D&D 5E Damage Spell Scaling

[Ashrym]

Yet the Evoker doesn't really do that much more damage than other wizards. That's why I have modified that arcane tradition.

Yeah, I don't recall the conversation from 5 years ago. I've moved into 2024 since then. ;-)

 

[Distracted DM]

yeah,

other games are just source of inspiration for house rules for D&D.

Reminds me of World of Warcraft's glory decade where they just copied any interesting new MMO's standout aspects, adding the mechanic/concept to their own super popular game and the new MMO would die out

 

[Distracted DM]

@dave2008 you say your cantrips don't scale, but I primarily play on a vtt nowadays and it'd be simpler to limit how often cantrips can be cast, rather than edit the cantrips damage scale. I wonder how limiting frequency, instead of scaling, would compare

 

[mellored]

If you did this, you would need to adjust all the spells to scale.
Then cut back (half?) the number of spell slots.

I.e.
Magic Missile is 1 missiles per character level.
Fireball would do 1d6 per character level.
Ect...

 

[ECMO3]

One thing I dislike about 5e is that damage spells don't scale at all. Cantrip scaling exacerbates this problem for me. It means that pretty quickly there's nearly no reason to ever cast a low level damage spell.

So I propose a solution that I don't think will have a large amount of impact on the game. (There's probably a more elegant way to type out the proposal but here it is):

Level 1 and 2 spells that deal damage obtain an extra damage die at 5th, 11th, 17th levels.

That allows pretty much every damage spell to stay better at damage than a cantrip. (level 3+ spells already stay better than cantrips).

Any objections?

I don't particularly like the idea. I think damage spells are weak and they should be weak. There are plenty of uses for low level spells aside from damage.

I think casters should be the most powerful classes in the game and the martials should deal the most damage in the game.

Also this only really works if you get rid of upcasting.

 

[Tessarael]

As an alternative solution, use spell points rather than spell slots. By converting their spell points to say level 5 spell slots, you make good utility of that power (the lower level spell slots), and it scales up nicely, just you won't be able to cast as many spells, though more than sufficient if you are a high level spellcaster.

 

[Blue]

Yet the Evoker doesn't really do that much more damage than other wizards. That's why I have modified that arcane tradition.

We are playing a very different game. Evokers being able to use their AoE spells much more freely absolutely contributes to them doing a lot more damage than other classes.

This view seems true in actual play only if you only play single-target evokers, or you only play at low levels so you have enough opportunities during the day to get out your AoE spells without hurting allies because you have so few slots to cast them.

Not to ascribe motives, but this feels like you never actually played an Evoker at various levels, and decided that since they didn't get bonus damage they didn't do more damage. Which is not a true statement in actual play as demonstrated above.

 

[Horwath]

As an alternative solution, use spell points rather than spell slots. By converting their spell points to say level 5 spell slots, you make good utility of that power (the lower level spell slots), and it scales up nicely, just you won't be able to cast as many spells, though more than sufficient if you are a high level spellcaster.

is still is not worth the increase cost for damage spells.

Fireball 3rd level is 8d6 for 5 pts, and it's 9d6 for 6pts.
it's 12,5% increase in damage for 20% increase in cost

if you cast it at 6th level for 9pts that is 11d6 damage, 37,5% increase in damage for 80% increase in cost.

fireball damage should be:
3rd level: 8d6
4th level: 10d6
5th level: 12d6
6th level: 15d6
7th level: 17d6
8th level: 19d6
9th level: 22d6

 

[Blue]

D&D, especially 5th edition, is highly customizable. I have found out that while the vanilla game is non-challenging and somewhat flat (compared to the previous editions, except 4th that can't be considered D&D), it is easy to fix these issues without that much effort. For the last few years I have been running campaigns (as a DM) using a hybrid of 5th edition and old school D&D (mainly 2nd) with great success. Challenge went way up, variation went way up, fun went way up, customization of characters went way up, in fact the concept was so successful that when the campaigns ended and we started another one with one of the former players as the DM, we kept the homebrewed rules I made.

Ah yes, the persistent myth of "5e is easy mode", which is actually primarily based on the DM running differently than designer expectations.

You see, it's rare to find a table that plays how the designers expected, and what the DMs are doing makes it easier for the characters. This isn't saying the DMs are doing anything wrong, just that the designers made some bad assumptions and calibrated it differently than most run. But if you run it like they expect, it's a lot more dangerous.

First, in every edition of D&D, combat is an attrition and resource management. HPs, spell slots, daily uses, whatever. Attrition - these get worn down over time. One battle is nothing. The eleventh battle since a long rest on the other hand is riding on a dagger's edge even without being something super challenging. The designers aimed for 6-7 encounters per long rest. They talked about it in design diaries back with the D&D Next playtest, it's listed in the DMG. No one regularly runs that many. With just as many over 6-7 as under. The modules don't do this. But that's where the designers aimed. And just amping up danger and doing fewer helps, but a lot less than someone would expect. A duration spell that would last all 3 rounds of a normal combat might like all 7 of a double strength combat - so got twice the utility out of the same resource attrition of that spell slot.

First part of magic items is number/rarity. Xanathar's spells out the designer's expectations for the whole party on page 135, and it's a lot less than what people expect who have run other editions.

Second part of magic items are plusses. In 3.x and 4e, magic item math was implicitly or explicitly part of expected character advancement math, so if you didn't keep up with the grind you fell behind what was expected. This was taken out of 5e. A 20th level fighter is on-par in terms of math expectations without a single plus on any item they have. Even a humble +1 weapon will put them ahead. DMs familiar with earlier editions often give out far too many +X items, as they were a needed staple in earlier editions. Again, looking at the Xanathar's chart, a 10th level party should have a single rare major item - so among the entire party there's a chance that there is one +2 item. Not everyone having a +2 weapon, armor, etc.

Ability scores - designer math expects standard array, or it's close cousin point buy. If you have a lot higher primary/secondary stats, then characters can both max the math faster, and can take more feats without the disadvantage of not taking an ASI against a very important ability score. Making them more powerful than designer expectations again.

Basically, if you play how the designers expected before the game was released, you'll find D&D 5e is a lot tougher game. They just misjudged how people would run it. DMs frequently do one or more of less encounters per day, more plentiful magic items, and rolled ability scores that end up being higher than standard array.

If you regularly have 6-7 encounter days, and just as many days over that as under it, if you calibrate magic items to designer expectation (unfortunately hidden in the treasure tables in the DMG until Xanathar's came out), and don't use rolled scores, it's challenging. If you don't, well then you need to go to hybrid extremes like you mention.

 

[Blue]

As an alternative solution, use spell points rather than spell slots. By converting their spell points to say level 5 spell slots, you make good utility of that power (the lower level spell slots), and it scales up nicely, just you won't be able to cast as many spells, though more than sufficient if you are a high level spellcaster.

Two of the variant rules in the DMG we tried at a few levels when 5e first came out and then dropped hard - spell points was one of them. Higher level spells are more efficient per action, and the casters would invariably use more high level slots than they could have with the spell slot system, and then be low for the rest of the adventuring day. So then they are either clamouring for a short adventuring day (which is unfair to the at-will classes that have a steady output) or are bored with few points left and just doing cantrips for like 75% of combats.

It just didn't work psychologically, even when the player knew this happened they couldn't avoid it on a regular basis.