D&D 5E Simplified 3-level spellcasting

[happyhermit]

First of all, there are only 9 spell levels, separating them by character level is not useful. Condensing the 9lvls into 3 is easy, but it will make 1st 3rd and 6th level spells a lot less useful.

Instead of beads, I would recommend cards. Simply give them a "hand" of cards with just the levels of spells on them that they can cast; x amount of 1's, y amount of 2's, etc.

Making your own or buying th spell cards can also help new players (and old) keep track of their options.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm about to DM a group of friends and I really don't want to scare them away with complicated spellcasting so I thought of making the system easier to understand by using physical beads that are spent when spells are used. Since it's hard to differentiate between 20 different sizes of beads

There'd only be 9, one for each spell level, right?

I think it would make things a lot easier to just divide spells into cantrips (no bead used), small spells (small bead), medium spells (medium bead) and large spells (large bead). Seems intuitive.

Nod. Using tokens to track resources like that usually works better if you have fewer resources, too. Having 20+ beads in front of you, even if only of three sizes, gets busy.

Do you have any tips on which spell levels should be assigned to which size and how I might make the system more balanced?

IMHO, spells have generally sorted easily into two groupings, 1-5th level, and 6th-9th. 3 groups is trickier. The beads are representing slots, so you'd have to adapt the rules for using a higher-level slot, as well as the number of slots.

You might, instead, want to start with the 'spell point' module in the DMG. It gives players a pool of points to spend on casting instead of slots of varying levels. That way, 1 bead per point, no different sizes required.

 

[Bardbarian]

Beads are an excellent way of tracking spells at low level. It gives the player a tactile object to hold and they can see at a glance how many spells they have, of what level and how many they will have left. This falls apart after level 3 spells as it gets too complex, but up till then you will have up to about 10 beads total which are easy to track. I recommend different colors rather than sizes if possible because people just differentiate better that way. Try something like following the "rainbow" of colors so they can easily remember. For example red for first level yellow for second and blue for third. By the time they learn 4th level spells, they will probably have som idea how to continue tracking on their own. I personally use a similar idea for Ki points and Superiority dice on my characters and I find it to be a nice tool for tracking resources.

 

[Satyrn]

Why not use Uno cards? They come simply numbered from 1 to 9 already. If you don't care about the suit color you use, you have enough cards to represent 8 spell slots for each level.

Or, if you have no more than 4 spellcasters you can give each of them a unique color for their cards, though you'll have to buy another deck or two to cover all their slots. (I forget what 1st level slots max out at. If it's only 4, then you only need 2 decks for this to work well and fully)

 

[EvilJohn]

If you're looking for something a bit more manageable than cards, you might consider using coins.

 

[steeldragons]

The mind boggles.

Based on the title, I thought you meant you were going to just put all spells into a "small magic/medium magic/large magic" categories and transfer spell slots/allotments into one of those three...and...well, nevermind.

Tracking beads/cards/post-its/whatever...somehow, for/over 20 [?] levels...and this was going to be "easier"?!...was definitely not the kind of thing I was envisioning/thought you meant.