D&D 5E Limiting Cantrips?

[DND_Reborn]

Do you also limit the fighter to how many times they can use their big weapon? Force them to switch to a dagger once in a while?

Or get the rogue to stop trying to get sneak attacks every round?

No, because those are mundane, not magical. See my other posts if that is not a sufficient explanation for you.

Otherwise, please stop trying to provoke, okay?

 

[DND_Reborn]

I don't understand why any DM has a problem with players doing what their character classes are designed to do.

"Oh! Your paladin is going to smite again?!"

Uh, yeah. He's a paladin! Watch out for the monk, though. She's refusing to use weapons or armor.

FYI, since you mentioned smites, Paladins can only smite once per turn in our game as well.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I always find it odd that people mention Gandalf, because frankly, I've never, ever met a player who wanted to play Gandalf, or modeled a PC spellcaster they played on Gandalf. That's in 33 years of TT RPGs, note.

And further Gandalf isn't utterly incompetent in melee, nor likely to die in melee, nor does weird stuff like throw daggers/darts or hang out with a crossbow, so it's a weird comparison on that level too. Gandalf is in fact pretty great in melee, and doesn't (IIRC) even get hit short of fighting the Balrog. Whereas a 1E or 2E AD&D Wizard is extremely likely to be die or be on negative HP the first time he gets hit at level 1-3, even to a goblin or the like. Even say, level 4, unless he has a sizeable CON bonus or rolled straight 4s on HP, a 1E/2E Wizard is extremely likely to be downed in a single round by almost any monster, given the combination of crap AC and crap HP. And he does crap damage in melee.

So you just straight-up cannot be Gandalf in 1/2E, not as a single-classed character anyway (or perhaps by stacking a ton of buff spells and magic items at a pretty high level - I seem to remember some high-ish level spell no-one ever casts which more or less amounts to "be Gandalf briefly but by this point it just makes you look like an idiot because you're way more powerful than Gandalf as a spellcaster"). Any DM telling you you can be, is a bit of a jerk.

Gandalf and Merlin are the big ones for me, but I am old school and don't care much for the more modern versions of wizardy-types.

True, low level casters can't model some of what Gandalf and Merlin do, but that's because they aren't low level really. (Yeah, I know about the 5th-level Gandalf thing...).

Looking at media generally, the vast majority of spellcasters fall into three categories:

1) Those who don't fight much at all, whether with magic, ranged or melee, and tend to win through non-combat cleverness or tricks (which may involve magic) or running away (sometimes magic-assisted running away). Ged/Sparrowhawk or Merlin or the like.

2) Those who use magic constantly and heavily in combat and often outside it too, and where it's their primary or sole means of doing combat (including using magical items). You mentioned Dr Strange, and the vast majority of comic-book spellcasters fall into this category, Harry Potter basically does (I mean, he's between 1 & 2 arguably, but he usually falls back to magic), most videogame characters who are "wizards" or anything remotely similar (as opposed to "clerics" or "paladins" or "spellblades") also work like this. D&D spellcasters have been in this mould since 4E and arguably leaned that way since earlier.

3) Those who are also powerful combatants (usually in melee) outside of spellcasting. D&D is not great at modeling these people, though 4E and 5E are better than previous editions, and 1E/2E could sort of do it via multiclassing (3.XE was just terrible aside from the Gestalt stuff). Other games are often pretty great at it (Shadowrun, for example). Indeed it's notable that the demand for such characters to be supported mechanically has been huge for most of D&D's history, from the Elf of BD&D to the explosion of classes and PrCs which tried to be this in 3.XE. The huge number of attempts also show that the actual results are typically disappointing. There's been an unhealthy fixation on making this an "Elf thing" in D&D's attempts though (4E dumped the "elf thing" and 5E resurrected it, but at least offered a lot of other options). These are also fairly common in media, and rarely elves.

That's a very good break-down. Focusing on wizardy-types, 1 is mostly where it is at for me, but I would add that I also like to see more support casting and encounter-altering spells when used in battle.

You just don't see the AD&D 1E/2E/3E Wizard in media (aside from that based on D&D directly or older sources closely modeling it, like Wizardry). Even Vance's wizards which inspired it are more like 1.

One suspects D&D was trying to model 1, because it's the closest, but because they had such a profoundly badly-designed power curve with spells, going from being "almost entirely useless/active liability" at L1, to "incredible" at L10, to "godlike" as they go further, they utterly fail to do so. Worlds Without Number rather demonstrates how to do that type of caster "right" in a D&D-like game. But just starting wizards off with, say, 4-5 L1 spells at L1 and only ramping up to say, L6 or L7 spells ever (aside perhaps as rituals), and never getting too many would work too, if you actually wanted to do that.

No, you really don't in many ways.

The bolded part is essential what we do now with our 5E mod. You begin with 2 spell slots + additional slots equal to your spellcasting ability modifier (typically +3) at level 1. By level 20 you have 30 spell slots (for full caster), but don't get access to 8th or 9th level spells until tier 4.

Here is the full table if you are curious:

We are currently on the fence about keeping Bard a half-caster or restoring them to full-caster. You can also only cast 1 spell each of 6th levels and higher, but at level 20 that would use up nearly all your spell slots (6+7+8+9=30), having maybe 4-5 left from your spellcasting ability at that point.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't understand why any DM has a problem with players doing what their character classes are designed to do.

I know right? It's bizarrely common. I've even seen your exact Paladin example at the table. It's like, what the heck, you going to complain that the Wizard is casting Fireball? Oh you ARE?! Damn. Wow. So maybe we should just not use any class-based abilities, because you clearly hate it and have these encounters which seem to have been prepared assuming PCs have no abilities, because you're surprised and clearly upset when they're used?

I don't get where these DMs are coming from, but they definitely exist and some of them are quite experienced. It's like, you've been running D&D 20 years and you're still moaning about characters having abilities? Man what. They also always do moan less about leveled spells than other abilities, which I think is revealing perhaps of what is actually happening.

 

[Bacon Bits]

FYI, since you mentioned smites, Paladins can only smite once per turn in our game as well.

Honestly, I would not be surprised if that's a change in 5.5e. It's fine that the class can smite. It's just kind of ridiculous just how fast it can be done. Being a decision you get to make after you hit and not being limited to the number of uses per turn ends up feeling like a bridge too far.

If a smite is so powerful that it takes a spell slot to fuel, that's basically saying it's equivalent to a first level spell. And it basically is equivalent to the first level smiting spells in terms of damage. So, if it's a first level spell in almost every way, why do you get to ignore the action limits on spells per turn? Isn't that a bit weird that one class can just cast 2-3 spells in a turn and dodge the action economy? And the only restriction is the fact that you just don't have many spell slots? No saving throw. No action limit. No wasted spell slots.

This is a weird design.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I know right? It's bizarrely common. I've even seen your exact Paladin example at the table. It's like, what the heck, you going to complain that the Wizard is casting Fireball? Oh you ARE?! Damn. Wow. So maybe we should just not use any class-based abilities, because you clearly hate it and have these encounters which seem to have been prepared assuming PCs have no abilities, because you're surprised and clearly upset when they're used?

I don't get where these DMs are coming from, but they definitely exist and some of them are quite experienced. It's like, you've been running D&D 20 years and you're still moaning about characters having abilities? Man what. They also always do moan less about leveled spells than other abilities, which I think is revealing perhaps of what is actually happening.

I remember getting attacked on reddit for saying "you should let fighters use their weapons sometimes." Some (who was getting upvotes) Insisted that any time you use a monster that can be affected by weapons, you're being a terrible dm.

People who play fighters want to never use weapons. All of them, all the time.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It's like, what the heck, you going to complain that the Wizard is casting Fireball? Oh you ARE?! Damn. Wow.

No, because you aren't going to spam fireballs battle after battle all day long, are you?

As for the Paladin smites, @Bacon Bits just pointed out, there are reasons behind it. If it was before the attack roll and lost if you missed, that would be different. Otherwise we balance it to once per turn like SA for Rogues. Because frankly, if you miss on your attack, no harm done and if you hit on the next attack, you smite.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

We are currently on the fence about keeping Bard a half-caster or restoring them to full-caster.

Yeah I can see the temptation to try to reflect 3.XE (2E Bards are basically full casters thanks to the way XP works), but Bards are easily the weakest class in 5E as half-caster (far below even the worst Ranger subclasses and the like). No question. They lack all the combat "oomph" of other half-casters, and they lack the flexibility and depth of spells that full casters have, they're not actually as good with Skills as Rogues (not even Persuasion), and further, because 5E assumes they're full casters, they're missing tons of stuff that would be baked into the class otherwise (as it's assumed you're doing that stuff via leveled spells).

I think there's probably a way to fix them short of making them a full caster, but the obvious solutions (basically making Valor Bard's subclass Features into core features class features for example, and eliminating Valor Bard as a subclass) keep Bard as the weakest class in 5E because they just make it MAD and still don't give it actual combat oomph. So you need to go a bit beyond that, but that's a separate discussion.

 

[AmerginLiath]

As much as folks talk about monsters borrowing from character design, this is a place where I wonder if characters can borrow from monster design. I’ve kicked around the idea of cantrips and other more potent “at will” abilities getting a refresh die like many monster powers. Perhaps different classes start off with a 5-6 or a 6 on a d6 refresh, then scale up over levels to a 3-6 or 4-6 over time (perhaps there’s PB “free casting” between refreshes for when you really need a quick magical attack?).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No, because you aren't going to spam fireballs battle after battle all day long, are you?

Sure you are. I've seen that happen since 2E. As long as your party is smart about positioning, and you often encounter groups of enemies, you're going to cast tons of fireballs. It's still a ridiculously great spell in 5E (indeed I believe it's intentionally buffed over other 3rd-level options, I think the devs said that). I've seen plenty of casters upcast Fireball over using higher-level spells, too.

Only in 4E did it not happen.

Re: Smite I don't see a huge problem with it being 1/turn - you're likely to have similar damage output over a day that way, it's just a little less bursty. Also the "I smite, I smite, I smite" effect is down to outright bad design from the 5E team by making there be these dumbass smite spells you have to memorize, all of which kinda suck, instead of making it so Paladins could naturally do more than one kind of smite.