Hussar
Legend
Ok, I'm trying not to make this a rant, but, as the title says, why have we continuously seen this very upward spiral in the amount of magic that is used at the table? While 5e reduces the need for magic items, it has ramped up significantly the amount of magic that is used on a round by round basis. I'm going to provide a bit of historical context to my argument then I'm going to try to show how 5e has continued this trend. My basic question though, is why? Why has DnD gone from a system where magic was used in maybe an encounter by encounter basis to a round by round and often several times per round by round basis?
[sblock=Historical Background]
D&D has always had magic. That's true. But, in AD&D 1e, you were more or less limited to clerics and wizards (and subclasses thereof) for most of your spells. A 5th level party with a 5th level cleric and 5th level wizard didn't actually have that many spells per day to cast. The cleric spells were very limited in scope and rarely applied broadly. Wizard spells had a much broader application, but since wizards had so few spells (our 5th level wizard only has 6 spells/day TOTAL), you could easily go entire encounters without seeing a single spell. Many encounters might see healing afterwards, and maybe a single spell from the wizard, and that was about it.
Something to remember here is that the adventuring day in 1e and 2e was assumed to be considerably longer. You could have multiple encounters and not spend any significant resources (no major HP loss, that sort of thing). For example, if you look at the old Keep on the Borderlands module, each of those lairs were pretty obviously meant to be resolved in a single game day - 7 or 8 encounters wasn't unusual. So, if you have 7 or 8 encounters per day and you only have 6 spells, there's a pretty signicant limit on the number of spells that can be cast.
2e changed things slightly here in that they allowed for specialist casters, so, they had some more spells, but, again, by and large, the difference isn't that significant.
3e, OTOH, makes two very, very big changes. First, casters get a LOT more spells per day. Between straight up ability bonuses and class spell bonuses (domain spells, specialist caster bonuses), you also had easily craftable magic items like scrolls (available to any 1st level party) and wands. Casters could, with a minimal expense, craft enough scrolls and wands to hold most of their utility spells and save their slots for in-combat or in-encounter effects. The second big change was the idea of the 4 encounter day. While there is obvious variation from table to table, saying that 3e generally plays out with 2-6 encounters per day isn't much of a stretch. So, you have casters with significantly more spells per day, the ability to easily increase that number AND the fact that you typically only have half as many encounters.
This, of course, ignores later additions like at-will spells from things like Complete Arcane and the like.
4e simply continues this trend. Now all casters have at-will spells and encounter spells. It would be unusual for a caster to not cast a spell every single round of every single encounter.
5e takes this trend and then adds to this the fact that almost all classes have access to spells. There are very few classes that don't have at-will spells and, what, 5 classes total that have no spells at all. It's not unusual, IMO, to have groups where all or almost all the PC's have spells from one source or another.
[/sblock]
Why is this? Why has the game become Potterverse? Not in the sense of Casters and Caddies. This most certainly isn't a balance issue. The non-casters in 5e can and do stand on a pretty level plane with the casters. But, Potterverse in the sense that everybody and their brother is dropping spells all the time. We've gone from a game where you might see one or two spells in a single encounter to a game where you will likely see one or two spells (or more) every single round of every single encounter, all day long. Is it just a shift in the genre as a whole? I don't think so, because you have things like A Song of Fire and Ice where the level of magic in the setting would be far closer to AD&D than 5e. So, what is it?
[sblock=Historical Background]
D&D has always had magic. That's true. But, in AD&D 1e, you were more or less limited to clerics and wizards (and subclasses thereof) for most of your spells. A 5th level party with a 5th level cleric and 5th level wizard didn't actually have that many spells per day to cast. The cleric spells were very limited in scope and rarely applied broadly. Wizard spells had a much broader application, but since wizards had so few spells (our 5th level wizard only has 6 spells/day TOTAL), you could easily go entire encounters without seeing a single spell. Many encounters might see healing afterwards, and maybe a single spell from the wizard, and that was about it.
Something to remember here is that the adventuring day in 1e and 2e was assumed to be considerably longer. You could have multiple encounters and not spend any significant resources (no major HP loss, that sort of thing). For example, if you look at the old Keep on the Borderlands module, each of those lairs were pretty obviously meant to be resolved in a single game day - 7 or 8 encounters wasn't unusual. So, if you have 7 or 8 encounters per day and you only have 6 spells, there's a pretty signicant limit on the number of spells that can be cast.
2e changed things slightly here in that they allowed for specialist casters, so, they had some more spells, but, again, by and large, the difference isn't that significant.
3e, OTOH, makes two very, very big changes. First, casters get a LOT more spells per day. Between straight up ability bonuses and class spell bonuses (domain spells, specialist caster bonuses), you also had easily craftable magic items like scrolls (available to any 1st level party) and wands. Casters could, with a minimal expense, craft enough scrolls and wands to hold most of their utility spells and save their slots for in-combat or in-encounter effects. The second big change was the idea of the 4 encounter day. While there is obvious variation from table to table, saying that 3e generally plays out with 2-6 encounters per day isn't much of a stretch. So, you have casters with significantly more spells per day, the ability to easily increase that number AND the fact that you typically only have half as many encounters.
This, of course, ignores later additions like at-will spells from things like Complete Arcane and the like.
4e simply continues this trend. Now all casters have at-will spells and encounter spells. It would be unusual for a caster to not cast a spell every single round of every single encounter.
5e takes this trend and then adds to this the fact that almost all classes have access to spells. There are very few classes that don't have at-will spells and, what, 5 classes total that have no spells at all. It's not unusual, IMO, to have groups where all or almost all the PC's have spells from one source or another.
[/sblock]
Why is this? Why has the game become Potterverse? Not in the sense of Casters and Caddies. This most certainly isn't a balance issue. The non-casters in 5e can and do stand on a pretty level plane with the casters. But, Potterverse in the sense that everybody and their brother is dropping spells all the time. We've gone from a game where you might see one or two spells in a single encounter to a game where you will likely see one or two spells (or more) every single round of every single encounter, all day long. Is it just a shift in the genre as a whole? I don't think so, because you have things like A Song of Fire and Ice where the level of magic in the setting would be far closer to AD&D than 5e. So, what is it?
