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Message: <blockquote data-quote="n00bdragon" data-source="post: 6285194" data-attributes="member: 6689371">@OPYou'd be the 1,000,001th person to try doing this and probably the 1,000,001th failure, but if you're going to take a shot at that legendary problem you need to actually understand what's wrong with magic in 3e. Like treating a sick man attacking the symptoms of problem will only make him more miserable, you must attack the root of the problem. Let's look at the root problems with magic:1 Banning Spells: There are a LOT of spells. To paraphrase Douglas Adams: The number of spells is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. Furthermore, as designed, casters in 3e have access to ALL the spells particular to their class and without straight up banning them one by one it's difficult to shut them off from gaining access to another equally broken spell. To make matters worse the PHB has many of the most egregious offenders. Enterprising DMs who think ban splats tend to end up with even more broken casters.2 Playing with Casting Mechanics: Spells aren't categorized properly. Not every level 1 spell is equally powerful. This problem only gets worse as you rise in spell levels. Case in point: It's actually debatable whether Meteor Swarm, a 9th level spell, is better than Charm Person, a 1st level spell. A well placed Meteor Swarm can knock down a wall, but a well placed Charm Person can knock down a kingdom. Therefore, changing the rules for how spells are used disproportionately punishes spells that need all the love they can get.3 You Need Spells: Spells were designed as a catch-all for player needs. If Gygax et al found that players needed something to advance the game along he usually designed a spell to fix that problem. This is why spells are the primary source of healing for players, primary source of non-combat rules, able to open locks and fly and regenerate limbs and dispel darkness and myriad other things. Without these effects the game quickly becomes unplayable because many challenges simply cannot be surmounted in a practical manner without magic.4 Monsters Need Spells: Like above, many monsters have either spell like abilities or outright spells. Changing the way spells works will force you to rejigger all these monsters so that they work properly. Not that CR was worth a toss to begin with, but now the job is even harder.5 It Still Has to be Fun: This is the most important piece so I left it for last. Playing a spellcaster still has to be fun and there have to be reasons you would want to play one. If you're having to meticulously track bat poop supplies or spend five rounds chargin' your lazar to shoot a fireball then magic stops being fun to play. You may pat yourself on the back because now your party consists of all rangers and barbarians instead of all wizards and clerics but you've effectively shot the sick man in the face and declared him cured because he's no longer coughing.These are just five major problems I came up with off the top of my head. There are a lot of other core problems you'd need to address as well. I don't claim to have an answer to them; if I did, if anyone did, you'd think they would have published it by now almost fifteen years after the game came out. I'm just saying this rabbit hole goes a lot deeper than you probably think it does.</blockquote>

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