D&D 5E Spells cast at higher level spell slots. Worth it?

[TheCosmicKid]

In that case, apparently upranking of damage spells is terrible. It is yet another example of poor design in this edition. Fixing that would be a good thing to do if they ever get around to making a revised edition.

It's not terrible, it's a meaningful trade-off. "Do I want to prep burning hands, and be able to cast it more and more flexibly but have less raw damage? Do I want to prep fireball and have massive burst but only two casts? Or do I want to prep both and get both the flexibility and the burst but at the cost of another spell?" "Fixing" upranking would actively make the game worse: "Do I want to prep burning hands and get both burst and flexibility? Do I want to prep fireball and get nothing? Or do I want to prep both and completely waste a valuable spell slot?"

 

[The Crimson Binome]

No, it's necessary. If meteor swarm did the same damage as a 9th-level fireball (or if fireball did the same damage as a 3rd-level burning hands), there would be no reason to learn or prepare the higher-level spell. It would be far more optimal to simply prepare the lower-level spell, uplevel it if you want that massive burst, and still be able to cast it at lower levels and use the high-level slot for something else. Higher-level spells are intrinsically far less flexible than lower-level ones, so they make up for it in power.

Having a huge area of effect is power, it's just situational power. You can use a Meteor Swarm to destroy an army, where a Fireball would would be hard-pressed to hit more than a dozen enemies.

It's much like how Fireball is more powerful than Burning Hands, because it's easier to aim and can hit more targets, and that's justification enough for its existence. If Fireball and Burning Hands both did the same damage as a third-level spell, then you would still prefer to have Fireball in most cases.

 

[Caliban]

I see Magic Missile upcast a lot, due to it being force and no-save. Especially if the caster is a lvl 10+ Evocation wizard.

 

[happyhermit]

I see players doing it constantly, both in person and in every actual play I have seen or listened to. There are many reasons and most of them have little to do with what's optimal. Obviously there is the fact that known spells may be a limiting factor, especially when a character goes heavy on utility type magic. At least as often though it seems to be mostly a RP choice, a lot of players lean heavily on a few spells early on and it becomes a thing, and they don't want to just abandon them later on. The idea that they can become better at casting those spells works very well and they don't really care if they could get a few more points of damage with something else.

I have no issues with the fact that higher level spells are typically still better though, and I think removing that factor has the potential to make learning new spells less "cool" in some situations.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Having a huge area of effect is power, it's just situational power. You can use a Meteor Swarm to destroy an army, where a Fireball would would be hard-pressed to hit more than a dozen enemies.

It's much like how Fireball is more powerful than Burning Hands, because it's easier to aim and can hit more targets, and that's justification enough for its existence. If Fireball and Burning Hands both did the same damage as a third-level spell, then you would still prefer to have Fireball in most cases.

Let's say you're right, and having a huge area of effect is power. Clearly then you don't object to higher-level spells being more powerful. So what's the problem with them also dealing more damage? That, too, is situational power: the difference between 14d6 and 40d6 is immaterial when you're destroying an army of small creatures, but matters quite a bit against solo epic monsters with wads of hit points.

Also consider the question of the spells' competition. Even at 40d6, meteor swarm is considered a rather mediocre 9th-level spell. At 14d6 it'd be downright laughable.

 

[Pickles III]

I often use 2nd level slots for Thunderwave. 50% more damage is not too terrible & my level 2 slots are a bit situational (as a Bard). I expect I will do this less often at higher levels.

It feels good with spells like Hold Person mentioned above as the impact is much higher & it feels a a bit less swingy if more characters have to make saves.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It's not terrible, it's a meaningful trade-off. "Do I want to prep burning hands, and be able to cast it more and more flexibly but have less raw damage? Do I want to prep fireball and have massive burst but only two casts? Or do I want to prep both and get both the flexibility and the burst but at the cost of another spell?" "Fixing" upranking would actively make the game worse: "Do I want to prep burning hands and get both burst and flexibility? Do I want to prep fireball and get nothing? Or do I want to prep both and completely waste a valuable spell slot?"

"Spells prepared" isn't a huge limiting factor, though, at least not for anyone other than the Sorcerer.

Letting someone use Burning Hands without sacrificing damage - so you only sacrifice the ability to affect larger areas - would still result in people preparing Fireball, though, when they want to affect larger areas. While the damage on Burning Hands remains non-competitive, though, you simply aren't going to see a high-level wizard bother to use Burning Hands at all; you have better things to do with your actions and your low-level spell slots than to waste both on dealing level-inappropriate damage.

One of the major flaws of the spell slot system (and the way that saves work) in 5E is that many status-effect spells remain equally effective as you gain levels, while damaging spells require you to use higher-level slots to keep up with level-appropriate threats. If you want to Blind or Paralyze an enemy, then your chance to land the spell only increases as you get stronger (as your save DC increases, and enemy saves generally don't), and it doesn't require you to uprank that spell in order to benefit. Penalizing upranked damage spells only serves to exacerbate this disparity.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I have no issues with the fact that higher level spells are typically still better though, and I think removing that factor has the potential to make learning new spells less "cool" in some situations.

I agree that to an extent. I view fireball should have some kind of edge over 3rd level burning hands. But I'd like to see the gap close a little. Burning Hands won't have the range or area of effect of fireball, but if the damage is comparable or even slightly less, it makes it a more strategic and meaningful choice. Especially in situations where a straight blast in such a large area would cause more problems than help (ie catching your friends on fire).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So in a situation like this, would it make sense to adjust the progression, and maybe even create a kind of diminishing return? For example:

Level 1:
Burning Hands: 3d6
Fireball: N/A

Level 2:
Burning Hands: 5d6 (+2d6 rather than +1d6 for level 2 slot)
Fireball: N/A

Level 3:
Burning Hands: 7d6 (+2d6 rather than +1d6 for level 3 slot)
Fireball: 8d6

Level 4:
Burning Hands: 8d6 (back to +1d6 for each additional slot after 3rd level slot)
Fireball: 9d6

You could probably double the scalability of all damage spells, across the board, without breaking the game. If burning hands got +2d6 per level, and Disintegrate got +6d6 per level, then somebody, somewhere, might actually bother to cast Disintegrate IX (22d6+40) (117, Dex save for no damage), and even Chromatic Orb IX would be somewhat respectable.

Under the rules as written, it's painful to watch a teammate blow a 9th level spell slot on Chromatic Orb, over and over again, while playing an Int 20 wizard/cleric, no less. It's like watching someone invest thousands of dollars in upgrading their Blackberry.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

"Spells prepared" isn't a huge limiting factor, though, at least not for anyone other than the Sorcerer.

Uhh... gonna have to categorically disagree with you there.

Letting someone use Burning Hands without sacrificing damage - so you only sacrifice the ability to affect larger areas - would still result in people preparing Fireball, though, when they want to affect larger areas.

So what's the problem with people also preparing fireball when they want to deal more damage?

While the damage on Burning Hands remains non-competitive, though, you simply aren't going to see a high-level wizard bother to use Burning Hands at all; you have better things to do with your actions and your low-level spell slots than to waste both on dealing level-inappropriate damage.

I know from experience that this isn't true either.

One of the major flaws of the spell slot system (and the way that saves work) in 5E is that many status-effect spells remain equally effective as you gain levels, while damaging spells require you to use higher-level slots to keep up with level-appropriate threats. If you want to Blind or Paralyze an enemy, then your chance to land the spell only increases as you get stronger (as your save DC increases, and enemy saves generally don't), and it doesn't require you to uprank that spell in order to benefit. Penalizing upranked damage spells only serves to exacerbate this disparity.

I don't see how "penalizing" upleveled damage spells is relevant to this issue one way or another. Whether they're penalized or not, you still have to uplevel in order to get more damage. If you think this is a problem, then the only solution is a return to the 1E-3E automatic spell scaling system. Tinkering with how upleveling works isn't going to affect it.