Sure, but balance has always been at the DM's mercy.
So, if it is a balance factor at the mercy of the DM... where does it tell the DM that this is a balance factor to consider? It certainly isn't in the spell creation rules. I checked there.
Its an investment, which people do feel accomplishment from by just taking the investment itself.
The character is an investment. The character's tchotchkes are not an investment.
I haven't abandoned anything. I still think its a balancing factor.
If a player feels like they don't want to have a dead-weight spell, they can always wait until after they've gotten the component before adding the spell to their list. That's something obvious that comes up when you actually talk to your players.
And I really can't stand it as a player when a DM is so afraid of inconveniencing me that they skip over game mechanics and interesting things just because it might make me a little sad. The DM doesn't need to coddle players like they can't understand how long-term goals work. And the players don't need the DM to ignore perfectly legitimate hooks just because they're afraid for the players.
Right, I just finished a game that ran for, about, 6 months. The players got to level 5, (club game). The entire campaign happened in two weeks of game time, with a week of downtime being half of that time.
What sort of long-term goals should the players have had?
Maybe I should go for a game that lasted longer though. Had one that lasted three years. We covered almost nine months of time in the story. I know because my character was working for a monument to the inciting incident of the campaign. So, at what point should I have begun the year long process of long-term planning for a spell that I never reached high enough level to use?
This isn't about being scared of inconveniencing the players. This is about narrative weight and impacts. Whether or not you have the item isn't interesting, it carries no weight. But in terms of the game, it can basically mean that the spell is banned because of the structure of the narrative.
And my characters and me are perfectly capable of long-term planning that will never pay off in the story. I just don't want to tie mechanical weight to that, because there is no need to soft-ban these spells. If I don't want them in the game, I'll hard-ban them and tell my players.
If you sit down with the players like adults and say "hey, if you want to shapechange, you'll need to go on a quest. If you don't want to, that's fine. There's plenty of other spells you can choose."
"But what about the Duke's Evil ritual?"
"Well, if you want to stop him, you won't be able to go on this quest."
"Why is that the choice you are giving me? Between my class abilities, and the story?"
"Because realism. You're an adult right? Can't you handle long-term planning?"
And your players won't crumble like wet noodles because they can understand how games and adventures work. Its honestly disrespectful that DM's think they constantly have to baby their players or else the players will die. If your games are so boring and one-note that a side-quest threatens the fun, then the game wasn't in great form to begin with.
You don't see people crying about side-quests in skyrim or oblivion because they understand that it will make them more powerful.
But it DOESN'T make them more powerful. And seriously, wanting to pursue the main quest isn't boring and one-note. You don't see side-quests happen in the VAST majority of media, because the characters are focused on the objective. You actually DO see people mocking Skyrim for the fact that you can go off and ignore the main quest and turnip farm and end up coming back to the exact same situation.
And I'm not saying I keep players on a constant treadmill of a game, but we don't HAVE years of downtime. We have days. This is all style, which means it isn't balance.
