D&D General + Homebrew Brainstorm to bring back prepared Vancian Casting +

[el-remmen]

B. you always successfully cast, but you're rolling to see if you keep the spell. So you could potentially get multiple casts out of one prepared spell, but preparing it multiple times would mean greater guarantee on being able to use that spell consistently.

I use the above in my OSR homebrew rules.

I do something similar, but just for cantrips. Cantrips are unlimited unless you fail the spell check roll upon casting it, in which case it still goes off, but you lose access until after a Long Rest. However, you may spend a spell slot to cast a cantrip with no chance of failure. The fail chance is fairly easy, but not a given. d20 + Prof Bonus + spell casting mod vs. DC 11 (nat 1 being auto failure).

 

[Distracted DM]

or just make upcasting worth it.

IE: fireball:
2nd level evocation, fire
Action
150ft range
dex save
deal 5d6 fire damage, 15ft radius. half damage on a save.
you can reduce radius by 5ft to increase damage by 1d6.
if you reduce radius to 0, it becomes ranged spell attack that deals half damage on a miss.

Upcasting:
3rd level: 8d6, 20ft radius
4th level: 10d6, 25ft radius
5th level: 12d6, 30ft radius
6th level: 15d6, 35ft radius
7th level: 17d6, 40ft radius
8th level: 19d6, 45ft radius
9th level: 22d6, 50ft radius

Everyone knows fireball is a 3rd level spell, can't go around altering sacred cows! Only sort of kidding there

IIRC fireball capped out previously, I'm thinking of 2e- that was one reason to pull out delayed blast fireball, bigger damage cap!

 

[Horwath]

Everyone knows fireball is a 3rd level spell, can't go around altering sacred cows! Only sort of kidding there

IIRC fireball capped out previously, I'm thinking of 2e- that was one reason to pull out delayed blast fireball, bigger damage cap!

it was capped in 3E also, at 10d6, but that was probably due to autascaling with levels.

PF1 did have metamagic for +1 spell level that raised max damage dice by 5, Intensified spell feat, so at 15th level you could use 4th level spell slot for 15d6 fireball.