D&D 5E (2014) Casting a spell in a lower-level slot?

[Satyrn]

Lots of good arguments why it's generally a bad idea. Thanks everyone.

It's only a bad idea if you don't put enough work into it, since this is a major overhaul of the spell system. As mentioned above, it has been done in one 3e variant (Arcana Evolved).

And I have a 3rd party 3e supplement (Elements of Magic) that completely replaced the magic system with spells that could be cast with any spell slot. For example, the spell Power Word had a different effect for each level (with Stun, and Blind and Kill at their 3e levels, and other conditions added in to fill the gaps).

And its version of Fireball -the boringly named Invoke Area [Fire] - would could create a burning hands effect at 1st level, a line of fire or the standard fireball later and scale up in damage, too.

Invoke [Fire] was similarly versatile, but allowed touch attacks or a growing number of rays.

And if you didn't want to use fire you could instead learn Invoke Area [Ice] or any of 18 other elements, including Life if you wanted heal.



Anyway, not a bad idea, just not something that ought to require an overhaul instead of a tweak.

 

[fjw70]

I probably wouldn't allow it but I don't think it is necessarily a bad idea. Maybe if there was some significant cost to it.

 

[Blue]

One of the points that the designers have talked about (I don't remember for which edition but it's not something that changes) is that there are expectations of when magic becomes available. For example, when does fly, or scrying, or mind reading/lie detecting, or long distance teleportation become available? Spells like this change the nature of the game some. But it's a gradual change - at 5th level you can trade one of your most powerful level slots to get one person to fly. If instead you could downcast it and use less powerful slots, that leaves high level slots available to use. Or maybe you can use several low-er levels slots downcasting and get all the front-liners flying. That's not supposed to be available until higher levels when 3rd level slots or common enough to use for utilities.

So I think it gives too much of a new-capability boost to casters to be able to downcast.

 

[Satyrn]

Or maybe you can use several low-er levels slots downcasting and get all the front-liners flying.

It's likely that downcasting fly would come with a reduced duration, though. Like maybe even just one round, or require concentration (if it doesn't already), or some real reduced effect to warrant the lower slot cost.

But yeah, you're right that some capabilities are (or were in some past edition) meant to be gained at higher levels.

 

[jgsugden]

Generally, the best answer is the one that will be the most fun. Allowing this type of flexibility in combat would likely result in the wizard being too powerful. Tat is not fun for the group. A first level spell with the area of fireball is too much. However, I might allow some out of combat magic massaging to allow a wizard that had fireball for their only fire spell and had no 3rd level slots (or above) left to use a lower level slot to create enough fire to burn some brush, torch a fallen troll, or clean out some green slime.They could probably get the same results with mundane tactics, so why not allow the wizard to stretch the magic a bit in a non-combat way to create a solution.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think if you were going to do this for the reasons stated, then you might go as far as:

"You can cast any spell you have prepared in a 1st level slot. Damage spells deal 1 point of damage when cast this way. Any saves that such a spell allows are automatically made. Any durations become 1 round. Any ranges become 30ft. The casting time for such a spell is 1 action or twice the spell's normal casting time if it took 1 action or more to cast" etc etc.

In other words, this lets a wizard throw around some fairly flashy effects that look like high level spells, but they're short lived, short ranged, not combat effective and spells with particular utility are significantly diminished.

I'm sure that even with those restrictions, there's some spells that would be problematic.

 

[CapnZapp]

Anyway, not a bad idea, just not something that ought to require an overhaul instead of a tweak.

It's a bad idea if you think you could simply downsize the existing spells.

For instance, a level 1 Fly would probably be a bad idea even with a 1 round duration and Concentration, because it still lets you fly. At this low level you're supposed to make do with Jump and Levitate.

So I actually think it is okay to call it a bad idea.

Sure, you could say "it's not a bad idea if you completely toss out the idea and replace it with something quite delicate and laborious".

But I really think you would do the OP a better service by speaking plainly. It's not a good idea. Not a completely catastrophic idea either, and not an idea you should be ashamed of - just an idea best not acted upon. As in "bad".

 

[aco175]

I might discuss/ entertain the idea of getting lower level spell slots back by reducing the power of higher level spells. There should be a simple way to calculate this to make it easier to use in game though. I can see where a lot of this would be arbitrary though. For example; I want to cast Fireball at 1st level and reduce the power (and save some of the magic power being cast). I would drop the damage and size to more equate a first level spell, something like 2d6 damage and 10ft burst, save for no damage. By doing this I would get a spent 1st level spell slot back.

Taking a look at a spell like Fly, I would need to cut the duration to 1 or 2 rounds to get a slot back. The good news is that you can judge the spells one at a time as they come up, or let the player rewrite them and you review.

This could also be something you can have for only one class, or work better for one class over another.

 

[Quartz]

For instance, a level 1 Fly would probably be a bad idea even with a 1 round duration and Concentration, because it still lets you fly. At this low level you're supposed to make do with Jump and Levitate.

Don't forget that we're assuming you're of sufficient level to cast the base spell - 5th level in the case of Fly - and that there are only certain spells that scale, typically (but not always) ones that do damage or heal damage or affect additional people on upscaling. So Fly would not be a suitable candidate for downscaling.

But yes, this idea was intended as a mere tweak, not a system rewrite.

 

[the Jester]

I've actually been thinking about something very much like this, but not with existing spells. I've been thinking of crafting some spells with an "At Lower Levels" entry to allow this. But I wouldn't let someone use a 1st level slot to cast fireball (even ignoring that it would do 6d6 if you reverse the '+1d6 per slot level' paradigm).