D&D 5E (2024) How I Would Do 5.75

[Yaarel]

4. Some higher level abilities need to go bye bye or be revised. Mostly spells eg simulacrum, shapechange, true polymorphism, prismatic wall, conjure Celestial. Some new stuff in FotA and Heroes of Faerun eg Potent Dragonmark and a few epic boons.

Spells get fixed on a case-by-case basis. Importantly each spell must be equally desirable with the other spells in the same slot. The effectiveness of the slots need to improve smoothly while advancing across higher levels.

The worthless ("situational") spells, like Hallucinatory Terrain, need to become magic-item-rituals instead. Spells that are obsoleted by skills, like Legend Lore, need to reorganize as skill features instead.

 

[Silam]

I think countering spells could be made way more interesting. Mage on mage fights should be awesome, terrifying and mind boggling all at once. I’m thinking of something along these lines:

1. Counterspell is no longer a 3rd level spell. Instead it becomes a cantrip, BUT, it works differently.

2. You still cast Counterspell as a reaction, but, when you do, the following happens:

2.1. Make an Arcana check to identify which spell is being cast. There should be penalties to the check for Subtle Spell / psionics, as those are harder to detect. If you fail to identify the spell, then you still have the option of the more costly "generic counter" (see 2.3 below).

2.2. If you succeeded in identifying the spell, then you may be able to counter it efficiently. If you have the same spell prepared, you can cast that, expending a slot of the normal level for it. Some spells which have an opposite require that instead (Bane counters Bless, Slow counters Haste, etc.).

2.3. "Generic counter": If you did not successfully identify the spell, or if you did but don’t have the right spell prepared, then you can instead cast Dispel Magic and use that to counter. You must spend a slot at least 1 level higher than the spell you counter. So a regular Dispel (level 3) can counter spells of levels 1 or 2, and higher level spells need correspondingly higher slots. 9th level spells cannot be countered with the generic method at all, you must have the right 9th level spell prepared.

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More generally, I would like to see more interactions between spells. In the current system, there are very few interactions, which is good in terms of keeping things simple, but not as interesting as it could be, IMHO.

For example, some spells could specify that they have an extra effect if cast while concentrating on another specific spell, or that they require concentrating on another specific spell and then replace that one. In other words, you would charge up the effect. Some examples:

- Maybe you need Mage Hand active first, then you upgrade that into Animate Objects or into Bigby’s Hand on a subsequent round.

- If you cast Shield while having a Tenser’s Floating Disk active, the stuff on the disk falls to the ground (and you can pick it up and put it back on the Floating Disk later). In essence, the Shield and the Floating Disk are the same thing, which you use for different purposes. Just like you have just a single concentration to allocate at a time, you also have just a single force disk. The disk is typically left unused, but when you do use it, you can allocate it to a single task at a time only.

Magic should be weird and full of little contradictions and anomalies like that. Not a bunch of generic LEGO blocks completely independent from one another.

 

[Sulicius]

1. Ability scores are gone, only modifiers remain
2. Modifiers are unaffected by background or species
3. The usage of hands for spells, actions and the like is vastly simplified
4. Merge some conditions
5. Cut 30% of all spells, especially complicated ones
6. Nerf the shield spell
7. Add a very simple inventory system
8. Weapons are simplified into categories instead of per weapon type (simple light, martial light, simple 2-handed, etc.)