D&D 5E How would you balance this modification to spellcasters?

Ignore this - was trying to respond to an alternate in a comment and responded to the main thread instead.

pming said:

Hiya!

I'd probably just make a rule that allows full-casters (all of the Arcane ones; but not 'part time' ones, like the Eldritch Knight, or Divine ones like Cleric or Druid) to substitute 1 Spell Level regained for 5hp of "HD resting". Casters generally don't have quite as many HP's as others, so that makes it a trade-off. Making it 5hp also means it pretty much relegates it's use to very desperate situations...ones where one particular spell is REALLY needed again, AND the caster needs to likely spend/use 2 HD's worth of 'rest healing' to get a 1st level spell. I'd play it out as the caster taking the time to pour over his notes, hit the books, scribble formula, arcane symbols, and perform rituals of burning incense, chanting, or whatever....while everyone else is resting comfortable on their bedroll's getting a good nights sleep.

That said...it might just be an easier "fix" to just allow casters to write spell scrolls easier with a smaller cost...but have those spell scrolls "tied to the caster" (meaning nobody else can use them). Probably easier in the long run.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

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I'm not 100% I have your concept, let me restate and see if I have it right. During a rest, HD spent can regain spell slots as well as HPs for full casters, at the rate of 5 HPs per spell slot level. This will result in more total spell slots per day, not replacing normal recovery.

I think this would be very powerful.

And common. But not common as in regaining a bunch of 1st level spells. I'm worried about regularly regaining 9th level spells. Well, all of the high level slots really, the ones the game already restricts you to just getting 1 of.

Replacing 45 HPs worth of self-healing with healing from another caster is easy-peasy when it comes to having another game-defining 9th level spell. Even more efficient when there are several casters who heal via mass heals and keep all of their HD to regain spells. Having extras of spells of that level for the sacrifice of a few low level healing spells is broken.

Even if perfectly balanced, additional flexibility on how to spend HD grants power - so this makes full casters more powerful. I have heard no one say "full casters are across the board weaker than non-casters" in 5e (or any addition). Granting them more power without a nerf is no good. So if it was balanced, you still need to nerf casters, otherwise it's just occasional more free power.

Now let's get to other cases. Half caster archetypes will better be done with myulticlassing full casters (who can do this) with non-casters than the existing half-casters. And the non-casters have bigger HD so that helps recover.

CON is already more important for the low HD classes - +3 CON mod is a bigger % of your HPs if you have a d6 vs. a d10, plus the ever=present Concentration saves. It stays important here, and can really make the Durable feat shine - if you're a high level caster, having HD that give a minimum of 10 HPs each is really nice.

I also see this as encouraging a short "work day", as the casters (who already are the one who like short work-days) are now burning yet another daily resource. Sure it's to regain a different daily resource, but spending, say, 6 HD to regain one action's worth of high-level casting isn't pushing off the run-out-of-spells much while seriously impacting their other side.

If I was looking for a rule like this, I'd:
* Give non-casters and half-casters things to spend HD on. (Advantage on an attack, etc.)
* I'd change the cost of spells so it wasn't linear.
* Cap the spell level you could regain. Definitely 5th would be the highest, just like Sorcerers and spell points.

Hiya!

Blue said:

I'm not 100% I have your concept, let me restate and see if I have it right. During a rest, HD spent can regain spell slots as well as HPs for full casters, at the rate of 5 HPs per spell slot level. This will result in more total spell slots per day, not replacing normal recovery.

I think this would be very powerful.

And common. But not common as in regaining a bunch of 1st level spells. I'm worried about regularly regaining 9th level spells. Well, all of the high level slots really, the ones the game already restricts you to just getting 1 of.

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Ok, I can see that. I thought about it, but honestly...in my home campaign nobody has yet managed to breach 7th level. I think after that there has been 1, maybe 2, 5th level...and handful of 4th, and quite a few 3rd. For me, 3rd level seems to be the real meat-grinder for PC's. I think the Players get a false sense of superiority or capability and it ends up killing them.

If anyone ever got to 18th+ level..yeah, I could see it being "overpowered". Hmmm...perhaps "Spell Level Squared" would work better? (1 for 1st level, 4 for 2nd, then 9, 16, 25, 36, 47, 64 and 91 for 9th level). Maybe tack on "+5" just to keep low level spells from being replenished like candy. Problem is that once you do it upper teens, I can see "magical healing" being the norm where the cleric just uses his healing spells or powers or whatever. And then there's magic items at that level.

Anyway, just another thought.

Blue said:

Replacing 45 HPs worth of self-healing with healing from another caster is easy-peasy when it comes to having another game-defining 9th level spell. Even more efficient when there are several casters who heal via mass heals and keep all of their HD to regain spells. Having extras of spells of that level for the sacrifice of a few low level healing spells is broken.

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Ahh...yeah, you thought of that part too. But, at least with my campaign, 4th +/- seems to be the max level anyone gets to. As for NPC's, I don't have very many high level ones at all. "High Level" in my campaign ('normal' world of Generika), is about 10th. I think the PC's encountered ONE NPC who was 14th? Scratch that. They encountered one who was 11th...his boss was 14th (then never met him; they were both clerics).

High level gets wonky in 3.x+ game systems, if you ask me. I played 2 years of 3.x, about 1 year of PF, and 3.5 years of 5th. Compared to about 30 years of AD&D 1e (and Hackmaster 4th; not the newest/latest version). So you can see where my "DM'ing brain" slots the word "powerful", "high level", "epic".

Blue said:

Even if perfectly balanced, additional flexibility on how to spend HD grants power - so this makes full casters more powerful. I have heard no one say "full casters are across the board weaker than non-casters" in 5e (or any addition). Granting them more power without a nerf is no good. So if it was balanced, you still need to nerf casters, otherwise it's just occasional more free power.

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Yup. I agree. I didn't put much thought into it...just a sort of "what I would come up with on the fly during a game". That, combined with nobody hitting 8th level or higher, well, it would be fairly balanced then. Make full arcane casters more "oomphy", sure, but that's never really bothered us TOO much. Easy enough to just tweak during the testing phase.

Blue said:

Now let's get to other cases. Half caster archetypes will better be done with myulticlassing full casters (who can do this) with non-casters than the existing half-casters. And the non-casters have bigger HD so that helps recover.

CON is already more important for the low HD classes - +3 CON mod is a bigger % of your HPs if you have a d6 vs. a d10, plus the ever=present Concentration saves. It stays important here, and can really make the Durable feat shine - if you're a high level caster, having HD that give a minimum of 10 HPs each is really nice.

I also see this as encouraging a short "work day", as the casters (who already are the one who like short work-days) are now burning yet another daily resource. Sure it's to regain a different daily resource, but spending, say, 6 HD to regain one action's worth of high-level casting isn't pushing off the run-out-of-spells much while seriously impacting their other side.

Click to expand...

Ahh...I did say "full Arcane casters"; so no Knight Errant, Bard, etc. Another thing I didn't think I had to mention was the whole kettle of fish that allowing Feats and Multiclassing could bring. But I don't use those options in my campaign, so it never entered my mind honestly.

Blue said:

If I was looking for a rule like this, I'd:
* Give non-casters and half-casters things to spend HD on. (Advantage on an attack, etc.)
* I'd change the cost of spells so it wasn't linear.
* Cap the spell level you could regain. Definitely 5th would be the highest, just like Sorcerers and spell points.

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Point 1...I only would allow FULL Arcane casters this option.
Point 2...I re-jiggered the idea above in this post with the whole "Spell Level Squared (+5)" thing.
Point 3...This would be a "tweaking" factor as testing in play developed. I could easily see a Spell Level Cap too. I agree that 5th would be the absolute highest.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

pming said:

Ahh...I did say "full Arcane casters"; so no Knight Errant, Bard, etc. Another thing I didn't think I had to mention was the whole kettle of fish that allowing Feats and Multiclassing could bring. But I don't use those options in my campaign, so it never entered my mind honestly.

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I was addressing this - that the concept covered currently by half casters can be done better by multiclassing a full caster and a non-caster if you have this rule. As a full-caster they get access to this which a half-caster wouldn't, and they are even better at recovering slots then a straight caster because they have some bigger HD.

pming said:

Point 1...I only would allow FULL Arcane casters this option.

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That wasn't quite what I was suggesting. I was suggesting that you give non-casters and half-casters SOMETHING to spend HD on so that all classes are getting flexibility and you're not just boosting full-casters. My example was advantage n an attack, but really there's a lot of things it could be. Actually, I would expand that suggestion to Advantage on any roll, since spell slots can help any pillar of the game while Advantage on attacks is just combat.

Hiya!
[MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION], ahhh...got it. If my players were someone else I'd probably find something for the non/semi casters to exchange HD healing for. But...I have my players, and my players wouldn't care. Only on rare occasion do they want to see some particular class, skill, spell, or whatever "balanced to everything else". As long as it's not completely overshadowing (e.g., "A normal D&D campaign, but if you are an elf you can't die normally; if an elf is killed by anything, they recreate their body on the sun rise of the next day at the closest standing stone ring or toadstool ring").

As we play a variety of games, settings and genre's, they quickly got over the "need" for everything in any particular game to be 'perfectly balanced' (or at least "decently enough balanced"). Hell, we still play Synnibarr (the original) about two or three sessions per year!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Quartz said:

After a Short Rest all spellcasters refresh one spellcasting slot of each level per level up to their Proficiency Bonus (so someone with a PB of 6 refreshes one each of levels 1-6). After a Long Rest all casters refresh one spellcasting slot of each level they can cast.

How would you balance that?

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If I'm reading it right, it's already got a bit of balance built into it: casters refresh faster with a short rest, slower with long rest. As long as you don't allow serial short resting - resting 1 hr is a short rest, resting again is just a 2nd hour towards your long rest - you should be able to balance it with the right pacing. You might also want to limit short-rest recovery to slots expended since the last rest, so you can't have 'contrived' encounters to get back multiple slots of the same level.

One interesting thing is that the party becomes more likely to take more than just a single long rest to get back up to full potential, which matches up to the way HD return, and opens the door to a little downtime.

Quartz said:

Try thinking about it in the abstract.

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***Disclaimer: That change is a terrible idea and I would never even think about implementing it, but I’ll play along just cause I am bored.

So first let’s just start by saying, even if I were to consider making this change(which I wouldn’t), at the bare minimum I would change your proposed change to stop at 5th level spells. Giving long rest casters back spells is stupid to begin with but giving them back 6th+ level spells is just insane. Your proposed change has casters, that only get 1-2 max slots of each level 6th+ to begin with a way to get back 1 slot of each level on a short rest. That is just stupid, plain and simple.

But ok, so you implement your change anyway. First you will need to look at the short rest classes and rebalance them as your change has left them in the dust. So just looking at the low hanging fruit, Warlocks(a short rest class) and Paladin (a half caster), both vs wizard, to start. Let’s assume 6-8 encounters and 3 short rests per day. Let’s look at lvl 10 (I try to avoid ever looking at lvl 20 as rarely do games ever get there and lvl 10 is a good point where most classes have a good number of resources.

Before the change:
Lvl 10 Wizard spells- 4-1st, 3-2nd,3-3rd,3-4th,2-5th for a total of 15, then add 1 5th level slot for Arcane recovery. So 16 slots of level ranging from 1st to 5th per long rest.
Lvl 10 Warlock spells - 2-5th to start and 2-5th level slots per SR for a total of 8 5th lvl slots per long rest.
Lvl 10 Paladin spells – 4-1st, 3-2nd, 2-3rd for a total of 9 per long rest.

After your change:
Lvl 10 Wizard spells- 4-1st, 3-2nd,3-3rd,3-4th,2-5th for a total of 15, then I would assume Arcane recovery goes away and is replaced by this new change. So, PB of 4 means they get 1 of each 1st,2nd,3rd, and 4th x3 short rests. So, in the end the Wizard has 27 slots, 7-1st, 6-2nd,6-3rd,6-4th,2-5th
Lvl 10 Warlock spells - no change, 2-5th to start and 2-5th level slots per SR for a total of 8 5th lvl slots per long rest.
Lvl 10 Paladin spells – 4-1st, 3-2nd, 2-3rd to start plus with PB 4, 3-1st, 3-2nd, 3-3rd for a total of 18 per long rest.

So the Wizard went from 16 to 27 slots, the Paladin from 9 to 18 and the Warlock stays at 8. So you have massively increased the power of half casters, significantly increased the power of full casters, and the Short Rest classes like Warlock and Monk, and ALL melee classes stayed the same.
To start I feel like you would have to tweak your rule a bit to maybe only let half casters get spells back up to half their PB to better keep them in check. Then you are going to need to increase the warlock’s number of slots, I would say double.
You will have to similarly look at classes like Monk and review their resources and increase them to balance, as like warlocks, they have limited resources refreshed on short rests so fall well behind in this new power curve.

Then there are the rest of the melee. You would have to review each classes resources and tweak them upwards to get them back in balance. Some classes will be more difficult than others, but your change has greatly increased full and half casters, roughly doubling their power, so the melee will need tweaks to balance.

In reality, you would have to rebuild every class to some degree, this is a very bad idea. Alternatively, if you are just looking to make Full and half casters into a Short rest classes like warlock, rework their spell slots by level table to cut them roughly in half for spell levels 1-5, then have all slots up to and including 5th level reset on a short rest. 6th and above don’t reset. Would still take some testing and tweaking but is a lot better than blowing the power curve out of the water and rebuilding the entire game to try to find balance.

Just my 2cp

Here's how I would balance it. Each time you cast a spell using a bonus spell slot (which is a spell slot you would not have had but-for your houserule) the spellcaster loses a point of Constitution temporarily. All temporarily lost Constitution points lost in this way recharge after a short or long rest. This will mean three things: 1) concentration on spells gets more difficult as you cast more spells beyond the norm, and 2) the spell caster gets physically more vulnerable to spells which target Con, and 3) the spell caster loses hit points as they grow weaker from over-casting, until they can take a rest.

If you're looking to tweak that suggestion, perhaps a spellcaster can substitute a level of exhaustion in place of a Con loss? You could also sub in "recover 1 point of Con each time the PC spends a hit die" instead of recover on a short rest.

mpwylie said:

So the Wizard went from 16 to 27 slots, the Paladin from 9 to 18 and the Warlock stays at 8. So you have massively increased the power of half casters, significantly increased the power of full casters,

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Thanks for doing the analysis; I was aware it would be a considerable boost without balance. So how would you balance it? How about reducing the base casting slots?

Quartz said:

Thanks for doing the analysis; I was aware it would be a considerable boost without balance. So how would you balance it? How about reducing the base casting slots?

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Yes, I would rework the slot layout for both full and half casters. I would also tweak your reset mechanic a bit and make it reset slots of prof bonus -1 for full casters and prof bonus -2 for half casters. It would likely take some playtesting and tweaking to find the sweet spot, but I'll take a stab.

For full casters:
Spell slots
lvl 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th
1 1
2 2
3 2 1
4 2 1
5 2 1 1
6 2 2 1
7 3 2 1 1
8 3 2 2 1
9 3 2 2 1 1
10 3 3 2 2 1
11 3 3 2 2 1 1
12 3 3 2 2 2 1
13 3 3 2 2 2 1 1
14 3 3 2 2 2 1 1
15 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1
16 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1
17 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1
18 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1
19 3 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 1
20 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1


So, with this reworked slot layout the wizard at lvl 10 now resets 3rd lvl and lower spells. They would now start with 11 slots and at the end of the day, after 3 short rests, they would end up with 20, 6-1st, 6-2nd, 5-3rd, 2-4th and 1-5th. By the base rules they would have had 15 plus arcane recovery which at lvl 10 would be 5 spell levels worth of slots. So in the end they trade higher level slots for more lower level slots giving them more to do but at a lower power setting.

For half casters:
Spell slots
lvl 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th
1
2 1
3 1
4 1
5 2 1
6 2 1
7 2 1
8 2 1
9 2 2 1
10 2 2 1
11 2 2 1
12 2 2 1
13 2 2 2 1
14 2 2 2 1
15 2 2 2 1
16 2 2 2 1
17 2 2 2 1 1
18 2 2 2 2 1
19 2 2 2 2 1
20 2 2 2 2 1

So, with this reworked slot layout and using prof bonus -2, at level 10 instead of 9 slots they would have had in the base rules they now have 11, 5-1st, 5-2nd, 1 3rd. So like full casters they trade higher level slots for a few lower level slots increasing utility and overall resources without really increasing power.

Both may end up with a slight power creep at the high levels but I don't think it would be noticeable(it's more of added utility then raw power) and at the lower to mid levels it makes them short rest classes and adds a little utility without really altering the power curve. They are now short rest classes more in line with the Warlock and this will likely work without the need to rebalance the rest of the classes. It would take some testing and possible tweaking but it looks like a good starting point.