D&D 5E Reducing High Magic (6th-9th levels) Spell Slots Option

[NotAYakk]

If you are throwing away the standard adventuring day and finding that long-rest spellcasters have too many spells, use the gritty rest variant.

I mean, you already broke the game back at level 5, when a wizard can fireball twice as often as a fighter can action surge. "Fixing" it at level 13 with fewer high level spell slots isn't going to do that good of a job.

A long rest requires a week in safe conditions.
A short rest occurs overnight, using the standard long rest rules.
You get short rests during long rests.

Now your travel that takes a week and has 2 days where there are encounters maps to (part of) a standard adventuring day.

An encounter nexus, like a dungeon, also maps to part of a standard adventuring day. It might have more than 1 encounter in it.

Players can still retreat and come back a week later, but that means your party isn't going to be stopping many plans by their enemies, as their enemies will keep on having weeks to do whatever they want.

As a bonus, this also fixes Paladins, Fighters, Rogues, Monks, and Warlocks; each of the short-rest classes gets their resources back far more often than the long-rest classes do (as designed and intended). And the Paladin "burn it all down smite" chain becomes an expensive resource to refresh (instead of something you do almost every fight). (It doesn't fix Rangers, but there are limits to what one change can do).

 

[DND_Reborn]

Symbol, Tashas Hideous Laughter, Power Word Stun, Flesh to Stone, Eyebite, Contagion, Banishing Smite and Banishment are all auto breaking concentration on a failed save. Not to mention the aforementioned Ice storm. It is trivially easy to break concentration when magic is on the table.

That shapechanged red dragon was just turned back into a wizard mid flight using a few applications of a first level spell.

What I find odd, is that the OPs party has 3 full casters and then there is a wonder that magic had an powerful impact on the game. What else was expected? If someone has a campaign about high level magic users, of course magic is going to be the main method of solving problems.

Sorry, I didn't see you posted again, so I'll reply to this as a courtesy.

Yes, with magic it is possible, but still hardly close to likely in many cases. I think most of those spells can be countered when cast IIRC and not many foes have those types of spell capabilities IME. So, while possible I would hardly agree "trivially easy".

Magic should have a huge impact, but not that earth-shattering on a regular basis. The stuff our DM has to throw at us to make it any sort of a challenge is patently ridiculous! If you had the same number of martial PCs dealing with such encounters without spellcasters, it would be regular TPKs. So, the issue is that those high magic spells are having too great an impact and unbalancing IME.

Though I still haven’t seen a list of spells that are justifying such a drastic restriction.

Disintegrate
Globe of Invulnerability
Harm
Mass Suggestion
Divine Word
Plane Shift
Simulacrum
Symbol
Teleport
Antimagic Field
Clone
Feeblemind
Maddening Darkness
Might Fortress
Power Word Stun
Foresight
Imprisonment
Invulnerability
Mass Heal
Meteor Swarm
Power Word Kill
Shapechange
Time Stop
True Polymoprh
Wish

Just to be clear: I have no issue with a PC being able to cast one of these (or even 2 at level 20), but anyone of these can have major impact on an encounter (which they should, I get that), but not on a handful of encounters a day IMO.

 

[DND_Reborn]

If you are throwing away the standard adventuring day and finding that long-rest spellcasters have too many spells, use the gritty rest variant.

I mean, you already broke the game back at level 5, when a wizard can fireball twice as often as a fighter can action surge. "Fixing" it at level 13 with fewer high level spell slots isn't going to do that good of a job.

A long rest requires a week in safe conditions.
A short rest occurs overnight, using the standard long rest rules.
You get short rests during long rests.

Now your travel that takes a week and has 2 days where there are encounters maps to (part of) a standard adventuring day.

An encounter nexus, like a dungeon, also maps to part of a standard adventuring day. It might have more than 1 encounter in it.

Players can still retreat and come back a week later, but that means your party isn't going to be stopping many plans by their enemies, as their enemies will keep on having weeks to do whatever they want.

As a bonus, this also fixes Paladins, Fighters, Rogues, Monks, and Warlocks; each of the short-rest classes gets their resources back far more often than the long-rest classes do (as designed and intended). And the Paladin "burn it all down smite" chain becomes an expensive resource to refresh (instead of something you do almost every fight). (It doesn't fix Rangers, but there are limits to what one change can do).

I've thought about it and I will give it some more thought given your points. Thanks!

FWIW, given we follow the rule of two short rests between long rests, a fighter could action surge 3 times, and a wizard could cast 3 fireballs... so in that respect, they are even. I've never had much issue with magic until we played through tiers 3 and 4 and I could see the impact (and participate in it) first hand.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Wow, I am on the opposite side of this thread. Full casters do not have enough spell slots. Be low or high level. Even half casters should have more slots. But lowering further the amount of spell slots? Why on earth would we do that???? High level spells are barely keeping in line with the damage potential of fighters (single target that is). A first in the history of D&D and in a lot of RPG in general.

I am all for a balanced approach but the nerf that full casters got is just a wee bit too much to my taste but still tolerable as they are still good at AoE and utility. But nerfing them further is not a good thing in my opinion.

That's fair and a good assessment from of your point of view. I agree (especially high level) casters getting more slots would be good, but the high magic I'm discussing has just too impact to have access to routinely IMO.

And our high level casters have no issue keeping pace with our warriors. There is the occasional critical hit smite or sneak attack that does insane damage, but those are single target as you say. Since our casters can do pretty good damage to groups (when the chance arises) it seems to be balanced in that sense, even not accounting for high magic.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Throwing big spells about is what high level D&D is all about. If you don't care for that style of game (I'm not a huge fan) I would consider wrapping up the campaign and starting new characters, or make it entirely about intrigue, politics and kingdom-building.

It's not unique to 5e. I remember in a 1st edition game a 12th level druid single handily destroyed a demon-led army of several thousand with spells, whist the fighter stood around with his jaw hanging open.

Yeah, that is why I worked on the L12 variant. But I am trying to find a way to allow classes to experience all the high level class features without the casters being overwhelming by comparison.

I remember call lightning and creeping doom being particularly awesome in 1E, but even so I find it hard to believe "a 12th level druid single handily destroyed a demon-led army of several thousand with spells" but I know 1E experiences probably varied more than 5E do.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah, that is why I worked on the L12 variant. But I am trying to find a way to allow classes to experience all the high level class features without the casters being overwhelming by comparison.

I remember call lightning and creeping doom being particularly awesome in 1E, but even so I find it hard to believe "a 12th level druid single handily destroyed a demon-led army of several thousand with spells" but I know 1E experiences probably varied more than 5E do.

There was prep, involving a minefield of explosive runes, and a hallucinatory forest to channel the enemy, if I remember correctly.

 

[TheSword]

Interesting, Thanks for the response, I’ll go away and think about those. I won’t derail the threat further by arguing against your premise. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head and we just play different games, particularly at high level, when travel falls into the far far background for me. I tend to see high level magic heavy campaigns as a bit like mission impossible with this amazing technology and its about how they can string it together while the foes at the level have equally high countermeasures.

I also think the CR system fundamentally doesn’t work at tier 4 level play, 3 CR 13 creatures may be deadly on paper, and in some particularly devious combinations may be - but the reality is they would be a cake walk. To be clear this could happen with 4th and 5th level spells too. Banishment for instance.

Anyway, thanks for the polite responses and good luck with the solution. It sounds like your players are up for it and very little else matters.

 

[TwoSix]

Yeah, that is why I worked on the L12 variant. But I am trying to find a way to allow classes to experience all the high level class features without the casters being overwhelming by comparison.

Couldn't you do an level 12 capped game and then just give out the higher level features by fiat, as rewards or boons? Give out high level spells as rituals with story-limited material components.

 

[Helldritch]

So, they should just walk all over everything because they can throw out a high magic spell in just about each encounter, assuming the typical "adventuring day".

Look, I don't want super-hero games and so I proposed this idea, which I discussed with another member of our group in the past and he agreed. I am all for such character having one "whammy" spell/effect a day, which can help turn the tide of an encounter. I just don't think they need half a dozen.

Obviously you aren't for the idea (which is fine BTW, I know it won't appeal to many), so thanks for your input but can we leave it at that?

Ok, so because you have lots of casters, you need to use the nerf bat against casters????? If they rose that high, they earned the right to use them. As you said, different gaming style. Maybe you should adjust the encounters a bit? Beholders exist, the spell silence is deadly to them and if you have a sorcerer it will at least force the use of silent spell.

If you throw only one kind of opponent per encounter, your monsters are predictable. Use varied encounters. Don't just throw giants, add an oni, a giant shaman/cleric or two. And flying demon/fiends going straight in hand to hand with a caster is always a good thing, for the monsters that is. The more varied your encounters are, the harder they will get for the same CR. Mono type encounters are usually too straightforward making them predictable and thus easier than their CR indicates.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Interesting, Thanks for the response, I’ll go away and think about those. I won’t derail the threat further by arguing against your premise. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head and we just play different games, particularly at high level, when travel falls into the far far background for me. I tend to see high level magic heavy campaigns as a bit like mission impossible with this amazing technology and its about how they can string it together while the foes at the level have equally high countermeasures.

I also think the CR system fundamentally doesn’t work at tier 4 level play, 3 CR 13 creatures may be deadly on paper, and in some particularly devious combinations may be - but the reality is they would be a cake walk. To be clear this could happen with 4th and 5th level spells too. Banishment for instance.

Anyway, thanks for the polite responses and good luck with the solution. It sounds like your players are up for it and very little else matters.

You're welcome. I am all for debate on an idea and yes I am sure our games differ.

As for the CR system, I think it partly falls apart because of the premise that magical items aren't needed, but yet most games play with them. If you take out the magic items in the storm giant rock calculations, for example, the wizard's AC drops dramatically to AC 16 (mage armor, DEX +3), and AC 21 with shield... so the odds of breaking concentration rises. Also, take out feats and MCing (so no wizard's with CON saves), and now breaking concentration is much more likely!

I'll post after my group discussion later today, so you'll know what their responses are.

Cheers!