D&D 5E A Slower Caster Spell Progression and other Suggestions

[DND_Reborn]

Well, since I am the first one up and waiting for everyone else before we can have breakfast and open presents, here I am at 7 AM LOL!

Given the discussions in the other threads about martials vs. casters, I decided to tackle the idea of a slower spell progression for casters, which I think would pull back enough to maybe narrow the gap, while not gimping casters completely.

A point was made in the other thread about dimension door mimicking a "superheroic leap/movement" concept, and how the spell is acquired at 4th level (and also usable 3 or more times per long rest by 10th level really), which is only tier 2. So how can a martial PC really compete, even on a limited use scale, with such magic?

Here are my thoughts (ripe for the haters to yell "No way, man, don't gimp my wizard!" ):

1) Decrease auto-acquired spells to 1 per level after 1st and only begin the game with 3-4 instead of 6.

2) Return to prepared spells requiring "Prepared Use per Slot" instead of "Any Prepared per Slot".

3) Slow down acquisition of higher level spells. See "NEW Slots per Spell Level" below.

4) Reduce spell slots.

5) Keep high-level (6th+) spell slots limited to 1/ spell level, keeping it on par with Mystic Arcanum (which should also be delayed to match the slower spell progression of other casters).

The revised spell progression would have the following adjustments: (EDIT: type error at 15th level, 6th levels spells would be slowed by 4 levels, not 5.)

And the RAW spell progression alongside the NEW spell progression suggested:

Personally, the only drawback as I see it is this would promote cantrip spamming, which I am NOT a fan of, so there is that.

But, for the people who feel there is too much of a gap in power-levels between casters and martials, it would narrow that some, I would think.

Hope everyone enjoys their holidays, however you celebrate them! But, the others are up so it is time for breakfast and presents. Cheers!

 

[Shiroiken]

I think just cutting back the spell slots per day would be enough to "nerf" casters. If you're worried about cantrip spamming, you could simply remove all damage cantrips; this would force casters to use an actual weapon for repeated damage.

 

[Ancalagon]

I think to me the real problem is the number of problem fixes many magic users - esp cleric, druids and wizards - have.

I humbly propose this solution:

D&D 5E - The warlock is a "better" wizard than a wizard

Hello Now before we start, I should state that I don't mean that the warlock is better at being a wizard than the wizard. At the very birth of D&D there were only 2 classes - the fighting man and the magic user. As more and more magic using classes appeared, even today the wizard remains the...

www.enworld.org

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I think just cutting back the spell slots per day would be enough to "nerf" casters. If you're worried about cantrip spamming, you could simply remove all damage cantrips; this would force casters to use an actual weapon for repeated damage.

It would also make casters insist on even more 5 minutes workday and the group oblige, since as the group, they are more efficient when every member is at peak power. Martials, with 100% at-will powers, are always at full efficiency or dead, but casters may not be, and the chain isn't stronger than its weakest link.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think to me the real problem is the number of problem fixes many magic users - esp cleric, druids and wizards - have.

I humbly propose this solution:

For that type of wizard, it would be fine. But, it isn't what I was trying to do, but maybe I can look the idea and see if I can utilize it in some fashion.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It would also make casters insist on even more 5 minutes workday

IME this is pacing that the DM can set. They party doesn't always get what it wants.

 

[Shiroiken]

It would also make casters insist on even more 5 minutes workday and the group oblige, since as the group, they are more efficient when every member is at peak power. Martials, with 100% at-will powers, are always at full efficiency or dead, but casters may not be, and the chain isn't stronger than its weakest link.

The goal is to narrow the martial/caster "disparity" when the game uses fewer encounters per day. This cannot happen If you accept the concept of the 5MWD, so that really needs to be ignored for this discussion. If the players are already driving for the 5MWD, the martial/caster divide is irrelevant anyway.

 

[Stormonu]

While I admit that 5E damage-dealing cantrips as a player are pretty fun, story-wise it takes a lot of the mysticism out of magic by having it. I'd feel a lot better if cantrips were not "always-on". Maybe proficiency bonus uses per short rest for Cantrips or somesuch, I'm not sure. I just don't like how easily they're spammed.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

IME this is pacing that the DM can set. They party doesn't always get what it wants.

I have obliquely mentioned this already, but this exact kind of thinking is exactly why this problem persists.

But DMs overall...aren't great at catching this. It's hard to make good time pressure--doubly so to do it consistently enough to make "5MWDs" (more on that later) rare. That's another side of this polyhedral problem. Even DMs that succeed at time pressure just (finally) let martials play catch-up. They aren't mitigating the times the martials can't catch up, or elect not to. And, as has always been the case, martials have every reason to support "5MWD" behavior. They lose nothing personally, but gain second-hand by the party's net gain. Why wouldn't you choose to have more gas in the tank?

Coming back to "five minute workday." The name is deceptive. It's rarely literally 5 min, or 15, or what-have-you. Even heavy-LR classes (Wiz, Druid, Cleric) usually want at least one SR/day. Plus, there's tons of time padding one can do. Research/training, social encounters where magic is a bad idea (or you have enough already), shopping, travelling, planning. All productive...and all null-resource filler, padding out the day so it doesn't look or feel like five minutes even though it realistically is.

All this and more makes the problems hard to spot, and harder still to fix. It's not like this is scheming, conniving optimizers wresting control from poor, beleaguered DMs. It's all pretty above-board, no abuse required. "Hey, I'm out of spells, maybe we should call it a day" is perfectly rational, especially if it's the party healer, or there's a major challenge ahead and the party needs every resource it can get. Worse, with 5e SR being 1 hour, the gap between "enough time pressure that a day's wait is too much" and either "too much so even 1 hour is unwise" or "too little so it made no difference" is narrower than it seems. Particularly when you must sell the players on this being consistently true session after session for most, if not all, of a campaign. 24 hour or smaller time pressure induces a lot of anxiety, making it hard to maintain long-term.

While I admit that 5E damage-dealing cantrips as a player are pretty fun, story-wise it takes a lot of the mysticism out of magic by having it. I'd feel a lot better if cantrips were not "always-on". Maybe proficiency bonus uses per short rest for Cantrips or somesuch, I'm not sure. I just don't like how easily they're spammed.

Isn't anything that makes magic a systematic and (relatively, up to attack rolls/saving throws) reliable structure inherently de-mystified? This is a complaint I've never really understood about D&D magic. It's already de-mystified. That's the whole point of having a chapter spelling (heh) out exactly how magic works and what, precisely, each bit of magic does.

There's never been anything "mystic" about regular ol' spells in 5e. The whole point of spells is that (assuming the rolls go in your favor) they work exactly as described. All cantrips are is ready-to-hand magic. In principle, it's fine to say that you want magic to feel special or unusual...but if that's the case, you really shouldn't be letting people play classes fundamentally built around casting spells in the first place. (And, honestly, that may mean 5e just isn't for you; I hate gatekeeping arguments but when a full half of all PHB classes are full 9th-level-spells casters, I'm not sure that you're being offered a game where magic is mystical.)

 

[LoganRan]

My preferred fixes for casters would include:

1) Eliminate all cantrips. Of the many things in 5E that I dislike, spammable cantrips are at the very top of the list.

2) Increase the number of low level spells casters start with. For example, at first level a caster would have four or five first level spell slots available per day. I would do this for first and second level spells.

3) Cap spells to no higher than 7th level spells. Remember when the Cleric spell list only went up to 7th level spells? Go back to that for all casters. Thus, getting rid of world altering spells like Wish which should only be available as one time consumable items IMO.

4) Slow down the progression of attainment for the next spell level much as the OP has suggested. That is a 7th (or even 8 or 9th) level caster would only just be getting access to third level spell slots. An (incomplete) table of spell progression might look something like...

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Level 1	4
Level 6	7	4
Level 11	7	5	2	1
Level 16	7	5	3	3	1
Level 20	7	5	3	3	3	2	1