D&D 5E All Spells *At Will*??? (+)

[Redwizard007]

You'd need to address surprise and attacks where you have time to prep. If you are on top of a castle wall you can probably cycle through 8 levels of spells before the attacking army reaches you and then drop a meteor swarm on top of it in round 1 as it gets within range.

Oh, man. I hadn't even considered casters as endless artillery. Unless AoEs were extremely rare, armies wouldn't even exist. From a world building stand point this would be huge. I imagine there would be a lot of skirmishes and small group raids. Conflicts would be more personal. Of course, easy counterspelling or spell interruption could mitigate that.

 

[ezo]

METEOR SWARM:

Evocation

Level: 9
Casting DC: 19
Casting time: 12 hours
Range: 1 mile
Components: V, S, M (a piece of meteorite worth at least 5,000 gp, which the spell consumes)
Duration: Instantaneous

So, here is a high-level example of changes which, given DM fiat, could make even a spell like meteor swarm possible as at at-will spell. This means once a character knows it, they can cast it whenever they want.

#1. Casting DC. The player must roll a spellcasting ability check against a DC 19 (10 + the spell level).

#2. Casting time. Of course, the dramatic change in casting time means the caster needs some level of precaution in order to avoid being stopped while casting. Also, such a long casting time could require a Constitution save, similar to traveling more than 8 hours (the forced march, see attached), to avoid exhaustion.

#3. Finally, adding a rare, hard-to-find material component, which is entirely controlled by DM fiat, allows the DM to control when such a spell might even be possible.

Now, these are obviously extreme changes and probably more severe than necessary, but hopefully get the idea across.

Unlike lower-level spells, I don't think it would be practical to have such a spell at cantrip-level power to allow more easy at-will casting.

 

[Voadam]

You'd need to address surprise and attacks where you have time to prep. If you are on top of a castle wall you can probably cycle through 8 levels of spells before the attacking army reaches you and then drop a meteor swarm on top of it in round 1 as it gets within range.

Valid considerations of corner cases that could have big implications.

Most combats start with initiative and go for only a few rounds in which case the Voltron model might work pretty well most of the time. It would even have a pseudo old school vibe of magic users start off weak but then get really strong, although on the scale of rounds instead of levels.

I would generally say that you should not be able to hold a charge waiting for an ambush or walk around with short term 1 minute stuff always on with continual recasting outside of combat, it would work better if everything short term starts when initiative gets rolled. Maybe concentration being a big one spell limit would already make that not an issue.

A standard archmage can cast a meteor swarm at an army round 1 when they get in range right now so that would not be a change. The big deal would be the archmage multiple meteor swarms round after round in a months long siege.

The build up model might work better on a spell level per encounter basis so a first level caster gets one first level slot for one and only one big bang each encounter then cantrips instead of unlimited slots for their biggest bang in a fight, but that is outside the scope of the at will model.

 

[Maxperson]

Valid considerations of corner cases that could have big implications.

Most combats start with initiative and go for only a few rounds in which case the Voltron model might work pretty well most of the time. It would even have a pseudo old school vibe of magic users start off weak but then get really strong, although on the scale of rounds instead of levels.

I would generally say that you should not be able to hold a charge waiting for an ambush or walk around with short term 1 minute stuff always on with continual recasting outside of combat, it would work better if everything short term starts when initiative gets rolled. Maybe concentration being a big one spell limit would already make that not an issue.

A standard archmage can cast a meteor swarm at an army round 1 when they get in range right now so that would not be a change. The big deal would be the archmage multiple meteor swarms round after round in a months long siege.

The build up model might work better on a spell level per encounter basis so a first level caster gets one first level slot for one and only one big bang each encounter then cantrips instead of unlimited slots for their biggest bang in a fight, but that is outside the scope of the at will model.

The castle example might be corner case, but prep not so much. As a player and a DM I typically see groups with at least one stealth guy who often scouts ahead and locates monsters. Then they plan and prep for the ambush or lacking ability to ambush, prep for the frontal attack.

They also wouldn't have to hold the charge. A spellcaster with at will spells could easily keep casting spells every round in order to maintain super charge status. They'd be ready for the big attack at pretty much all times by renewing defensive spells.

There are ways to resolve that for sure. You could keep offensive and defensive on separate prep timers. Or you could limit spell levels per fight to level number, level and a half(round down) or double level. So a 5th level caster could cast 5, 7, or 10 total spell levels in a given encounter. Lots of ways to do it, but the ability to prep has to be considered.

 

[James Gasik]

Oh, man. I hadn't even considered casters as endless artillery. Unless AoEs were extremely rare, armies wouldn't even exist. From a world building stand point this would be huge. I imagine there would be a lot of skirmishes and small group raids. Conflicts would be more personal. Of course, easy counterspelling or spell interruption could mitigate that.

This does tie into the original role of Magic Users in D&D, as stand ins for siege units.

 

[James Gasik]

I tripped over this quote, which illustrates how at-will healing and a different resource paradigm might not impact the game all that much:

Crawford said

What I'm telling you is that it isn't. That guideline tells you when characters are designed to be tuckered out. It has little bearing on how monsters, for example, are designed. We design them assuming PCs are at their best.

 

[aco175]

I could see healing tied to proficiency bonus in that you can only be healed so many times per day. It becomes a tracking thing.

While I might be able to raise dead all the time, I do not have unlimited 5,000gp gems. Again, this becomes a tracking thing for all the components.

I can see something tied to level like cantrips as well. Casters get to pick bonuses to spells or something a bit like metamagic. Say at 5th level you can choose to boost your fire spell to deal +2d6 more damage. You could also choose to make fly last more rounds or shield spell grant +1 more AC. This would mean that spells like shield get reduced to +1AC to start and fly be only 1 round in duration. you get more buffs to add to certain spells or eventually to all your 'fire' spells or something.

 

[Baron Opal II]

As far as healing goes, you could take the concept of system strain from Worlds Without Number. A body can only handle so much rapid healing or change before the magic or process ceases to work.

 

[crater]

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