D&D 5E A 10-Level Variant for 5E for review and work

[DND_Reborn]

I guess that I'm not sure the point of limiting to 5th level spells & below.

Well, the main issue is the power of these spells above 5th level. 5th level seems to me a more reasonable cut-off point for what I would want as the maximum ability of casters in this story line.

I will take two spells in particular that, to me, should represent the pinnacle of spellcasters:

Raise Dead and Teleportation Circle.

Consider Raise Dead. You can literally bring back someone who as died! DIED! for crying out loud. (Sure there is revivify, but many tables ban it or have heavily nerfed it as we did). That should be awe inspiring and someone practically unheard of.

Teleportation Circle allows a party to travel thousands of miles in an instant. This takes away a huge part of what I consider a classic element of fantasy: traveling to the destination. We don't see Gandalf, for example, teleporting everyone to Rivendell, etc.

Now, my original idea was to make is so the progression followed RAW and you could not cast 5th-level spells until 9th level, and simply gives a lot more slots so casters can use their spells more often.

By comparison, I think few features of the non-caster classes at higher levels really complete with the power of 6th and higher level spells.

FWIW, I don't want to waste my time with a banned-list of spells, either, when I think the vast majority of them would end up on the list anyway.

So, for the solutions to make high level spells rituals, etc. doesn't really solve the issue as I see it. But I appreciate the feedback and will have to give it all more thought.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I don't think it is an issue. Casters will still have the same damage potential, they just will not have the same utility (which other classes don't have, so it might be more balanced). I would suggest that maybe you can allow high level spells as rituals. You mentioned that they exist, but couldn't be cast? I would allow casting them as rituals. That way you can control what spells they get and when they get them. I don't remember the 5e rule, but you could make them ritual scores that are consumed when the ritual is complete.

When I said they exist, I meant it was possible, for example, to find Disintegrate on a scroll. Could you learn it? No. Can you cast it off of the scroll with a chance of failure? Certainly.

Likewise I will still have items such as the Luck Blade, which could contain 1-3 Wish spells. The incredible power and might in such an item in this story-line would compel armies to war over it.

 

[Flamestrike]

You could always run it core and make L11 the cut off.

All classes get juicy stuff at 11th so it functions as a capstone and a bar against MCing.

You could even speed up prof bonus so it starts at plus 2 and increases by 1 every odd level.

 

[tetrasodium]

One suggestion to make equipment choices more interesting. Change the +ac to armor based DR against bludgeon piercing or slashing damage based on the armor type (ie padded might be good vrs pierce chain/hide vrs slash plate vrs bludgeon)

 

[DND_Reborn]

You could always run it core and make L11 the cut off.

All classes get juicy stuff at 11th so it functions as a capstone and a bar against MCing.

You could even speed up prof bonus so it starts at plus 2 and increases by 1 every odd level.

I thought of that and it is the more traditional notion of what an L10 game would be.

I've been reviewing much of the features gained after level 10, and for the most part many of them are just additional uses of features gained earlier. There are new ones of course, but not as many as you might think. I'm going to analyse these further today to determine which, if any, I would really want to include.

Luckily, my game is still months off, maybe summertime or fall, so I have plenty of time to work on it and with the virus I am stuck at home so I have the time.