D&D 5E Too Much Spellcasting in Your D&D? Just Add a Little Lankhmar!

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm not banning combat spells. Fireball, magic missile and many others exist would still exist. It is just that cantrips are banned.


There is no need to grant a spell caster more martial options as they are already quite powerful outside of combat. Although I would consider allowing a spell caster to pick up additional weapon proficiencies and maybe wear armor at some other penalty (maybe a penalty to concentration saves if they wear armor).

Balance is maintained in the general scope of the game as a whole, it is just that balance in combat is driven in favor of non-spellcasting classes and, in this situation, that is a desirable outcome.

Although this also brings up all the classes and subclasses that are overtly magical that aren't casters.... (a lot of the later barbarian subclasses for example). I'd probably just ban those out-right. Ban warlocks and sorcerers and limit wizards as defined.

I was talking about OP's suggestion which effectively bans combat spells. No one will do nothing for four rounds in order to cast a magic missile.

But yes, if you want less video gamey magic pew pew (I can sympathise with that, it does feel out of place in some settings) then indeed removing combat cantrips (and leaving other combat spells to function normally) but giving casters more weapon and possibly armour profiencies to compensate could work OKish. Now some players might not like the resulting flavour, but that's another matter. Warlocks however would be boned without eldritch blast, except if they were hexbaldes.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

“Play another game” is not a solution, it’s a dismissal. Diluting the presence of magic doesn’t break the game, but it does alter the flavor dramatically.

I agree, I'm dismissing the OP's solution. Diluting magic does indeed break the game for spellcasters (making them much less useful in combat) if there are no other buffs applied to spellcasters. D&D is a combat game at its core, so nerfing spellcasters in this way does not maintain balance across classes.

Of course, this does not matter for individual tables... there may be players who say, "Yeah, I'll play D&D on hard mode and be a wizard for this game!" But this is not a good solution for every table who would like to try low-magic play.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

But seriously, the bottom line is, you have to replace magic in combat with something and it can't be 'really bad mundane combat'.

Even if they're not casting spells, they should be able to legitimately contribute and have meaningful choice in combat.

Maybe wizard schools have a combat style that's reflected in the class/subclass, maybe there's internalized magic that lets them monk it up, Something. Otherwise, the player might as well take a nap during combats for all the good they'll do.

Spellcasting monks -- making wizards into Jedi, in other words -- would be super-badass and definitely a break from fire bolt, fire bolt, fire bolt, or yawning and tossing a fireball at every problem.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thinking about this prompt more, I've actually kind of come around to liking it.

I think a big key to this style of campaign is that magic should be awe-inspiring. When the characters are using magic in combat, it's because they've prepared. When an enemy is using magic, it's scary.

For enemy spellcasters, I would probably give them just one or two really high level spells to use in combat. When you know the orc fire mage is going to cast a 12d6 Fireball in 4 rounds, the combat strategy shifts to disrupting his concentration.

I think another thing you need is a lot of walls that can be bypassed out of combat through magic. There aren't going to be many Arcane Locks, so Knock is super powerful. Most people aren't going to have protections against Scrying. People get easily tricked by Illusions because they are very rare.

In other words, if a player chooses to be a spellcaster, they should feel like the combat sacrifice allows them to be powerful in the campaign world.

You can test these rules out by downloading OSRIC or the original 1E and 2E rules. It definitely did work and did have a different tone. I think they moved away from those rules in later editions for a reason, but if it's what you want, there's a ton of support (including modern, ongoing support!) for those rule sets.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I played Earthdawn many year ago, and one of my least favorite parts of it was needing to "Gather Thread" (rounds of no action) in order to cast. Regardless if the end result was powerful enough that everything balanced out in the end, boring rounds of no-effect is an absolute show stopper for me. I don't need 10 minutes wait - say I'm doing effectively nothing - 10 minute wait - lather, rinse, repeat.

MMOs that have tried this approach have likewise found a lot of resistance among players. EverQuest casters spent a lot of time staring at their spellbooks -- literally, blocking everything else on their screen with their spellbooks -- for instance, while other characters were able to do stuff. (EQ was created in the 2E era and was strongly influenced by 1E and its assumptions.)

 

[TwoSix]

Spellcasting monks -- making wizards into Jedi, in other words -- would be super-badass and definitely a break from fire bolt, fire bolt, fire bolt, or yawning and tossing a fireball at every problem.

Monk combat abilities, warlock casting with the bard spell list would make a nice chassis for subtle Jedi wizards as the main casters of the setting.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

“Play another game” is not a solution, it’s a dismissal. Diluting the presence of magic doesn’t break the game, but it does alter the flavor dramatically.

You don't think WotC balanced the game around the expectation that a typical group of player characters could do X damage/round/character? If you take the glass cannons out of play, that math gets screwed up fast.

It might not break the game, but it's going to have real game balance impacts.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Monk combat abilities, warlock casting with the bard spell list would make a nice chassis for subtle Jedi wizards as the main casters of the setting.

I would reduce someone to 0HP for Battle Meditation.

 

[Dioltach]

I think part of the problem is that D&D has become combat-focused because the classes' abilities are combat-focused. To be very critical, that's lazy adventure design. If the DM creates enough challenges that aren't combat-focused, spellcasters can use all those other non-combat spells for a change.

There's a lot of "Think of the poor spellcasters!" going on in this thread, to which I say, "Good riddance, they're overpowered anyway!"

 

[Benjamin Olson]

1. All spells that are cast as bonus actions are eliminated.

This hurts Rangers more than anyone else, as several of their strongest class abilities are masquerading as bonus action spells.

In terms of percentage of spell list I think Paladin's suffer the most here, with the loss of all those smite spells, but none of the Paladins I've seen in actual play would notice the loss of those.