D&D 5E House Rule to Make Upcasting More Attractive

[dave2008]

I suppose the only equivalent would be for a fighter with extra attack to foregoing his addition attack to automatically deal base die damage. Something like instead of getting d8+4 making two attacks, you make one attack and if it hits you do d8+8+4. shrug

Yes that is what I am talking about. If it is a shrug for the fighter, why not a shrug for the magic user?

 

[DND_Reborn]

This house rule would definitely make upcasting more attractive!

Good! LOL, that is the point.

I see a lot of upcasting in both the game I play in and the game I run, so it wouldn't be too necessary for me. But one way to encourage upcasting may be to grant a bonus outside of damage. This may be silly and way too complicated, but it could be something like:

Abjuration: +1 AC/ level difference until start of next turn.
Evocation: next damage spell gets +1 / level difference elemental damage
Divination: +1 / level difference to Perception checks until the start of your next turn

Etc.

Just another idea!

Something like that could work to make it more attractive, but it would require more specifics which I am trying to avoid in my house-rules.

I find that my players up-cast mostly healing with few other spells used that way. Not sure if others find this as well.

What about people that specialize in one school. Would a life cleric be able to cast healing spells better than normal clerics, or a fire mage be able to cast fireball for more damage? I know that they have some in their base rules for the class, but adding what the OP was talking about may boost the feel of certain types of classes. It may also just make those classes you favor though. i.e., if there are no mid-level acid spells or low-level lightning spells- there will be nobody specializing in that.

We very rarely upcast current and when someone tries it, it never seems worth it.

The rule would work the same regardless of class/subclass. All it does is replace additional die rolling with max rolls for additional dice.

For example, a life cleric might do d8+5 for a level 1 cure wounds. Doing it twice would average 19 healing. Upcasting cure wounds to a single level 2 slot would be d8+8+5, averaging 17.5 healing. It heals a bit less, but you save one round's action. Compare those to the RAW upcasted cure wounds at level 2, 2d8+5, which averages a lower 14 damage. With a bad roll on the additional d8, it hardly seems worth it.

 

[NotAYakk]

Generally upcasting is supposed to be weaker than having a higher level spell for the same slot.

You upcast a spell because you have no better use for the slot. And the cost of a higher level spell is you can't use it with lower level slots.

Also, one of Cure Wound's advantages over Healing Word is its larger upcast benefit from higher level slots.

By level 3, you should usually be using mass healing word for 1d4+casting stat on most or all of the party. At level 4, that mass healing word's additional d4 counts for more. On 5 wounded allies, mass healing word is 32.5 HP healed on average, +12.5 HP per additional slot level.

At level 5, you can continue to bonus action mass healing word for 3d4+casting stat, or go for the full action mass cure wounds for 3d8+casting stat; on 5 wounded allies, that is 92.5 HP healed on average, +22.5 per additional slot level.

This healing is spread out, but these higher level spells are far more efficient use of high level slots than upcasting, as designed.

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Now, I am stealing a page from 4e's "healing surges", and have that healing comes from your life force.

Whenever you are magically healed (by a non-regeneration effect), you must spend a HD as well. You gain additional HP from your HD. If you don't spend the HD, the magical healing can only stabilize you. This includes potions.

For cure wounds, the d8 can be replaced with the HD that you spent; so a cure wounds on a barbarian heals 2d12+caster's stat, and the barbarian has to spend a HD.

You could then use this to improve upcasting;
Healing Word
At higher levels: For every slot level higher than 1st, the spell heals an additional 1d4 HP, and the creature can choose to spend an additional HD to regain additional HP.

Cure Wounds
The 1d8 healing die can be replaced with the highest HD the creature spends when healed by this spell.

At higher levels: For every slot level higher than 1st, the spell heals an additional 1d8 HP, and the creature can choose to spend an additional HD to regain additional HP. The additional d8 HP can also be replaced with the highest HD expended to heal from this spell.

Now a level 3 Healing Word is 3d4+wis (12.5), and 1 to 3 HD expended by the creature.

A level 3 Cure Wounds on a Barbarian is 3d12+wis (24.5), and 1 to 3 HD expended by the creature.

You spend a lot of HD healing from magic this way.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Healing Word is intentionally a weaker heal, because of all the advantages it has - bonus action to cast and range. Basing a generalized decision on it is misleading. If they want to heal more, pick Cure Wounds. It is near twice as much average per die and upcasts just fine.

It's like saying cantrip scaling is too weak when the only cantrip you cast is Vicious Mockery.

Sorry, but that was just an example. The same problem has happened with sleep and other spells. The spell isn't the problem.

Yes that is what I am talking about. If it is a shrug for the fighter, why not a shrug for the magic user?

Because, again, the fighter isn't sacrificing to do it. If you want to streamline a fighter's additional attacks into one roll, that's how I would do it probably.

Also, by comparison, consider the other example of Command, where each additional level grants another target, effectively multiplying the spell linearly. A spell, such as sleep, would go from 5d8 to 7d8, and increase of only 40%, not effectively doubling such as command.

That is why I think making the additional dice the maximum helps augment dice-based spells to be more on par with those spells you can upcast.

 

[Blue]

Spells known is something that does not advance when you aren't advancing a specific casting class, even if you are taking a casting class and advancing your spell slots. Lower level spells upcast are designed to be weaker than a spell that would normally fit in that slot.

In addition, it changes the balance of having spells known if all you need is one spell of any particular type and it will work at whatever level of threat you need it to.

Sleep should never be as generally effective as a 3rd or 4th level crowd control spell even when cast with an equal slot. It requires no concentration yet grants no automatic saves.

Start with it being intentional that an upcast spell is weaker. This is pretty much true across all spells and the few exceptions are just that - exceptions.

 

[Maxperson]

My two cents.

I think that spells designed to be cast at a certain level should be better than spell designed to be lower level, but upcast. The purpose of upcasting is to give a bit more versatility if you need it. Look, it's a creature resistant/immune to fire, so instead of casting Delayed Blast Fireball you upcast Cone of Cold to 7th level for some extra damage. Look, it's a creature vulnerable to acid, rather than cast Cone of Cold you upcast Melf's Acid Arrow.

Now, I do think upcasting is too weak, but I don't think it should be boosted quite as much as the OP wants it to be. It should be a choice if you NEED to use it, but not something to replace spells of a given level. A player shouldn't be tempted to forgo learning Delayed Blast Fireball just because he can upcast Fireball to be as good.

 

[NotAYakk]

The easy rule of thumb is that each target after the first is worth 50% of the first target. This doesn't keep multiplying; 1 for 1 target, 1.5 for 2, 2 for 3, 2.5 for 4, etc.

Based on that, Command scales roughly like Cure Wounds.

At +5 wisdom, the healing power-per-(0.5 + slot level/2), assuming 4 targets on an AOE heal, is
HW: 7.5, 6.7, 6.3, 6, 5.8, 5.7
CW: 9.5, 9.3, 9.3, 9.3, 9.2, 9.1
MHW: -, -, 9.4, 10.0, 10.4, 10.7
MCW: -, -, -, -, 15.4, 16.4

To improve this model, I'd assign a subsitution value to your action (maybe like 5+character level) and your bonus action, and subtract that from the value of the spell before pulling out the slot value.

 

[Shiroiken]

IME, upcasting hardly EVER happens,

This is really the crux of the situation. IME upcasting is fairly common, and my current cleric regularly upcasts Cure Wounds, Spirit Guardians, and Aura of Vitality. Our sorcerers upcast regularly, since the cost of the known spell is much higher than any loss of efficiency from the upcast spell. Other classes are less likely to upcast, but it still happens quite a bit.

However, if your group doesn't like to upcast because the likelihood of a bad roll, then this is probably a fine houserule. I'd be a bit careful with a couple of damage spells (such as Spirit Guardians) that are already really good when upcast. Since you're doing it as a houserule, I'd simply tell the players you might revoke it for specific spells that might become an issue during play. Since this is a gift to the players, not getting it for everything isn't a bad thing.

 

[TwoSix]

This is really the crux of the situation. IME upcasting is fairly common, and my current cleric regularly upcasts Cure Wounds, Spirit Guardians, and Aura of Vitality. Our sorcerers upcast regularly, since the cost of the known spell is much higher than any loss of efficiency from the upcast spell. Other classes are less likely to upcast, but it still happens quite a bit.

However, if your group doesn't like to upcast because the likelihood of a bad roll, then this is probably a fine houserule. I'd be a bit careful with a couple of damage spells (such as Spirit Guardians) that are already really good when upcast. Since you're doing it as a houserule, I'd simply tell the players you might revoke it for specific spells that might become an issue during play. Since this is a gift to the players, not getting it for everything isn't a bad thing.

Yea, this happens a lot in our games. We see spells upcast with fair regularity. The classes that don't get bonus spells have a fair amount of pressure on their spell choices (Level+Mod isn't that many spells to prepare), and a lot of higher level spell choices get dedicated to utility effects that can't be replicated in lower level slots. Scaled up lower level damage spells fill in the gaps when more damage is needed.

 

[DND_Reborn]

A player shouldn't be tempted to forgo learning Delayed Blast Fireball just because he can upcast Fireball to be as good.

Again, I see that a problem with DBF, not upcasting Fireball. I mean, Fireball at 7th level does the same 12d6 as DBF. The opportunity to "delay" it isn't worth learning an extra spell at 7th level (there are better spells to learn IMO) to increase the damage.

In fairness, my concern is that it's too much of a boost, as others have pointed out. But, it does need something IMO...