Note that it can go the other way too. There's monsters out there, beyond the spellcasting ones, that can absolutely decimate a party of heroes, all based on "did you make your X save?". The Mind Flayer's Mind Blast comes to mind- the 2024 version has a 60' cone that demands a DC 15 Intelligence save, does 22 damage and leaves you stunned for 1 minute on a failed save. Yes, you get another shot to save each turn, but c'mon. How good are the Int saves of the average party? Maybe you have a Wizard, but you could just as easily have a Bard or Sorcerer.
It's just too much oomph to be hung on a single die roll. I miss how in 4e, some monsters had effects that came in stages. A creature might slow you first, then immobilize you if you failed a save, then petrify if you fail a third save. We've eliminated SoD for the most part, which is great, but Save or Might As Well Be Dead is a serious problem on either side of the table.
Like, with a Fighter, not all their eggs are in one basket. If they miss an attack, they got more, and they only lose a small chunk of effectiveness. Why can't spellcasters be balanced in the same way? Mostly sacred cows and people who would grumble "that's not D&D". Instead, you get people wanting spells nerfed into the ground, spell slots reduced, casters made more vulnerable, spells being interruptible, spells having horrible risks, which will bring us back to AD&D where very few people wanted to play a spellcaster, because despite the myth of "vast power" at high levels (which few ever reached), the deck is almost always stacked against you. If it's not immune, it has high SR (which was OK in 1e, but in 2e it was ridiculous), or it's save (negates) and of course, enemy saves just got better over time, and that's not even touching how high level spells just got slower over time, so that any peasant with a rock can win initiative and prevent you from casting almost anything!
And you know, if D&D is more fun for you without magic beyond a Cleric doing nothing but casting healing spells, I guess that's fine- make spell-less Rangers and ban Wizards- a party of 3 Fighters and a Rogue probably do enough damage to win a lot of encounters (just be prepared to hand wave challenges that require magic to solve, I guess).
But that's not so much solving the problem as nuking it from orbit and pretending it doesn't exist. Control spells should be akin to grappling- you don't just make a single die roll and pin an opponent! You might have to give them more attempts to get that magic pin going than the current game, since they might be spending a lot of turns being a lot less useful than another Fighter, but at least your encounters won't crash because of a failed roll.
That wouldn't solve the problem by itself either- people need to stop designing monsters that have nasty rider effects on their heavy damaging effects! If I get bit for 17 damage at level 2, does the monster (I'm using hypothetical monsters, don't ask if something like this exists- we all know design like this is out there) also need to knock me prone or instantly grapple me without a save or check? Does something that does a lot of fire damage with it's breath also need to set me ablaze or create a pit of acid that does damage at the start/end of my turn or when someone enters it?
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On Forced Movement- spells that can move people around have this problem where they become more powerful based on what you can move people into. Pushing a guy 15' is not the same as pushing them 15' into a spiked pit, of a cliff, or into a sickening radiance spell. Being able to move someone who is surrounded by 3 of your buddies, an animal companion, an Imp familiar, and a summoned monster is a lot different than moving someone past a single foe.
A spell that prones can be very similar- it's value rises if your group has high movement, mobility, or a lot of melee attacks than if not.
Certainly, party synergy and potential combos are things a savvy group should be looking for, but is it really wise to design spells where their effect is so variable? It's like the 2024 spirit guardians- there's groups who have Clerics just cast it and it's great.
Then there's groups who fling enemies into and out of it's effect, cast Fly on the Cleric so he can take the Dash action and zip about the room, or just have the Barbarian run around with the Cleric on their shoulders! At some point, the effect gets out of control.
And with forced movement becoming more readily available in 2024 with weapon masteries, people trying to get extra mileage out of this sort of thing could become way more common (especially for people who've played BG3).
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On suggestion. This spell has always been a PITA. Either you have the spell work perfectly in the DM's hands, or have the DM turn into a jackass genie if you try to cast it, their brain working overtime to find some loophole or excuse they can employ against it working before even engaging with the saving throw.
Removing all of it's safeguards is a solution, but a terrible one, IMO. They bothered to give command bespoke effects that keep the spell's effects reasonable. Why not do something similar here? Some people will gripe about losing creative uses of the spell, but a DM can always allow that if they dare. Far more, I think, would prefer spells that do what they say they do, nothing more, nothing less, and not have to worry about "creative, out of the box players" upending the game's challenge by using spells in unprecedented ways.
And it's not like there aren't a ton of spells lurking at higher levels that are even worse, so it becomes like fighting a hydra. Cut off one head, more are incoming!
