D&D (2024) What spells should be dropped?

[tetrasodium]

All of this should say I, meaning you as a player. I find it interesting when players/DMs tell others how to play. Let's go through some examples:

You are a DM. You have a new player who has been having a great time. They love their character and your setting and your adventures. The player's character can now finally take a 4th level spell. They want to take Hallucinatory Terrain. They didn't ask you. Theat is the spell they are interested in, because in their mind, it will be cool.

Now, are you as a DM going to tell them, no? Are you going to tell them what spells to take? Are you going to coerce them or steer them to take Greater Invisibility or Phantasmal Killer? Or are you going to make sure they may have a time to shine using the spell they chose?

You see, when it comes to spells, you are only partially right. Yes, those other spells might be a bit better. But they are better for your table and your players. They may not be better for this player's character or their DM.

You are right about this. These things do have to come together. It is the same as with any other spell. What about the wizard that takes a bunch of damage spells, and then, the entire session is RP? How about the one that takes a bunch of exploration style spells, and then the whole session is combat? It is a gamble. It's one of the reasons why having more spells is such a powerful dynamic to a class's build. It allows diversification, which, in my mind at least, is much greater than an extra d6 damage per round. But for many, it is the opposite. That is because we play at different tables.

You are literally describing a comic trope... Specifically This looks like a job for aquaman

Spoiler

"I swear to God, they only call me when there's trouble at a dock. Or a river, or a lake, canal. A jetty."
— The Deep, The Boys (2019)
A situation where a hero's relatively useless abilities turn out to be phenomenally useful because everything's contrived specifically in order to make them useful, even though realistically there's no reason to expect everything to be so convenient. Often involves Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard. May be used regularly or as a one-off as part of A Day in the Limelight. If the Aquaman character isn't seen on a regular basis anyway, the day-in-the-limelight version may involve a substantial stroke of luck in the events that lead up to Aquaman just happening to be around at the right time when there's an opportunity to use his powers.

Take Aquaman, for instance, since he mainly swims and talks to fish. But wait... the villain's doomsday machine is powered by telepathically controllable sea plankton? Wow, this guy's a great addition to the team!

A subtrope of Plot Tailored to the Party, where the same contrivance is used to make all the members of a team useful with their own time to shine. Benevolent Architecture overlaps with both, such as when the Evil Overlord's fortress has a crocodile moat or other highly specific barrier for the Aquaman equivalent character to circumvent.

If the character constantly uses a power to solve all his problems, but it generally makes sense (if you have a big sword, and fight monsters, it's not exactly contrived that a lot of monsters can be hurt by a big sword), it's When All You Have Is a Hammer….

The opposite is Kryptonite Is Everywhere, when a hero's obscure weakness comes up much more frequently than would intuitively make sense, rather than a hero's obscure strength. Compare Highly Specific Counterplay, which only counters a specific thing or a small number of specific things, and Heart Is an Awesome Power, when the power seems uselessly specific but turns out to be useful in many situations. Compare and contrast What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?, Handy Shortcoming, Lethal Joke Character, and Not Completely Useless.

It's obvious when the GM is providing life support to a concept that fails too hard by itself. The player will chafe if the support given isn't exactly as desired & other players will start to notice the favoritism that goes with that support.

 

[Scott Christian]

In character optimization when ranking the relative value of various options, there is a concept called "situational usefulness".

Even if a feature is pretty good, if the opportunities to use this feature are too infrequent (too situational), the feature gets ranked the same as a "poor" feature.


Ideally, the option is usable almost every single encounter. But if a feature is useful about once per gaming session, that is ok if the feature is particularly good.

If a feature is likely only to get used once during an entire level, that infrequency starts to be problematic, to point of worthless.

A feature that is used less than once per level, is a non-starter.

It is literally language like that, that makes it so difficult to debate. You have already boxed in what an encounter is. Is Alarm, Burning Hands, or Charm Person more useful? The answer, obviously, depends on what the "encounter" is. If your idea of an encounter is always a fight, then that player should always have his PC pick Burning Hands. But for most tables I know, all of these spells could be useful during the adventuring day - or not.
You can try in your head or read the forums of optimization and see which spell is green or blue or orange or whatever. But that means very little to the table where orange and green and blue don't matter.
Again, this thread is about getting rid of spells. I say it's a ridiculous notion because each table runs things differently. And there are players that might choose the less "optimized green or blue" combo because they want to. And, of course, when they do that, they might create a memory. Something they, and only they have done. Not a lightning bolt nor a fireball, but something that they were able to use that they haven't seen before. And as far as I am concerned, making memories is what the game is about - not doing an extra d6 damage.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

I think there is some confusion over exactly how large hallucinatory terrain is.Coincidentally there are storage units to put that into terms people can neatly wrap their brain around.

Spoiler: it does this much

View attachment 284085
We offer a variety of 10’ x 15’ storage units at The East Lake Self-Storage. This unit is 15 feet long and 10 feet wide, giving you 150 square feet of space. It is about the size of a standard one car garage, living room, or spare bedroom, and can hold furnishings from a two-bedroom apartment including a refrigerator, washer and dryer, some boxes, and small items. You can use a 10’ x 15’ storage unit to store large pieces of furniture, different sizes of mattresses, sports equipment, appliances, seasonal items, and anything else you don’t want to keep in your home.
source

Hallucinatory terrain is a 4th level nonritual spell ten minute casting time with a 2 hr duration. That spell would still be barely useful even as an action and a much lower slot because it's barely more than what a ton of players think silent image does. Both of those spells rely extremely heavily on the GM expanding their capabilities to a functional level.

If you look at the spellcasting rules, it explains it:

You select a cube's point of origin, which lies anywhere on a face of the cubic effect. The cube's size is expressed as the length of each side.

A cube's point of origin is not included in the cube's area of effect, unless you decide otherwise.

So it's a cube where each side is 150 feet wide. It's a pretty decent spell.

 

[Corinnguard]

Not so much as drop but consolidate Control Flames, Gust, Mold Earth, and Shape Water into one cantrip. Shape Element. These cantrips pretty much do the same thing, they allow you to creatively manipulate one of the four elements to perform some minor, but useful effect.

 

[Scott Christian]

It's obvious when the GM is providing life support to a concept that fails too hard by itself. The player will chafe if the support given isn't exactly as desired & other players will start to notice the favoritism that goes with that support.

I guess I play with good DMs then. Because there are many times when characters at our table had something perfect for the job, but it was masked in the setting and/or event and wasn't realized until later. The Gust of Wind when the Rhemorazz kept dipping themselves in water creating a cloud of steam in the cave so we couldn't see, and it used tremor sense comes to mind. Granted, she was a new player, but it was a great learning lesson. And the next time something similar happened, she was all up on it, saving the day.

And using a spell every other session (when a wizard at the levels we're talking about) is not favoritism. That roughly equates to 1/15 or 1/16 spells. Not to mention, there will be many times the player's creativity comes up with a useful approach that the DM didn't think about.

I really feel like all these approaches being taken refuse to acknowledge table differences, and again, myopically reduce these 1/15 choices down to a must have vs. want to have moment.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Spell bloat. I mean think about it, WotC makes more spells than any other player-facing option. We got them to stop printing 5000 Feats, books and books of useless weapons and armor no one will ever use, and 3 new 20-level classes per sourcebook.

Do we really want there to be spells for every conceivable scenario, to add to the already impressive narrative power of spellcasters? You know, like in 2e and 3e?

Yes. That is exactly what I want. It all enhances the verisimilitude of the game. I am exactly the wrong person to respond to that argument.

 

[Scott Christian]

You are literally describing a comic trope... Specifically This looks like a job for aquaman

And are you going to answer my questions or just try to find a fallacy that fits? (News flash, every argument ever made about complicated matters contains fallacies.)

You are a DM. You have a new player who has been having a great time. They love their character and your setting and your adventures. The player's character can now finally take a 4th level spell. They want to take Hallucinatory Terrain. They didn't ask you. Theat is the spell they are interested in, because in their mind, it will be cool.

Now, are you as a DM going to tell them, no? Are you going to tell them what spells to take? Are you going to coerce them or steer them to take Greater Invisibility or Phantasmal Killer? Or are you going to make sure they may have a time to shine using the spell they chose?

 

[James Gasik]

All of this should say I, meaning you as a player. I find it interesting when players/DMs tell others how to play. Let's go through some examples:

You are a DM. You have a new player who has been having a great time. They love their character and your setting and your adventures. The player's character can now finally take a 4th level spell. They want to take Hallucinatory Terrain. They didn't ask you. Theat is the spell they are interested in, because in their mind, it will be cool.

Now, are you as a DM going to tell them, no? Are you going to tell them what spells to take? Are you going to coerce them or steer them to take Greater Invisibility or Phantasmal Killer? Or are you going to make sure they may have a time to shine using the spell they chose?

You see, when it comes to spells, you are only partially right. Yes, those other spells might be a bit better. But they are better for your table and your players. They may not be better for this player's character or their DM.

You are right about this. These things do have to come together. It is the same as with any other spell. What about the wizard that takes a bunch of damage spells, and then, the entire session is RP? How about the one that takes a bunch of exploration style spells, and then the whole session is combat? It is a gamble. It's one of the reasons why having more spells is such a powerful dynamic to a class's build. It allows diversification, which, in my mind at least, is much greater than an extra d6 damage per round. But for many, it is the opposite. That is because we play at different tables.

I'm not going to argue that a spellcaster shouldn't have a range of spells. But when the spells a given Wizard can have available at any given moment is harshly limited, and that Wizard often has to choose what spells they want prepared before they precisely know what the day's adventure is going to be like, what goes on their list? Armor or Tenser's Floating Disc? Invisibility or Rope Trick? Fireball or Leomund's Tiny Invincible Battle Bunker? Hallucinatory Terrain or Fire Shield?

The more options wizards have, the more this can actually lead to decision paralysis. And even if the "silver bullet" spell exists, does the wizard have it? Because again, there's an opportunity cost to the Wizard's spell acquisition, and so, quite often, a given Wizard only has a spell because the DM made it available to them, including the money and downtime to scribe it into their spellbook.

On the flipside, if the player insists on taking niche spells, sure, I can contrive scenarios to make them useful. But that's not going to happen every adventure. So I'll also contrive to let them find spells that would be more broadly useful.

Though I find this funny, since over the years, I've had a lot of DM's tell me that I'm bad for ensuring player choices remain viable. Like ensuring the Fighter who likes Pikes keeps finding magical Pikes instead of forcing them into the hard choice of having to use a magic Warhammer because that's the only magic weapon they found, lol.

 

[James Gasik]

Yes. That is exactly what I want. It all enhances the verisimilitude of the game. I am exactly the wrong person to respond to that argument.

Looks to my 1048-page, 4-volume set of the 2e Wizard spell compendium, filled with hundreds of spells that maybe one player ever has cast once.

I mean, sure. If you want magic to be able to solve any problem, that is a thing you can do. But why have spells? Just replace every spell with Wish?

Now that's a hyperbolic statement, and if I was serious, I'd feel bad for even typing it. I don't think that's what you want. Likely, you think it makes sense for the world to be full of many thousands of spells, as it makes the setting seem more real, and it adds to the lore of the setting. Interesting spells can be sought after or found by players and even if they aren't particularly useful in adventuring, not all wizards are adventurers. So perhaps someone does have a spell that, say, conjures a comfortable easy chair out of thin air so the caster always has a good place to rest their aching bones.

But do these sorts of spells need to be in the Player's Handbook? Should they be offered to players who are expected to be adventurers as equivalent options to things that do impact what they are expected to be using?

And of course, can the game or it's setting handle all these applications of magic? Is it ok to think about a group of Wizards starting an industrial revolution by conjuring walls of iron and using fabricate? Or making a dozen simulacrums of craftsmen for their assembly lines?

Should a DM have to worry about ever giving Wizards downtime for fear of what they could do with their spell slots when there isn't an impending apocalypse or deadly trek into the wilderness?

Would the resulting world even look like the "classic" D&D setting? If magic can, in fact, do everything, would Wizards become a ruling class of elites and everyone who doesn't have magic be considered a second-class citizen?

Or would the people rise up, overthrow the Wizards, and outlaw their craft, all but ensuring their removal as a viable player option?

While unlimited magic can be great fun for a story, I don't know that it's great fun for a game where not everyone is expected to be a magician.

 

[Scott Christian]

I'm not going to argue that a spellcaster shouldn't have a range of spells. But when the spells a given Wizard can have available at any given moment is harshly limited, and that Wizard often has to choose what spells they want prepared before they precisely know what the day's adventure is going to be like, what goes on their list? Armor or Tenser's Floating Disc? Invisibility or Rope Trick? Fireball or Leomund's Tiny Invincible Battle Bunker? Hallucinatory Terrain or Fire Shield?

Now, this might be a me thing, but I don't really consider a choice between combat, exploration, and RP spells to be "harshly limited." The average wizard has a boat load of spells. They are much more versatile (in mechanical context) than say, any martial class out there. So having them choose between those spells is kind of the point. If they diversify, they can still cast the same number of spells, they might just not have the specific maximum damage spell they want. Oh well, they can still lightning bolt the heck out of some creature. Are they the shining hero of the fight? Maybe not if they didn't take the exact right spells. Are they worthless? Absolutely not. And if they feel worthless, that sounds like a table problem.

And for the record, one always chooses Rope Trick - always.

The more options wizards have, the more this can actually lead to decision paralysis. And even if the "silver bullet" spell exists, does the wizard have it? Because again, there's an opportunity cost to the Wizard's spell acquisition, and so, quite often, a given Wizard only has a spell because the DM made it available to them, including the money and downtime to scribe it into their spellbook.

I agree, decision paralysis is a thing. A big thing. And DM control of spells is a thing too. Although, I've never met one that wouldn't let a player choose some or change if they really wanted.

On the flipside, if the player insists on taking niche spells, sure, I can contrive scenarios to make them useful. But that's not going to happen every adventure. So I'll also contrive to let them find spells that would be more broadly useful.

I agree it will not happen every adventure. But a story arc has probably 10-20 fights, 10-? opportunities for exploration where skill challenges or checks are needed, and just as many RP possibilities. If the DM set up a useful circumstance once every five sessions, and the player will probably come up with one on their own (which may or may not work), then it seems like more than enough to justify the spell. I mean, how often do player's have to jump long distances? Yet, there are rules and spells and class feats directly associated with jumping.

Though I find this funny, since over the years, I've had a lot of DM's tell me that I'm bad for ensuring player choices remain viable. Like ensuring the Fighter who likes Pikes keeps finding magical Pikes instead of forcing them into the hard choice of having to use a magic Warhammer because that's the only magic weapon they found, lol.

I like choices in games. Choices can build tension.) I also like PCs to feel useful. It's definitely a balancing act that DMs need to push for.