D&D (2024) Make SPELLS Balanced

[Dausuul]

I'd prefer that spells in general be keyed to caster level. Higher level = more effective.

This was the literal origin of "linear fighter, quadratic wizard." If spells are keyed to caster level, then caster power scales on two axes as they advance: They get more spell slots and the spells in those slots get stronger.

Keeping spell power fixed to the spell slot averts this, while also making it much simpler to balance class features and spells.

 

[Cruentus]

This was the literal origin of "linear fighter, quadratic wizard." If spells are keyed to caster level, then caster power scales on two axes as they advance: They get more spell slots and the spells in those slots get stronger.

Keeping spell power fixed to the spell slot averts this, while also making it much simpler to balance class features and spells.

Was never an issue at our table for 40+ years. Clerics were always viewed as more powerful than wizards, even at higher levels, and wizards always had drawbacks (low HP being a big one).

So, that's neither here nor there as it applies to what WOTC can do going forward to better balance spells. I think less spells would help, and remove a lot of options no one ever takes, which helps better address balance rather than trying to make 300 some odd spells "balanced". If level linked spell effects can't work, that's cool, but it shouldn't be thrown out offhand because this isn't LF/QW territory anymore. Its 5e/5.5/One territory.

 

[ECMO3]

I'd prefer that spells in general be keyed to caster level. Higher level = more effective. Upcasting spells, I feel, is a work around to that, and a symptom of having too many castable spells over the course of the day. Its no longer a resource that has to be managed, you can just upcast level spells because you have nothing better in that level slot, which brings me to:

@Yaarel and @ECMO3, I think I'd rather you took the "good and overtuned" categories, and dropped the rest. Do we really need 60 spells at 3rd level, when really the 24 "most powerful" are the ones likely to be almost always selected? There are literally hundreds of spells for spellcasters in the game, and only a very small portion get taken or even looked at. And while you're at it, drop the spells that step on other class abilities, that should cut them down too.

I get it that people like to have all the things, in the event that it might be useful sometime, but that could be a spells supplement. Have the core product be better focused and more balanced overall. But then, I know that's not the direction things are going.

You can buy 3rd party books with thousands of more spells.

I think it is pretty clear the community wants more spells, not less.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

In the first D&D campaign I played, we had access to several homebrew books with a ton of spells, several thousand of them. A lot were very weak, a lot were stupid op, and quite a few were just . . . highly concerning.

There's definitely a market for them, prob since spells are the real system that actually offers options and is easy to make more of. Sometimes it feels like WoTC forgets there's abilities in this game other than spells.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

I do not want spells to be more balanced. I think the gmaeplay is better when you have some great spells, some mediocre and some poor.

What makes it better this way?

The only thing I can think of is:

• the player skill meta game if you want that -- over time you get to learn which are the better spells as a player and avoid the others
• the spells are there for NPC casters who you can flavor as not "finding" or being able to "research" the better spells

I do think there is room for tiers if spellcaster spell lists were more restricted. X Class gets access to the great AOE damage spells but only the medicore mobility spells, etc. Y class gets the reverse, etc.

 

[ECMO3]

What makes it better this way?

More flavor and more variety. It also lets casters use slots to do physics defying things.

If we balanced spells we would have to eliminate almost all the control and many of the defensive spells or nerf them so they were useless.

For example, let's say we want to balance spells - what you do to Invisibility, Hold Person and Suggestion so they are balanced with Flaming Sphere? What would you do with Fear, Summon Fey and Hypnotic Pattern to bring them down to Fireball's level?

You would have to make most of these spells useless to "balance" them. Alternatively you would need to boost the damage on things like Flaming Sphere and Fireball or give them secondary effects (knocks prone, stuns ....). If you did that casters would outrun non-casters even more than they currently do.

Casters take the great spells and the take the weak spells, there are only a few spells that are almost never used and not worth taking (Witchbolt and True strike being those I can think of).

 

[Incenjucar]

You can define a rough metric path for different kinds of spells and balance within that path with similar capabilities granted to other classes.

You can't get a perfect comparison but you can still outline a path of escalation and keep things within the rough line of progression.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

More flavor and more variety. It also lets casters use slots to do physics defying things.

If we balanced spells we would have to eliminate almost all the control and many of the defensive spells or nerf them so they were useless.

For example, let's say we want to balance spells - what you do to Invisibility, Hold Person and Suggestion so they are balanced with Flaming Sphere? What would you do with Fear, Summon Fey and Hypnotic Pattern to bring them down to Fireball's level?

You would have to make most of these spells useless to "balance" them.

Yeah, I don't think that's what the majority of people are saying.

The notion is simply if a spell does roughly the same thing as another spell then make the numbers similar or make the trade off one that is difficult to pick between (area for damage, etc) or that has superior uses in some situations (hopfully not rare situations) but not others.

Spells that are not as quantitative are harder to balence but I don't see many people saying get rid of them.

One test is to look and see if people are picking those spells regularly enough over other spells or all the time or none of the time. There are lots of levers they could use to rebalance as you started to do with the list above, including sometimes moving a spell's level.

They should go through a design exercise of picking like 6-10 calibrated spells per level of various types then looking closely to make sure the spells are in good levels relative to other levels. Once you have that list, any new spell added should be compared to the 6-10 calibrated spells and modified or moved level such that you would think that a chunk of players would pick that spell instead of the calibrated spell sometimes. People won't 100% agree but I'm pretty sure designers could make things much much more balanced using this method and especially cut some of the "does anyone every take this?".

 

[Yaarel]

With regard to skilled players who can optimize mechanically to a reasonable degree:

Different players will have different preferences. But in the aggregate, when averaging all skilled players, each spell is precisely slightly better or worse compared to an other spell in the same Slot.

With accuracy, one can group spells together that are roughly the same amount of power and usefulness.

The simple math of damage is the unit of measurement to compare how much power and usefulness is appropriate at each spell Slot.

These calibrated Slots are the metric for the entire gaming engine of D&D 5e − especially being the ONLY metric for evaluating what features are appropriate at the highest levels.

 

[Yaarel]

My corrections to this list:

Phantom Steed: This should be good. It gives awesome mobility to someone until it is killed and does it without concentration.

Phantom Steed is effective because of its amazing Speed 100.

However, it is arguably less useful than flight, and its 1 minute casting time moves it into the Ritual category, and out of the Slot category.

Maybe it should Demote to the 2nd Slot. Or require a Rethink.

Animate Dead: The long casting time makes this "Forgivable". If it was an action it would be good

Agreed.

A Spell that spends a Slot needs to be no more than one Action (or Bonus or Reaction or Move). Otherwise, it is Ritual.

There is no important reason for Animate Dead to take more than an Action. Either it is a spell that can be cast during combat − or else − like Find Familiar − it is a noncombat Ritual.

Rituals whose effects are also useful in Combat require careful thinking and careful balancing. But generally Slots are for Actions during Combat and Rituals are for Exploration.

Hypnotic Pattern: This is "needs rethink" if your DM knows what he is doing.

Hypnotic Pattern and Fear are similar in effectiveness. Hypnotic Pattern is slightly better by making the creatures Incapacitated, but Fear moves the creatures away so one need not deal with them immediately.

Notably both spells can affect teammates, thus greatly reducing the usefulness.

I will probably relocate both to Good − being standard for a 3rd Slot.

Lightning Bolt, Fireball, Lightning Arrow should be Forgivable

Actually, Lightning Arrow Demotes to a 2nd-Slot spell. Its damage is so weak I somehow assumed it along with its bonus action was in addition to the weapon damage, in which case it would have been an Excellent spell. But I realize it is "instead of" the weapon damage, thus is a subpar compared to other damage spells in the 3rd Slot.

Character optimizers and the 5e designers themselves regard Fireball as an unusually powerful spell.

That said, it occurs to me that Lightning Bolt feels more like a Single-Target spell. Yes, it might also affect one or two other creatures in the line, but that possibility is "situational" thus less useful.

As a Single-Target spell, Lightning Bolt does the appropriate amount of damage for the 3rd Slot. Where a 3rd-Slot damage spells deals 27 damage (6d8) to the single target, the Lightning Bolt deals 28 damage (8d6). If that was all it did, it would simply be a Good spell. But the additional possibility of catching one more mook or so moves Lightning Bolt to an Excellent spell.

By contrast, Fireball can reliably target any cluster of hostiles, and is a Multi-Target spell.

I am comfortable if 8d6 Lightning Bolt remains 3rd-Slot, while 8d6 Fireball Promotes to 4th Slot. Alternatively, both spells might deserve a Rethink.

Fear should be in class all of its own called "overpowered"

Fear and Hypnotic Pattern are comparable to each other.

Some others not on your list:
Catnap - Demote to 1st level slot
Crusaders Mantle - Demote to 2nd level slot
Enemies Abound - Good
Elemental Weapon - Needs Rethink
Ashardalon's Stride - Forgivable
Fast Friends - Demote to 2nd level slot
Incite Greed - Standard Effect for 3rd level
Summon Fey/Shadowspawn/Undead - excellent
Thunderstep - excellent

The Spell Lists need to include every official spell in 5e. I appreciate you catching these.