D&D 5E Am I too strict?

[the Jester]

Is it too strict of a house rule?

This is a matter of taste, but to my mind, yes. Especially when a new spell level is gained, you are potentially preventing a wizard pc from gaining his class abilities upon leveling up.

 

[Chaosmancer]

To NaturalZero
One wizard voted no. The player that said that I was too strict. Two other wizards (one full fledge, the other a fighter3/wizard5) voted to keep things as they are.

Wizards are in no way nerfed as they get their spell anyways. They just have to pay for the inks. Which is a big deal as spells are expansive in my campaigns. Other players are paying a lot of money for potions and alchemy stuff. The wizards in my campaign are hampered in no way save a monetary aspect. And even that is not that much. As I said, if you read above, my question arose because a power gamer called me on that because it is his first time in 6 years that he is doing a wizard... It has more to say:" We want to keep in touch with 1ed where wizard did not have auto spells." and "5ed where spells are easy to come by. (more or less depending on the campaign.)"

I'm not sure how you can say wizards are in no way nerfed when it is costing them 100 gold per level minimum (level 2 they get two 1st level spells), money other players are using on potions and alchemy to increase their healing and other abilities. It seems like not having to spend that money on their class abilities would leave them free to do a lot of other things the other players are doing.

Save 120,000... from what? Where is this 120,000 coming from? Is there a rule I'm missing here?

From buying a 9th level spell scroll to copy the spell from, which would then cost them the time and ink to copy into their book and destroy the spell scroll.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

From buying a 9th level spell scroll to copy the spell from, which would then cost them the time and ink to copy into their book and destroy the spell scroll.

Oh I see... yeah definitely don't agree with the OP that this should cost 15,000. When I think of a wizard I don't imagine that when he finds a scroll in a castle somewhere, he then needs to spend 15,000 gold on "magic inks" to copy it or whatever...

15,000 gold btw is a pretty insane amount of money, as one payment.

 

[FrogReaver]

That is exactly how I see it. Now you only have to copy it in your spell book.

If the cost of the ink is important then provided that they had the ink throughout the level why not just deduct that ink upon leveling and note that when they leveled up is when they completed adding those 2 spells to their spell book?

 

[Lanefan]

Oh I see... yeah definitely don't agree with the OP that this should cost 15,000. When I think of a wizard I don't imagine that when he finds a scroll in a castle somewhere, he then needs to spend 15,000 gold on "magic inks" to copy it or whatever...

15,000 gold btw is a pretty insane amount of money, as one payment.

Depends how much money that campaign tends to give out in treasure, I suppose, and what else there is (by the sound of it, little or nothing) to spend it on.

And yes, if the loss of funds is such a nuisance an enterprising wizard could (one would hope!) fairly easily find a way to sell access to her own spells to other wizards or trainees, to make the money back.

 

[Lanefan]

If the cost of the ink is important then provided that they had the ink throughout the level why not just deduct that ink upon leveling and note that when they leveled up is when they completed adding those 2 spells to their spell book?

If level-up is only done at the end (or start) of adventuring days this would make sense, but if you're levelling up right now because you just defeated Blurg the Frost Giant and five minutes later you're taking on Smurfy McSmurferton, Villain Extraordinaire there's probably not much spell-writing going on.

 

[FrogReaver]

If level-up is only done at the end (or start) of adventuring days this would make sense, but if you're levelling up right now because you just defeated Blurg the Frost Giant and five minutes later you're taking on Smurfy McSmurferton, Villain Extraordinaire there's probably not much spell-writing going on.

I tend to play level up and end of session. I didn't think about doing it in the middle.

 

[Maxperson]

Oh I see... yeah definitely don't agree with the OP that this should cost 15,000. When I think of a wizard I don't imagine that when he finds a scroll in a castle somewhere, he then needs to spend 15,000 gold on "magic inks" to copy it or whatever...

15,000 gold btw is a pretty insane amount of money, as one payment.

Do you have any idea how many, "5e has nothing to spend money on!" threads this place has seen?

 

[NaturalZero]

Wizards are in no way nerfed as they get their spell anyways. They just have to pay for the inks. Which is a big deal as spells are expansive in my campaigns. Other players are paying a lot of money for potions and alchemy stuff. The wizards in my campaign are hampered in no way save a monetary aspect. And even that is not that much.

If the rules are changed so that one class has to pay money out of pocket for class features while other classes get free class features along with a lot of potions/materials to utilize with the money saved, that's precisely a nerf to the character as a holistic construct. The only way i see it as a non-issue is if you give out so much money that every character can afford their class features and have enough left over to buy as many extras as the other characters at the table. I can think of plenty of campaigns where i never would have touched wizard if we were playing by these rules because we didn't get a bunch of money between each level.

As I said, if you read above, my question arose because a power gamer called me on that because it is his first time in 6 years that he is doing a wizard... It has more to say:" We want to keep in touch with 1ed where wizard did not have auto spells." and "5ed where spells are easy to come by. (more or less depending on the campaign.)"

If I were him i'd just play something else and avoid a disagreement but I understand why he'd have an issue with a single class being the only one in the game that gets penalized. Of course, you have the power tell him to either follow your house rules or play another class, but I'm still not seeing the benefit of this rule. Everything about the game has changed from 1e, so what does this one thing really add to the game?

None. But I would like a bit more variety.

You're saying that you don't have an issue with players' choices and then in the next sentence you're saying that you have an issue with players' choices.

Who are you to say that I am putting my preferences above theirs? Didn't you read the posts where I say that It was voted by the players? I play a very democratic game. I see myself as a referee. We play by the common acknowledge preferences of both group of players. I was simply wondering if I was too strict in applying the rule. According to some, the rule does not go far enough. According to the votes of my players (2 wizards included beside the other one) it was ok.

I might be missing a post or something, but you made it sound like the vote you gave them was between:

A. Wizards pay
or
B. Everyone pays

Is that accurate?

 

[clearstream]

For the first time, a player called me too strict for a ruling I made.
Here is the ruling:" Although the wizard learns too free spells to add to his spell book, I ruled that the wizard still have to pay for the materials (inks) to write it in his spell book." I also ruled that you can only add spells during downtime unless you want to risk a failure in case you are attacked during the transcription.

My reasons are two folds.
1) By Raw, the spells are free to add. But right in the side bar they say that whenever you find a new spell you have to copy in your spell book.

2) The spells do not appear out of nowhere. You have to have the special inks to put them in your spell book.

I gave the following example: A group is in the desert. They barely have enough food to get by. They have a weapon, an empty backpack (almost, the dried camel is stored in their backpack) and in case of caster, they have a spell focus. The group rise in level, they are now level 3! Yeah! The wizard adds two spells to his spell book but where did the ink came from? Did the spell appeared out of nowhere?

Nope, the new spells are a sudden inspiration. The wizard knows them, he gets them in his mind but now if he wants to change them, he needs to find ink to copy them in his spell book. Yes, they were free as in he did not buy them from an other wizard, he did not have to capture the spell book of an enemy, he did not have to make a quest to know it. But otherwise, he has to abide by the side bar.

I am a bit old school. Spells costs a lot in my campaign. First and second level spells cost 50 gold pieces per level just to copy. You still need to have the inks to copy them.
third through fifth level cost 250 gp per levels and 6th to 8th level are 1000 gold per level. A single spell of 9th level costs 15,000 gold and that is IF the other caster is friendly, very friendly to you (as in, (s)he owes you BIG TIME).

Is this too strict? Money to copy and acquire spell is a big money sink in my games and that is at all levels.
I have the feeling that he wants them totally free only to make more low level scrolls during downtime.

I think the rules probably entail that - somehow - the spells should be in the book, free. I envision them as a consequence of ongoing research, not something that happens spontaneously on dinging.

When applying an additional cost to a class, a question I would ask is about balance? Do you find wizards overpowered compared to other classes? I mean, many other classes gain spells and powers on levelling.

[EDIT: Skimming back through posts, it seems like your concern is that wizards are overpowered. If so, then one way to balance them is - as you do - to put a cost on their two free spells. For me, those spells are problematic because they can bring things into the game that really, the game might be better without: I would sooner exercise some kind of control over what can be accessed, than put a cost on them. Similar applies to Bard open spell picks (at certain levels).]