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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Your Immortal DM" data-source="post: 7270677" data-attributes="member: 13898">This 'Arcane Age' was probably the most controversial houserule I made. There were several reasons for its inception: 1) I dislike the non-scaling aspect of spells (like magic missile) that now, do less than half at 17th level than a cantrip like fire bolt or eldritch blast. This made no sense to me, that your spending a resource (like a 1st level slot), and doing less damage than you do with an at will cantrip ability. (and didn't align with older editions)2) Spells used to scale in older editions (1e, 2e, 3e, etc.) and didn't unbalance play, and after a year of playtesting, it just allowed spellcasters I ran to catch up to optimized melee types. It also gave greater healing to the cleric types after the Slow Healing DMG variant was used.3) It was used to offset the change in the Magic Resistance trait (common at higher level play). Magic Resistance now worked like the archmage NPC ability or the abjurer spell resistance trait - giving resistance against spell damage (or half effect). **As a side note the change to Magic Resistance change was used because as written in 5e (only giving advantage to saves) it has zero effect to spells without saves. So as written in 5e, MR didn't help against magic missiles, power word kill, etc. This didn't match the way MR was in older editions (1e, 2e, 3e, etc.); so was instituted (in my games) to make it more like it was in the older editions - - but since that has a MAJOR effect (reducing damage output) on spellcasters with limited spell slots, the "Arcane Age" houserule offset that. That "Arcane Age" rule effectively/roughly doubled the damage output off spellcasters, while MR cut the damage in half (evening out); meanwhile bringing spellcasters more in line with optimized melee types for damage output (or has shown itself to be in games I've run).**Using the Cleaving through Creatures DMG variant also allow fighters and barbarians to clean up multiple mooks effectively (usually the province of spellcaster AoE's; not to mention using Lingering Injuries DMG variant or Massive Damage DMG variant with big barbarian crits). The Cleaving through Creatures ability used to be called "Sweeping" in 1e and 2e (again simulating the older editions of the game -- the primary driver for these rules and seeing if 5e could simulate them). So again, getting back to the topic at hand, using the "Arcane Age" houserule helped to bring spellcasters back up (in comparison to their melee counterparts).Most importantly, it was done to make 5e "feel" and play more like older editions (1e, 2, 3e, etc.).Thoughts?YIDM</blockquote>

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