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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kabouter Games" data-source="post: 6996332" data-attributes="member: 6788812">This idea is very intriguing. At low levels, there is very little change between this and RAW. At higher levels, the power of magic is there - the Wizard can wish for things and travel the planes - but in combat isn't some kind of arcane Gatling gun. In combat the Wizard at 20th level is essentially the same Wizard as she was at first level. I like this idea. This would work toward solving the combat-contribution weirdness, too - if you can't cast fireball, fire one out of a wand. I think you'd definitely need to do this. In the Conan canon, I remember several casters who accompany the hero on adventures are also skilled fighters. They need to at least be able to defend themselves.Precisely. They've got to be useful. If they're not useful as combat casters, instead cringing behind the meat shield, they've got to be able to figure out the riddles and mazes.Another idea occurs to me about unpredictability...this thought is half-formed, so bear with me. Rather than restrict access to spells or curtailing spell slots, insert an element of uncertainty that makes casting "off the cuff" dangerous. The premise is that one of the reasons magic is rare is that it's hard. It's intricate, it's complicated, and you can't reliably make sure you've got all the fiddly bits right when there are goblins screaming and shooting at you. Spells with the ritual tag go off fine if cast as rituals. Other spells, and ritual spells if cast under duress - any situation other than a carefully-prepared ritual is "duress" - have a chance of going wrong. A rough mechanic is a DC to cast a spell without using the ritual. A variable DC which springs to mind is 15 plus the level of the spell minus the relevant ability modifier of the caster. This makes it tough to cast, say, disintegrate in combat, because the DC is 21 minus the ability modifier. If the caster is a Wizard with an Intelligence of 16, the final DC would be 18: 15+5-3=18. That's a pretty tough target.Another DC-based method might be 10+spell level-modifier. To use the above example, the final DC would be 12. This gives a mechanic to simulate different levels of duress. The caster merely being out of her laboratory isn't under as much duress as when goblin arrows are whistling past her. If you make the mechanic to cast non-ritual spells as 10+level-modifier=DC, and then add in Disadvantage on the DC check roll if casting in combat, you add a mechanic for the stress of combat on a person who's used to manipulating magic under carefully-controlled conditions.If the check fails, the magic goes "bang" somehow: Roll on the Wild Surge table.Anyhow, that's my blue-sky. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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