D&D (2024) How to reign in full casters for 1D&D? Maybe remove 6th to 9th level spells as a Variant rule.

[Emberashh]

My point was 2 per day. how the hell do you spam it? Barring some alternative rule seems like a red herring.

Amazing what you can neglect to account for in blank white rooms

 

[mellored]

20th level wizard gets 2 7th level spells a day. How do you spam it? Is the mage 40th level?

Twice per day is a lot for a no-save, I win against nearly every monster. Twice per month, seems a bit better.

I don't want to eliminate the ability for casters to feel super powerful. Just not let them do it every day.

There are plenty of other ways to reduce the number of casts (i.e. gold cost). But time seems the easiest.

Edit: I also think big spells would make it a bit more memorable and feel more like magic if it was more rare.

 

[mellored]

with a possible 4th teir that can only be done by hours long rituals.

Casting time might be a good way to slow things down as well.

Hmmm...
Anyone can cast any spell they know (including martials with a reusable scroll), just like anyone can swing a sword. It just takes a long time...

Level 0 spells take 1 actions to cast.
Level 1 spells take 2 actions.
Level 2 spells take 1 minute.
Level 3 spells take 1 hour.
Level 4 spells take 1 day
Level 5 spells take 1 week
Level 6 spells take 1 month
Level 7 spells take 1 year.
Level 8 spells take 1 decade
Level 9 spells take 1 century.

Casters cast faster as they level (minimum, bonus action)
And illusionist might cast illusion spells in half the time.

So a level 20 wizard might get to cast fireball as an action, and force wall in 1 hour.

And a level 20 fighter can cast water breathing with enough time.

It would definitely take a big rewrite to do that, but i think it would be fun.

 

[Marandahir]

I think for DND what they ought to move towards is less of a specific adventuring day, and more just an enforced importance of time.

This is a thread in game design that Ive been pretty obsessed with ever since my intro to AngryGMs Tension pool illuminated the critical benefits of time actually mattering.

If time matters, meaning hour by hour and minute minute all time is tracked and meaningfully experienced, then you in turn recieve a game thats more immersive and easier to run to boot.

The tension pool accomplishes this objective because each die that gets added, or removed, from the pool represents a visceral experience of time thats directly correspondent to the players choices, and the consequences of time always advancing in the end are thus also viscerally experienced, and the players are able to feel how their choices impact their futures.

The riskier they play the more likely their adventuring becomes complicated by some unforeseen happenstance, and careful play in turn directly influences this chance, but also induces the, relative to real world time, much quicker passage of time if being careful ends up in them making time consuming actions.

Its a delicate line to balance, and the players directly engaging with this balance, metagaming if you will, is what gets us the desired immersive effects. They won't be thinking about how to game the tension pool, they'll be thinking about how their character will actually act in accordance with how they want to play and what they want out of the adventure.

And in turn, because the introduction of complications, whether it be more atmosphere or even additional random encounters, is effectively shared between the players and the GM, this makes the game considerably easier to run, with little negotiation or contrivance.

So to bring this back to the topic at hand, under the tension pool running an adventuring day that can adequately tax casters becomes easier because time simply must march forward, and so to rest comes with a meaningful undesired effect that players have to weigh against their desire to be at top fighting shape.

The DM does not need to arbitrarily spring a goblin raid the moment the players rest, and instead all faith can be turnt over to the dice. Sometimes resting in a dungeon may not result in some terrible thing happening. Other times, they realize they just slept in the middle of a Dragon's outhouse.

Emberashh, you have just changed my game for the better. I didn't know about Tension Dice, or AngryGM at all. Thank you, thank you!

 

[Emberashh]

Emberashh, you have just changed my game for the better. I didn't know about Tension Dice, or AngryGM at all. Thank you, thank you!

Its really the best. Highly recommend not explaining it to your players the first time you go for it; the high of getting them paranoid as the pool fills up pays dividends down the line when they grok how it works.