're likely going to keep spamming the cantrip.

(The real way to fix this would probably have been to have casters lose low level slots as they level up, exchanging them for higher level slots, but still allowing lower level spells to be cast with higher level slots, rather than just adding more slots constantly. That would make the caster player face a real choice when casting their spells instead of being able to both have the massive damage spells that need higher level slots and the broad utility spells that can be used effectively by lower level slots. But that's not the choice the designers made)

 

[James Gasik]

Any that jump out at you more than most? Is there any chance you know of a place where this has already been discussed?
I would love a remake of the spells I think there are to many as is and I would prefer a more generic set of spells. So they can easily be fluffed anyway the player wants.

Spells that trivialize skills. This is debatable because while they DO exist, the opportunity cost of spell slot vs. skill check is high (save for -maybe- the Warlock). But it can happen. For example, Jump, Spider Climb, Fly, Levitate- all of these make a challenge of "climb up or down this difficult terrain" pretty easy.

Invisibility certainly makes Stealth a lot easier, and of course, we can't forget Pass Without Trace.

Trivializing combat is also dependent on circumstances, but any crowd control that limits the numbers of enemies you have to fight at once can be problematic. Sleet Storm, Evard's Black Tentacles, Banishment, Forceage...it's quite a list.

Travel and exploration can be made a lot easier with Goodberry, Create Food and Drink, Rope Trick, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Phantom Steed, Teleport, etc..

And the big offenders are fairly well known, like Simulacrum, Gate, True Polymorph...

Anyways, there's a discussion right here on these forums to check out:

D&D 5E - Let's list the "broken" spells

There have been various discussions floating around about individual spells or spell combinations that are inordinately powerful in 5e. I'm not talking about stuff like Metwor Swarm or Power Word: Kill, which do a bunch of damage but are obviously intended to do so; I'm looking for spells that...

www.enworld.org

 

[FrogReaver]

Well I'm not saying that it would be balanced with only level 1 spells or cantrips. I'm saying that as long as casters have more utility options, it won't matter how trivial they are.

Okay. I can't think of any level 1 spell that regularly trivializes content in tier 3 and 4. Find familiar might be the closest.

Let's assume that spellcasters only get these 1st-level spells. They get undercut in combat, but they still have unique tools that can instantly solve some encounters, especially encounters outside of combat. So a giant ravine separates the party and its goal, while the wizard can no longer fly, they can send a familiar with a rope on the end. And even if you wouldn't allow that in your games, as long as one DM does and a player goes "that ruined the encounter!" Then you'll see the complaints.

I hate to be 'that guy' but a regular familiar without arms flying across a large ravine and tieing the rope such that the characters won't plumment to their death climbing across it, that seems like a stretch. Even with a grappling hook, on the end it's not something i'd expect to hold up for horizontal climbing.

I can't think of any level 1 spell that regularly trivializes out of combat scenarios or in combat scenarios once you've made it out of tier 1 play.

Wouldn't it be better if, rather than nerfing or buffing spellcasters/martials, we gave them a different design that prevents this altogether? You could make spells more powerful and world-changing, but even combat spells might take several actions and spells with outside utility could take hours or days to cast. Like Find Familiar took 8 hours rather than 1, but they are also under the effects of whatever spell is affecting the wizard.

Or, rather than forcecage taking 1 turn to cast, it took the spell's level in rounds to cast. But once it's activated, there is no means of escape possible for its duration and it might even be a bigger cage.

Depends on how you define better. Adding/Changing content is alot more work than removing it, and that's even assusming that what is created can be balanced by the creator in the first place. Judging by homebrew attempts at various classes, i'm not so sure most people can do that kind of thing well.

Let's examine your suggestion to make some spells take more time to cast. Take the forcecage example, most encounters last 3-5 rounds. Some a bit longer. If forcecage costs more than 3+ rounds to cast it's a fairly terrible spell. 2 rounds is probably too little of a change. It weakens it but not sufficiently so.

 

[James Gasik]

Okay. I can't think of any level 1 spell that regularly trivializes content in tier 3 and 4. Find familiar might be the closest.


I hate to be 'that guy' but a regular familiar without arms flying across a large ravine and tieing the rope such that the characters won't plumment to their death climbing across it, that seems like a stretch. Even with a grappling hook, on the end it's not something i'd expect to hold up for horizontal climbing.

I can't think of any level 1 spell that regularly trivializes out of combat scenarios or in combat scenarios once you've made it out of tier 1 play.

Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Create or Destroy Water, Purify Food and Drink, Charm Person*, Gooberry, maybe?

Just trying to think of level 1 spells people have griped about in the past.

*Dependent on what your group seems to think it does, I saw a thread on these forums the other day that really opened my eyes- I discarded it as generally pointless, but apparently there are wildly different interpretations about this spell out there.

 

[Minigiant]

Ok got it.

IME I don't see this because you run out of prepared spells and there are so many good 3rd level spells. Once I hit 6th level any extraneous slots are going to 3rd level spells. You don't have the slots to keep low level utility spells prepared.

The point is you have the slots but they are too weak for damage. So you prepare utility spells.
The balance behind these spell was that you had to share the slots with your offensive and defensive spells. However as youlevel, the sharing stops.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Well I'm not saying that it would be balanced with only level 1 spells or cantrips. I'm saying that as long as casters have more utility options, it won't matter how trivial they are.

Let's assume that spellcasters only get these 1st-level spells. They get undercut in combat, but they still have unique tools that can instantly solve some encounters, especially encounters outside of combat. So a giant ravine separates the party and its goal, while the wizard can no longer fly, they can send a familiar with a rope on the end. And even if you wouldn't allow that in your games, as long as one DM does and a player goes "that ruined the encounter!" Then you'll see the complaints.

Wouldn't it be better if, rather than nerfing or buffing spellcasters/martials, we gave them a different design that prevents this altogether? You could make spells more powerful and world-changing, but even combat spells might take several actions and spells with outside utility could take hours or days to cast. Like Find Familiar took 8 hours rather than 1, but they are also under the effects of whatever spell is affecting the wizard.

Or, rather than forcecage taking 1 turn to cast, it took the spell's level in rounds to cast. But once it's activated, there is no means of escape possible for its duration and it might even be a bigger cage.

In several ways PF2e has tested your thesis. I doubt there is absolute consensus, but from what I've seen, folks generally agree that casters and martials are (more or less) balanced.

A great many bits of design went into this to both properly secure martials' combat niche, limit spellcasting impact, and broaden what can be accomplished with skills. These include governing how attack proficiency scales at a class level, how armor proficiency is granted and scales, action costs of attacks vs. spellcasting, how spell damage/utility is set and scales, how flexibly spell slots can be used, implementation of feats and actions that use skills rather than spells, and probably more.

That said, the goal of the OP appears to be to identify a simplest path to balance within 5e. I can't say that I know what the right level of spells it'd be best to cut off at or if that even works to get there, but there are paths forward available. Limiting the potential impact of spellcasting is one method. Limiting its availability might be another. It's versatility a third, etc.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Though do be warned- despite WotC's claims to the contrary, spellcasters are by design necessary for the game. And there are key spells the game must have (or have some replacement for) to overcome certain effects/obstacles.

If you eliminate these things, you're going to be doing a lot of work on the back end to port them back in.

Honestly, it's not even contrary to their claims (or their claims are contradictory).

Introduction of the PHB..The Wonders of Magic.."For adventurers, though, magic is key to their survival."

I'm not a huge fan of it, but it is right there in the intro.