D&D 5E Hot Take: remove spell slots, use Strain instead.

[Krachek]

The day I cast Wish five time!

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

The day I cast Wish five time!

Well, a DC 19 with disadvantage would be pretty hard, but I guess its doable.

 

[Krachek]

Well, a DC 19 with disadvantage would be pretty hard, but I guess its doable.

Don’t forget enhance ability, lucky feat, bardic inspiration and others help mechanics.
you may be surprise on how many time players will succeed their checks.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Don’t forget enhance ability, lucky feat, bardic inspiration and others help mechanics.
you may be surprise on how many time players will succeed their checks.

That's a really good point.

I think with the power level of 5e, that rule would be too much to play with without redoing a bunch of classes.

 

[Krachek]

That's a really good point.

I think with the power level of 5e, that rule would be too much to play with without redoing a bunch of classes.

Don’t worry house ruling is rarely good right from the first draft. But it can be very cool to remove spell slot and have a simple strain mechanic.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Don’t worry house ruling is rarely good right from the first draft. But it can be very cool to remove spell slot and have a simple strain mechanic.

At least spells in 5e arent that powerful, and concentration helps also.

The rules kinda works for up to spells level 4-5 but, like with the spell points variant from the DMG, 6th level spells and higher should be only cast once per day.

Classes with prepared spells should also be something like half-level + ability mod prepared spells instead of full level. That would leave most prepared casters with nearly the same number of spells per day as a known spell caster like the sorcerer.

 

[Bluebell]

I'm curious about what the goal is with this mechanic. Is it a way to add more randomization to the caster classes?

 

[DND_Reborn]

How does it look?

Looks good. We tried a "Drain" check (i.e. Strain) based on the idea of Shadowrun drain for spellcasting, but instead of losing the spell, you lost HP equal to the spell level you cast the spell at as the idea was failing the check meant you were fatigued from casting the spell.

Eventually, we just move to a more restrictive spell slot system.

6th level spells and higher should be only cast once per day.

Another option is if you try to cast them more than once per day, you gain a level of exhaustion.

 

[CleverNickName]

An interesting option: if you fail a Strain check, you can choose to lose the prepared spell or take a level of exhaustion. Nine times out of ten, the player will opt to lose the spell...but sometimes you really NEED to hang on to that Counterspell or Cure Wounds.

 

[Deset Gled]

It's a bit too chaotic for my taste. There will be some days when casters get twice as many spells per day as other, for no reason other than luck, with little ability/notice to plan around it. This feels like turning resource management into herding cats.