D&D 5E Increasing the power of spells?

How exactly? Can you provide concrete examples?

If yo mean save or die spells or the fact that only 1 spell can be concentrated on at a time, these are good things. No more spending rounds and slots on buffs and buffs; that was utterly ridiculous. Have you ever read a fantasy novel or seen a movie where that happens?

However, spellcasters still rule with blaster/evocation type spells. Nothing beats Fireball.

Against Legendary creatures. Only damage works against them or no save spells.

Between high saves, save every round spells, and automatic saving throws from Legendary Resistance, they fall far behind martials in effectiveness against Legendary creatures. Those creatures are usually the end game bosses in the game. The martials shine because they do no save damage using an unlimited resource.

My experience with Legendary Creatures is that martials with a bless spell are far more powerful than anything a wizard can do until he can use Power Word Kill or Shapechange. That's a lot of levels of marginal usefulness against the most powerful encounters the party will face.
 

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One idea that came to mind, is to have a 1-round delay for any saving throw on a spell that affects a creature. So any spell that requires an initial save still requires that save, but then when you get to try to shake off the effect, you have one round withouth possibility of saving; and then you start saving as usual.
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I'm also thinking of increasing the damage on any non-cantrip spell by 1 per die rolled (or 1 per level, I haven't made my mind up yet).
I would house rule the spells that have a save every round, like hold person, so that the target automatically fail the first save. But I would use the same house rule for monsters, like ghouls paralyze and harpies song.

If I would change damage for spell I would use the cantrip rules: when the caster reach level 5 all spells are treated as being one level higher. At level 11 two levels higher. At level 17 three levels higher.

Maybe I would combine these two, so then the caster reach level 5 the target fails the first two saves etc. Of course I would use the same rule for monsters, using CR instead of level.
 

Why would anyone bother playing a martial character in your campaign if they know you are actively working for (even higher) caster supremacy?

I would introduce Dungeon Crawl Classics corruption rules. All of that extra power has a price to pay, mentally physically and spiritually as you become gradually twisted by the magic. But that's a genre-bending change, and one you would really need to clear with the players. My gut instinct is to say "don't muck with the spells." I would give the spellcasters wands or staffs or whatnot that only they can use, and that amps their power. If that's what you want.

This also prevents having to say "monsters use the same rule too" because the magic bump is tied to an item, not the spell itself.
 

I keep hearing Meteor Swarm and Fireball held out as uber-spells. They are not that great against BBEG non-minions. At mid-hi level you hit ubiquitous Magic Resistance, Fire Res/Immunity, Evasion, Saves, Legendary Auto-saves, plus the very real consequences of frying friends/treasure/McGuffins in the area.

Whereas in 5th DR is trivial to overcome (magic weapon), so the fighter (for example) attacking 8-9 times in one round (a few times per short rest) usually beats the 1 per day Meteor Swarm against BBEGs.

Clumps of lesser foes and no risk of damaging friends/treasure - sure, these are great spells, no argument there. But that's hardly epic, minions are meant to go down easy, the BBEG is the epic threat usually.
 

Why would anyone bother playing a martial character in your campaign if they know you are actively working for (even higher) caster supremacy?

I would only do such a thing in a high magic campaign. that would mean that magical weapons would be more prevalent as well. It wouldn't change a whole lot because increasing a spell's level isn't as powerful as casting a higher level spell in most cases.
 

Celtavian is right in that, when it comes to Legendary monsters, most casters are at a very large disadvantage.

At the furthest extreme, take Tiamat. She's flat out immune to every spell below level 7. For the 20th level warlock, that means only three spells they could use, and heaven help them if any of them are Save or Die effects, or a utility spell, and even the blade lock will be doing sub-optimal levels of damage thanks to the lack of Hex. All other full casters get four spells, which are more flexible, but still come down to primarily Power Words or Polymorphing. Why? Because even those high level spells have to beat her insane saves with advantage on them. Rangers, likewise, are behind the curve in terms of damage - they get lots of bonuses against hoards, but single targets rely on Hunter's Mark for an increase of damage, which Tiamat is immune to. A level 20 ranger barely deals more damage than they did at level 5 against Tiamat.

That leaves paladins (relying only on their regular smites, not spell-smites), fighters, barbarians, monks, and rogues to do any significant damage. A valor bard who steals a spell smite via magical secrets could get in on some of the fun too, I suppose, if you cast them as the level 7, 8, and 9 spell slots.


Now, lets look at the Tarrasque. No magical attack rolls - this again makes the warlock cry, because that means no cantrip damage, and the sheer majority of their spells are either Save or Die, necrotic, or fire (which the Tarrasque is immune to). The tarrasque also reflects line spells like lightning bolt, as well as magic missile. Those are some of the most spells and effects he's flat out immune to. He has magic resistance as well as high saves in everything but Dex, so we're talking ~ +9 with advantage to resist most spells. Being immune to both fire and bludgeoning, the Tarrasque is actually flat out immune to Meteor Swarm damage.

That Tarrasque is not immune to Disintegrate and has weak Dex saves, so that ends up being a good attack spell to focus on. Though, we have to contend with Legendary Resistance at this point - he pops a Leg.Resist, and no damage from the spell.

Where does that leave us with magically harming the Tarrasque? Circle / Finger of Death are Con saves, he'll likely make them. Cold spells have nothing beyond Cone of Cold and Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere (a wizard only spell) and again, Con save for both. Negligible damage. We can try powering through his Legendary Resistance, but again, most spells he shrugs off by virtue of high saves and magic resistance, no need to use them. Disintegrate is the exception, but that requires three turns at minimum before it actually has any chance of harming him, and actually being in a class that has the spell. Power Words are effective, but you need to get him down to an acceptable amount of HP first. And then, there's the Polymorphs.... which just turn you into a melee warrior.


Now, these are two of the most extreme examples here. That's a given, with their CR 30 rating. But it just highlights the point the OP is trying to make - Legendaries tend to shrug off ALL magic, not just the Save or Die effects. It would be bad if the Big Bad Evil Girl fell to a Dominate Monster spell in the first round, yes. But as a side effect of making them resilient to all this stuff, casters suddenly aren't very effective at all against them. Your blasters are relegated to buffing the martial characters.

This is where we run into issues. The big, dramatic boss battles are suddenly not very interesting for half the classes. This is not a revelation, but something a lot of people have mentioned before elsewhere.



Truthfully, though, this is an issue with the rules on the bosses, not the casters. Single boss, epic battles have always been an issue in turn based games. My best suggestion, at this point, is to either be generous with evocation damage when it comes to Legendaries, or don't make them solo encounters, but include things like minions appearing. Boosting caster damage, especially with some of the magic items that seem to be coming out? I don't think that's the answer.
 
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I keep hearing Meteor Swarm and Fireball held out as uber-spells. They are not that great against BBEG non-minions. At mid-hi level you hit ubiquitous Magic Resistance, Fire Res/Immunity, Evasion, Saves, Legendary Auto-saves, plus the very real consequences of frying friends/treasure/McGuffins in the area.

I let someone borrow my monster manual, but I don't remember a lot of creatures having Evasion or Magic Resistance. Actually, is Magic Resistance even a thing? I thought it was just typing resistance like fire or lightning. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of creatures with typing resistances anyway (except Demons and Devils, duh) so wizards shouldn't have much trouble. The funny thing to me is, this exact argument could be placed against fighters for the exorbitant amounts of health creatures have at higher levels.

"Gah this thing has like a million health! I can't possibly kill it!" *Wizard casts gate* "Well that solved that problem in a hurry."

Whereas in 5th DR is trivial to overcome (magic weapon)

Magic weapons are not assumed. Magic weapons are not assumed. Magic weapons are not assumed.

If I say that in front of a mirror do I summon Mike Mearls?
 

Magic weapons are not assumed. Magic weapons are not assumed. Magic weapons are not assumed.

If I say that in front of a mirror do I summon Mike Mearls?

LOL! You are not wrong, I was referring to mid-hi levels, where I think most martials will have +1 weapons ... but of course I can't prove that. But certainly has been true in all D&D eds. beforehand.

Also, there is a thread here on EN, someone did the stats on the 5eMM, the preponderance of Magic Res was very large at mid-hi CRs. Will have to track down thread to get you #s ...
 

Now, these are two of the most extreme examples here. That's a given, with their CR 30 rating. But it just highlights the point the OP is trying to make - Legendaries tend to shrug off ALL magic, not just the Save or Die effects. It would be bad if the Big Bad Evil Girl fell to a Dominate Monster spell in the first round, yes. But as a side effect of making them resilient to all this stuff, casters suddenly aren't very effective at all against them. Your blasters are relegated to buffing the martial characters.

This is where we run into issues. The big, dramatic boss battles are suddenly not very interesting for half the classes. This is not a revelation, but something a lot of people have mentioned before elsewhere.

Truthfully, though, this is an issue with the rules on the bosses, not the casters. Single boss, epic battles have always been an issue in turn based games. My best suggestion, at this point, is to either be generous with evocation damage when it comes to Legendaries, or don't make them solo encounters, but include things like minions appearing. Boosting caster damage, especially with some of the magic items that seem to be coming out? I don't think that's the answer.

Good thoughts. I find it ironic that there was an EN thread about LOW level caster weakness (because I think they're AOK at Low until Mid). It's at Mid-Hi where I see alot of potential probs, mainly too few 7-9th slots. Not "casters are useless" -level probs, more like casters are only able to use buffs on allies (limited by Conc) or target minions exclusively. Which assumes the BBEG even has minions in the fight.

In a purely selfish sense, Hi-lvl casters only getting to mop the minions or buff the martial and watch them defeat the BBEG can definitely feel like a letdown. "I killed the skeletons and hasted the paladin" vs. "I destroyed Orcus with my greatsword!" I know which tale I'd like to tell at the tavern ;)
 


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