D&D General Reinterpreting Fullcasters as Halfcasters, while preserving the Fullcaster feeling. (+)

[Nutation]

How about keeping the spell progression, but removing all 6+ level spells. Those higher slots could only be used to upcast Cone of old, Mass Cure Wounds, etc. That gives these classes more power than the half-casters, but without the really exotic spells. At that point, you could safely let Arcane Recovery and its analogs restore higher-level slots. Still a significant nerf, but maybe not too extreme.

 

[Blue]

I'm going to go a little sideways on this, playing with the concept but also addressing another salient point -- balance between the classes as imposed by the length of the adventuring day. I don't think it's controversial to say that with a mid-or-higher level traditional full casters, a single encounter will favor them over at-will classes like the rogue.

In the 2014!DMG, the designers suggested 6-8 combat encounters per adventuring day, and since we acknowledge that a traditional fullcaster using primarily their few-highest level slots for their actions gets more effect-per-action than one who has enough rounds of combat that they need to use mid and lower level spells as their action and/or cantrips, we can see how the average efficiency of an action is reduced with more rounds of combat. (It also should be obvious that a combat spell with a duration gains additional efficiency for that action if there are more contiguous rounds of combat for it to have an effect.)

So, traditional half-casters have lower "highest level" slots, which efficiency-wise do closer to at-will characters, and less slots.

If we want to stick as closely as possible to current half-casters, I can see cantrips becoming a much bigger thing since they scale with level, which does have overlap with the current warlock. But we'd be taking a lot out of the classes without replacement. Plus the full caster chassis aren't the same -- for example the druid gets a lot from their base class that isn't casting dependent, but the wizard and sorcerer get very little. There are also some subclasses like the bladesinger that use a lot less slots in combat and need to be kept in mind.

There's also the bigger point that while I've been talking about combat, which is the most resource-intensive type of scene, traditional full casters are already sometimes slow to use their highest level slots of utility spells for other scenes, and with fewer slots and those of a lower level I can see that becoming a bigger issue. Plus there are some expectations built in, like "at 5th level a party might be able to let someone fly, or bring someone back from recent dead" that would be much later.

So how do we address all of these?

First, I think we need to address the push for a shorter adventuring day. I'd put something like Arcane Recovery in whenever initiative is rolled. (And put it into DM hands to stop 'I'm going to get into a fistfight with a random bar patron so our caster can recover slots.) Having a much lower top level for spells should help the balance I was mentioning before between classes, and this keeps them feeling like something besides cantrip machines.

Then comes utility spells, both burning a slot for them and getting things later. There's a lot fo different way to handle this, here's one potential though other ways would be welcome as well: Many utility spells get the ritual tag. You can pick spells known/prepared/copy to spellbooks to include spells one level higher than you can cast. While you don't have a slot for them, you may use them as a ritual but only once per day each. Note: this favors the Wizard with being able to cast rituals from their book, and you know what: considering how little the wizard gets from their base class compared to some other full casters I am perfectly fine with this. Leaves them as the masters utility, between their once-a-days and just the greater number of utility spells with a ritual tag they know.

Warlocks aren't traditional full casters but I assume will also be part of a readjustment. We could halve their casting level to match other half-casters, rejigger Arcanum, halve their slots but make them come back per scene. I don't know, that doesn't hit it for me, what are your thoughts on how to bring them in-line.

Still, current half-casters might outdo the new half-casters. A paladin or artificer, for example, has a powerful chassis and close to the same casting. I think there would need to be some attention paid to them as well to keep everything balance.

And we still need to address some subclasses, like Bladesinger or 2014!Moon Druid. But it's a start.

This is just off the top of my head; actively looking for improvements, things I missed, etc.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I still feel that some of the full casters in 5E should be half casters, with their non-casting abilities beefed up. Druid shapeshifting, Bard inspiration, Sorcerer meta-magic, etc. Would give them a much stronger class identity.

 

[SkidAce]

I think it would be much simpler and achieve much of the same result by capping the campaign at 10th or 12th level.

Less uber spells, and this is where the "problem" begins anyway.

 

[SkidAce]

But in the spirit of a plus thread, if you changed full caster progression above 5th level spells to be like Warlock Mystic Arcanum, you would reduce spell choice paralysis, smooth out gameplay, and highlevel fullcasters would be known for their "signature" high level spells, instead of anything on the cleric list or scribed in their spellbook.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Take the Warlock chassis, with Pact Magic, and replace Mystic Arcanum with half-caster progression.

Your spells only go up to 5th level, total, but you get 5th level spells as quick as a full caster.

Replace Mystic Arcanum with Magical Secrets, or with just daily pact magic slots that you can use to cast your spells.

 

[Steampunkette]

So... yeah I don't think using the D&D One Playtest 5 version of Warlocks as the spellcasting chassis is a good idea. Sure, it keeps everyone 'close to 1st level Wizard' for spells at level 1... but with Mystic Arcanum as an invocation...

You're looking at a structure where any caster doesn't get 5th level spells until 17, and only once a day, unless they take Mystic Arcanum at 9th level and then they can cast a 5th level spell once per day while everyone else is only able to pull 3rd level spells.

That said... I do think the Warlock Chassis is a good basis for doing half-casting core casters... I just think the OneD&D would-be version isn't great. Good for an actual half-caster, though!

Core casters should go to 5th level at the same rate as a 5e warlock, and have as many spell slots at that level as the above half-caster table shows. That way they reach their capstone 5th level spells pretty early in the game and are 'as strong' at spellcasting as a 20th level actual hybrid class by 10th level.

And then do both the traditional Mystic Arcanum granted at 11th, 13th, 15th, and 17th for a single-use of the higher level spells per day, and only one or two known of each of the 6/7/8/9th level spells...

But also short-rest recovery for the 5th level and lower spell slots. Not -all- of them, but some, for the "Full Casters". Something like:

Recovering Spell Slots: You recover all expended spell slots at the end of a long rest. But at the end of a short rest you can expend hit dice to recover up to half (rounding down, minimum of one) of your expended spell slots of each chosen level.

This requires you to expend one of your Hit Dice per level of spells you would recover. As an example if you have spent all of your first and second level spells, and one of your third level spells, you could expend one hit die to recover half of your first level spells, a second hit die to recover half of your second level spells, and a third hit die to recover your third level spell. Or you could only spend two hit dice to just recover half of your 2nd level slots and one third level slot.

Hit dice expended in this way still grant you healing equal to your spellcasting modifier for each hit die expended.

This way everyone benefits from short rests to a significant degree, it puts a limit on how many short rest recharges you can get as a full caster, and it encourages -some- restraint in spell slot use without actively limiting it because you could get one of your two 5th level spell slots back on a short rest, but if you need two, you're SoL.

 

[Clint_L]

The thing is, you cannot get to a shorter adventuring day without fundamental rebuilding the game in a way that makes combat about 90% quicker.

The reality is that TTRPGs in general have long been evolving towards more emphasis on roleplaying and story, and less on gaming. There are obvious outliers for those who prefer the opposite, but the die is cast. I think my home game is pretty typical: we play roughly four hour sessions, and average 1 combat encounter (occasionally there are zero or two). And that is because the one combat encounter is extremely time consuming (typically 1-2 hours) and seldom the most memorable part of the game.

And that said, I am not finding that full spellcasters feel overpowered. So I don't agree that we need 6-8 encounters to balance spellcasters against other classes at all, because that is not what I am seeing at any of my games.

Cutting spellcasters off from higher level spells would require changing them in ways that give the players the same staisfaction from leveling up that other classes get - in effect, turning them all into paladins, artificers, and rangers. Preserving the full spellcaster feeling means doing that primarily through their magic alone, so now they are effectively souped up sorcerers.

 

[Bladesinger]

So... yeah I don't think using the D&D One Playtest 5 version of Warlocks as the spellcasting chassis is a good idea. Sure, it keeps everyone 'close to 1st level Wizard' for spells at level 1... but with Mystic Arcanum as an invocation...

View attachment 435504

You're looking at a structure where any caster doesn't get 5th level spells until 17, and only once a day, unless they take Mystic Arcanum at 9th level and then they can cast a 5th level spell once per day while everyone else is only able to pull 3rd level spells.

That said... I do think the Warlock Chassis is a good basis for doing half-casting core casters... I just think the OneD&D would-be version isn't great. Good for an actual half-caster, though!

Core casters should go to 5th level at the same rate as a 5e warlock, and have as many spell slots at that level as the above half-caster table shows. That way they reach their capstone 5th level spells pretty early in the game and are 'as strong' at spellcasting as a 20th level actual hybrid class by 10th level.

And then do both the traditional Mystic Arcanum granted at 11th, 13th, 15th, and 17th for a single-use of the higher level spells per day, and only one or two known of each of the 6/7/8/9th level spells...

But also short-rest recovery for the 5th level and lower spell slots. Not -all- of them, but some, for the "Full Casters". Something like:


This way everyone benefits from short rests to a significant degree, it puts a limit on how many short rest recharges you can get as a full caster, and it encourages -some- restraint in spell slot use without actively limiting it because you could get one of your two 5th level spell slots back on a short rest, but if you need two, you're SoL.

The Tales of the Valiant Warlock is designed like this, but much better. It would be a better chassis to build all full casters off of, if that was what you were going to do.

 

[Remathilis]

So... yeah I don't think using the D&D One Playtest 5 version of Warlocks as the spellcasting chassis is a good idea. Sure, it keeps everyone 'close to 1st level Wizard' for spells at level 1... but with Mystic Arcanum as an invocation....

IMHO, the problem was with mystic arcanum itself as it was a kludge used to give warlocks 9th level magic when they figured out pact magic goes off the rails after level 9. Had the desire/edict of backwards compatibility not been a thing, a half caster warlock split between the artificer and gish would have been a infinity better design. Just kill mystic arcanum like the tacked on garbage it was and beef up the warlocks invocations.