Obviously you don't, instead you use that 2nd level spell slot on Enhance Ability or Misty Step or See Invisibility.
The idea is that as you level up and get better spells (And your cantrips get better) what you use your low level slots for should change and play a more supporting role, or...
Never had that problem, the type of spells you prepare and use might change, but stuff like Shield remain useful forever, Silvery Barbs is something that you'll want to cast often no matter the tier of play. Hell just dump all your low level slots at the start of the day on something like Gift...
As a note one possible answer to low level control spells might be to follow the design philosophy of something like the 2014 Sleep spell. It's great at low level but runs out of steam pretty fast as you level up forcing you to start using higher level spells.
Doesn't even have to be HP based...
Although I agree more monster should be virtually immune to some low level magic I'm not sure I buy the idea that it should be common for bosses.
The problem with low level control spells making higher tier bosses too easy shouldn't be "fixed" by also nerfing spells like Scorching Ray.
Haven't read the whole thread but I would note that given the dragon did KO a PC the fight so even if unsatisfying it did meet the "deadly" definition. And had the dragon gone after the Wizard instead of the Monk dropping them instead, well Suggestion is a concentration spell so the minion can...
One suggestion to speed up combat is to use theatre of the mind or a gridless battlemap and just be lenient with letting players get where they want to go and do what they want.
Also the initiative variants can also help speed up combat, side initiative is probably the best for your use case of...
Lumber/wood is used a lot in mining for supporting the tunnels so in my mind Dwarves would quite naturally use wood, and it's actually part of the the whole elf vs dwarf dislike/conflict comes from because the dwarves will come to a forest and start clearing it for lumber.
So no problem with...
To be honest I'm not sure why you think that is supposed to be the interesting part. To me it sounds like it's the plot hook, and the plot hook isn't something that should be "interesting" itself, it's supposed to sell the players on how interesting following that plot will be.
As others have said you are probably best off making the components of the ritual their own mini quests. In general for a ritual that means magic ingredient(s), a specific time, and a specific location. So although some Investigation/Arcana checks can fairly easily tell you what you need, or...
Sure but the point is you don't even need to scale the threat to make a blizzard as relevant/deadly to a 1st level wizard whose never been out of the city as it is to a 10th level wizard whose never been out of the city. They both have to make saves every hour they spend exposed, have equal odds...
Being exposed to the elements isn't represented by HP damage though, it's done via exhaustion so it's already just as deadly to the level 10 wizard as the level 1 one without any kind of scaling on the DM's part.
My personal take on this is that even though the players can in theory get hit by an F5 tornado at any level as DM I simply won't have that happen when they are at low levels because it's unfun. They will either be hit by less powerful tornados, or more likely the tornado won't hit them directly...
A couple of my thoughts
The keyword should be something along the lines of Unseen rather then Invisible.
There should probably be a moderate obscurement level because light vs total is too wide a range. Cover has 3 levels (Half, 3/4s, Total) so there's an argument for the same being true for...
Not to be overly pedantic but you don't seem to be talking about adjudicating anything. There's no judgement call to be made when you are simply looking up a rule and then applying it. Keyword style language can certainly help you when you want to apply things in a consistent manner, especially...