D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

[FrogReaver]

I always felt control spells were unfun. Either they worked and trivialized an encounter or failed. Now with Magic Resistance and high saves monsters get out of most spells. So what do the designers do? Create Intelligence saves and uncommon damage types like psychic. This needs to stop. Remove energy resistance and immunity. Reduce save values and give control spells a limited time duration. Say 3 rounds with no save per round to end the effect earlier.

Are you trying to make the problem worse?

 

[tetrasodium]

I almost want to make vancian for 5e again and incentivize it somehow ... But I feel like any reasonable incentives would never be strong enough to make it worth taking over the existing system.

There must be existing work others have done in that line for 5e homebrew. But again I can't imagine anyone would use it without it being massively overpowered.

Ive considered it as well and even started spit balling it at one point but 5e really went out of its way to make it hard for someone to make that kind of change without going past major homebrew into full on fantasy heartbreaker. For all of the empty lip service that Crawford gave us over the last decade about how this or that aspect of 5e was designed to make it easier to homebrew and make changes it's remarkably inflexible and difficult to make meaningful changes that impact wargamer side of wargamer/theater kid spread.

It almost feels like something like that would probably take a total rewrite of everything the spells chapter plus a reconsideration for the role of cantrips and rebuilding a few classes that wind up with their class+subclass spaghetti code broken by the results of doing one or both.

 

[nevin]

Interesting take.

Of course, there are plenty of control spells (5e sleep, Spike growth, wall of Force etc.) that don't have a save, which is what makes them particularly good - they just work. Those are the ones I see used particularly well.

If I recall correctly, in prior editions (2e and before) magic resistance was much more definitive. If it kicked in, the monster just ignored the spell entirely, such as walking right through a wall of Force. So that part certainly does track.

to be fair that was almost necessary in 1e as wall of force was impenetrable. In 1e there were some spells that only

I think the central premise as that it's easier to land control spells in 5e AND it gets easier as you level.

Whereas in AD&D, you chance of landing spells for worse as you leveled, your ability to boost that was severely limited, you had to prepare them to slots, and bosses tended to be higher HD for better saves. So spells vs "bosses" were hail maries if they weren't immune.

Not everything you fought was your level in AD&D. Mages were great at high levels ,with support to protect them, for dealing with the unruly masses that tended to come with the high level monsters. Also ome spells in AD&D like stoneskin lasted a lot longer and the big bad that saved so much better had a lot less hit points. A couple of 10 level fireballs with below Average damage could kill a high level monster. I believe a Wyrm White Dragon was 12hd.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't think the Control spells are ruining the game, primarily because I don't think most players focus on them as much as they could to have that sort of impact on the game.

Yes, it's technically more optimal if you crunch the numbers involved with the impact on combat in, for example, the use of Hypnotic Pattern a large group of foes and then focus fire on just one at a time (though smart foes will just slap their allies awake from it).

But realistically, a lot more players just find it more fun to Fireball that same group. The Fireball is less optimal if you run the numbers as a generalization for an average group, but a lot more fun to roll a bunch of dice and damage a lot of creatures.

And I think, at most tables, the Control spells just are not used as often as you'd think from their potential impact on the battles.

 

[NotAYakk]

to be fair that was almost necessary in 1e as wall of force was impenetrable. In 1e there were some spells that only

Not everything you fought was your level in AD&D. Mages were great at high levels ,with support to protect them, for dealing with the unruly masses that tended to come with the high level monsters. Also ome spells in AD&D like stoneskin lasted a lot longer and the big bad that saved so much better had a lot less hit points. A couple of 10 level fireballs with below Average damage could kill a high level monster. I believe a Wyrm White Dragon was 12hd.

Yes; against high level monsters you wanted a wide selection of damage types (to avoid immune) and save-for-half damage spells.

A 25% save rate vs 90% save rate with a "save or suck" spell is 7.5x better/worse.
The same save rates with "save for half damage" is 1.6x better/worse.

So "fireball" and the like where better against bosses quite often. Being immune to charm, paralysis, etc (the classic "you lose") was about as likely as being immune to fire damage, with lower level effects more likely to run into immunity. Petrification immunity would be less rare than Paralysis immunity, and immunity to Death Magic even rarer, but Hold Monster would be a lower level spell than Petrification, and Power Word: Kill spell would be even higher level.

Then you could throw your almost-always half-damage spells at it and whittle it down with the rest of the party, ideally with the fighter-types keeping it distracted instead of gambling on low-chance-to-connect instant-win spells.