D&D 5E 5E Spells Per Day

[Kobold Stew]

I haven't found this to be problem in play -- quite the opposite, it's a good curb on the excesses of some past editions.

The only *broken* bit of the play test we found was the intersection of cantrips and the spell book for wizards -- all other spell casters have a cap on number of cantrips available, but wizards can, like Pokemon, get 'em all.

That was easily fixed with a house rule.

 

[the Jester]

yea, so we break the 9th level spells up... making wish the new 10th level spell

Personally, I think you need a lot better reasoning to justify this than "because 10th level spells would be neat!". Unless there is something to be gained by changing an existing system, and I don't see how adding 10th level spells improves the game in any particular way, I think it's better to leave it alone.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Honestly, the different patterns of Ability Score Bonus/Feats irked my inner symmetricist more than the spell casting progression in the last version of the playtest that I saw.

Holy cow, that's so...why would they do that?!

If they had a nice space for 10th Level spells at 19th level, I think I would have been happier as well.

I've been thinking the same thing since 3e. Not that casters need the boost, but patterns that just suddenly truncate for no reason are a pet peeve of mine. Like class abilities that kinda follow a pattern but with odd wrinkles; the warlock's eldritch blast is almost 1d6 per odd level, except that it skips a couple of levels and so ends up as 9d6 at 20th level. Also feat chains that just stop for no reason, like weapon focus/spec and TWF.

Why sweet Bahamut, why?!

/melodrama

Welp, it looks like 5e is following D&D's time-honored tradition of "We could make this look nice...but screw consistency and patterns!"

 

[Kobold Avenger]

While I am warming up to the idea of less high-level spells, I feel that those spells need more "bang" beyond just 12d6 damage, as fighters can certainly outdo that twice against a single target before a short rest with action surge. But that brings up the general problem of direct damage spells over more utility-like reality altering spells at high levels, in that doing a lot of damage isn't anywhere comparable to casting something like Wish.

And currently one of the problems with ritual spells is that last playtest document none of them were higher than 5th level, but we never saw all the spells they could have had.

I wonder if Wizards do get permanency that showed up in some of the preview adventures, but never in the playtest. It helped deal with some of the issues of having a lot of low level spell slots.

10th level spell slots is something I feel is probably best for an optional rule module for whenever levels 21+ come out. Though I hope with epic play it's no more advancements in HD or bonuses, and just feats or ability scores gained every level.

 

[Jiggawatts]

To the OP, have you play-tested and found the lesser amount of spells a problem?

Yes actually, we were doing a playtest around 15th level and had a near TPK on the 4th encounter of the day. Experienced players, experienced DM, and the mage and cleric both used their spells wisely and hadn't "gone nova" or anything. Only the rogue made it out, quaffed a potion of invisibility and ran after everyone else had fallen.

Aside from the lack of pattern, I think another irksome problem I am having with the list is the fact that a 20th level mage can cast a grand total of 4 more spells per day than a 20th level ranger, that seems ridiculous to me.

 

[Jiggawatts]

Maybe there will be a classic spellcasting module, I would buy that.

 

[Sadras]

Maybe there will be a classic spellcasting module, I would buy that.

Definitely, but there are some great ideas on these boards - @GMforPowergamers' proposal is an interesting alternative. I for one (even as DM) miss the quadratic approach to spells but I can live without it and we have found a way around that - through setting and some other ideas.

For instance the Fireball spell is relatively weak, in my opinion, but because our group has opted for an E6-like approach to 5e it works. I mean if you have limited hit points the higher spell slot fireball (even Sleep spell) becomes pretty potent. Hit Point limitation "fixes" so many things.

As for too many/too few spells.
Cantrips - we have limited them to level + con modifier between short rests. Casting more than the allotted number has a chance to start eating into your memorised spells...with physical repercussions if you go overcast.

Rituals (1) - We have changed HD to Surges (prefer the name), dropped the number you receive and have Rituals cost Surges. Surges represent Willpower & Reserves. So you use them to cast Rituals, gain Hit Points between Rests and expend one to gain Advantage on a check, hit roll or save (reflects desperation).
Casting more Rituals when all your Surges have been expended would incur Hit Point loss.

So essentially a Wizard is unlimited until his physical energies run out. It makes more sense to us.

Also if you introduce things like Casting Time & Spell Disruption, Spell Failure, Material Components, Spell Preparation Time - that may start limiting the number of spells the Wizard potentially has. I prefer they started out with as many as they do, because if you want to tack on one of those spell-casting modules you don't have to balance it out with giving the Wizard even more spells.

Regarding the OP - that a Wizard has too few spells
Rituals (2) - I'm pretty sure the final product will have an increased number of ritual version of spells, thereby increasing the number of spells a Wizard potentially will have. There are several higher level spells which I have spotted which could easily have a Ritual version for them.
And even if they don't, I would probably make one That's where some of the 4e books come in handy.

 

[Li Shenron]

Maybe there will be a classic spellcasting module, I would buy that.

I wouldn't count on it. Apparently the feedback on the "new" semi-vancian spellcasting of 5e was overwhelmingly positive.

Half a year ago, I started a thread about "true/old" vancian spellcasting, i.e. each slot is simply a prepared spell, which IMHO has always been a clearly defining feature of D&D, and it seemed very few people miss that already. OTOH it's very easy to house rule that, my suggestion is to simply grant 1 more daily slot per spell level to a spellcaster forgoing the default (more convenient) preparation rules and adopting the traditional ones.

As for spellcasters having less spell slots than in previous editions, I think the main problem back then was with spellcasters PCs being too good at high levels compared to non-spellcasters, once daily spells limits ceased to be a major limitation. But it remains to be seen what is the balance situation in 5e, especially if cantrips will end up scalable by caster level (as some people want them to be).

 

[DDNFan]

Don't forget about

Arcane Recovery, where on a short rest you gain back 1/2 your mage level rounded up in spell levels.

This effectively boosts the low level spell count up a bit closer to older editions. I think this, combined with Ritual Casting and the new preparation rules, means that a wizard is far more powerful than previously overall. Being able to maximize your allocation of spell energy very precisely according to one's needs at the time, or as they come up, more than makes up for having slightly less spell slots. When you combine all that with attack cantrips that scale up in damage, you have a fun and versatile caster.

Neo-vancian casting rules.

 

[Stalker0]

While patterns are nice, I think they can force mechanics in an unbalanced direction.

I would rather have a well tailored mechanic that was less symmetrical than a pattern driven rule that ultimately doesn't scale as well as it should.


That said, its a matter of degrees of use for me. If its a mechanic that I will use in several encounters, I want it to follow a logic that makes it easy to remember. But for mechanics like spells per day, where I change my numbers when I level the character and then don't look at it again until the next level, I don't mind a more obtuse mechanic for the sake of better tuned numbers.