D&D General Lowest level of magic that still "feels like D&D"

[azabaro]

i wonder if the people who have issues with cantrips would continue to have issues with them if all of the damaging ones were removed? maybe a few might remain but become class features, like how eldritch blast is for warlock in 5.5(IIRC), vicious mockery for bard, sacred flame for cleric...

but if it was just ones like light, mage hand, mending.

Many years ago, I encountered Ars Magica and found a lot of things I liked about its magic system. Some people will of course cite its ability to handle spontaneous magic, or its noun+verb ability to define groups of magical effects, or the way it lets you give characters affinities with certain types of magical ability. But one of the other things I liked about it was the way it put limits on magic and how that made it easier to define its world.

The D&D I started with placed limits on its magic as well, but it didn’t exactly call them out and I’ve only really started to see them by contrast with newer editions that do away with a lot of those limitations. I believe overgeeked called several of those out earlier in the thread, but for me a key combination was the lack of at-will casting combined with requiring characters to decide what spell they were going to cast with each spell slot in advance. That meant a magic-user might go into a session with 2 Light spells and a single Knock at hand, but they didn’t have any more of those in the tank and therefore they shouldn’t blow them unnecessarily - it was better to rely on the party’s at-will (and thus non-magical) capabilities in most cases. I think that did a better job of giving non-magical characters room to shine, while still letting the magic-use have their spotlight when they did spend their limited resources.

All that is to explain why I’d rather not have at-will abilities which displace mundane abilities. Attack magic of any consequence is mostly an issue (with maybe an exception for the Warlock, which was originally conceived as an at-will magic character and who I’d like to see go further back towards that niche). Light, Mage Hand, Message, Dancing Lights, Minor Illusion, and Mending are all cantrips I’d like to see be pushed up to 1st level to help give non-magical characters more opportunities to be significant, although I could see tying certain at-will abilities to some subclasses - the Conjurer’s ability to produce an object they’ve seen before might well justify giving an Illusionist at-will Minor Illusion, or a Bard at-will Guidance.

 

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

I think Fireball is so iconic that at a minimum you need to hit 3rd level spells as a Wizard. I'd prefer up to at least 5th level spells to include Raise Dead, but I know some people remove that spell from their games and they are still recognized as D&D campaigns.

 

[steeldragons]

I can see both the "1st level spells are enough" and the "3rd level spells cap" as playing/feeling like D&D. Illusions and enchantments are at the heart of just about any magical lore/legend/tradition. Putting people to sleep, enchanting them to do your bidding, turning invisible, mirror image...hold person...command, cure wounds, silence,....entangle, speak with animals, woodshape/warp wood... and the D&Disms/fun visuals of "real sorcery" stuff like Magic Missile and Shield, Spiritual Weapon, Flame Blade, Barkskin.

For 4th and 5th level spells, if they're to be used at all, cut the lists in half and reduce to what is possible through extensive time and/or resource consuming ritual. Something that exhausts the caster/they could do, maybe, one per day...maybe per week.

 

[cbwjm]

I think there are a couple of break points for me. 3rd level for the absolute minimum so that wizards are still out there throwing fireballs, but otherwise 6th level. I think 6th level would feel the most like "still DnD" to me.

 

[Reynard]

. Good for the party that's smart enough to do it, but a bit on the annoying side as a DM.

Smart enough? It is standard operating procedure. It is of no value in play. No fun is gained and in fact some fun is eliminated. Better off to just eliminate the kinds of traps that benefit from this tactic.

 

[bloodtide]

Honestly? 1st level.

This. When you play D&D and start with 1st level characters....it still feels like D&D.

A lot of this is how you play D&D. It is common for modern players to ask to start at a level above 1st. A lot of players want to start at 5th, 7th or 10th level and above. The traditional player in a traditional game, just about always started at 1st level.

And back in 1 and 2 E D&D....you could be 1st level for at least a year of real time. And this was also the time of rolling for everything, and keeping anything rolled.....so yes you had 1st level characters with 3 or 4 hit points. For a year of game play.

This is interesting. Generally speaking, spells in TSR era D&D are much more powerful and setting impactful.

In the world of 1e/2e this was very much true. As first level characters, anything with a couple of points of AC was near impossible to hit. But the first level spell Magic Missie could hit Anything. Once. Maybe twice. And then fireball was a big deal...with it's 5d6 damage...it could take out one big monster....and much more often a group of monsters...even if it only did like 25 points of damage.

Also, another thing that is not popular any more is the one class D&D. Like a group of fighters. They won't have much or any magic...even more so in 1/2E when magic weapons were rare and not 3E and after when it was "each character must me a Holiday Tree full of magic items".

 

[cbwjm]

even more so in 1/2E when magic weapons were rare and not 3E and after when it was "each character must me a Holiday Tree full of magic items".

I dispute this assumption, in TSR days, magic weapons practically rained from the sky and they had to since eventually you'd run into something that simply couldn't be hurt without weapons of +X quality. I ran my friends through a few modules a couple years ago and after 3 of them, they had so many extra magical weapons that they traded them in for something else.

 

[overgeeked]

I dispute this assumption, in TSR days, magic weapons practically rained from the sky and they had to since eventually you'd run into something that simply couldn't be hurt without weapons of +X quality. I ran my friends through a few modules a couple years ago and after 3 of them, they had so many extra magical weapons that they traded them in for something else.

To be fair, that largely depends on the referee. A lot of them simply ignored large chunks of the suggested magic items from modules.

 

[ezo]

Allowing it to heal constructs (including Autognome PCs). Also, allowing it to be more efficient and cheaper to repair a Spelljamming ship than drydocking it.

Spoiler

Nonmagical repairs to a damaged ship can be made while the vessel is berthed. Repairing 1 hit point of damage to a berthed ship takes 1 day and costs 20 gp for materials and labor. Damage to shipboard weapons can be repaired just as quickly (1 hit point per day), but at half the cost (10 gp per hit point).


The mending spell is a cheaper, less time-consuming way to make repairs. Casting mending on a damaged ship or shipboard weapon restores a number of hit points to the target equal to 1d8 plus the spellcaster’s spellcasting ability modifier. The target can regain hit points from that spell no more than once per hour.

Sorry, but IMO mending being abused in Spelljammer is really the fault of Spelljammer, not mending. I can't really see this as an issue in general.

Yeah, it becomes the door and chest opener (from 30 feet back) for one thing making door/chest traps worthless. Good for the party that's smart enough to do it, but a bit on the annoying side as a DM.

If the door or chest is locked, mage hand won't work to open it. If it is locked, you can't unlock it without first disabling the trap. If a door or chest is even "stuck" so that it would require more than "10-pounds" of "force" to open it, mage hand won't help there, either.

An Arcane Trickerster can, of course, but that is sort of their "thing" so if the party has one of those in the group...