D&D 5E Spells cast at higher level spell slots. Worth it?

[Cap'n Kobold]

If you want to improve scaling of spells, I would suggest dropping the overscaled spells like Fireball and Lightning bolt down to a base of 5d6 and have damage spells getting a free additional level worth of scaling at the points at which cantrips improve.
So a Burning hands cast by a 5th level wizard using a 1st level slot will deal 4d6. Using a 3rd level slot it will deal 6d6. A Fireball cast using that 3rd level slot will deal 6d6 as well.
An 11th level wizard will be casting 5d6 Burning hands with a 1st level slot, and 7d6 fireballs with a 3rd level lot etc.

 

[mflayermonk]

Insect Plague, Cone of Cold, and Fireball all scale well for damage (among spells).

If you estimate one spell level bump is roughly one monster CR bump, damage spells get you an extra 3-4 damage per spell level bump, monsters gain 9ish hp per CR bump. So after 3 spell level over the original spell level (eg Fireball is 3rd level, so using higher than a 6th level slot) you need to get more and more monsters in the blast to make it scale well.

 

[Corwin]

But since "some people" asked: No caster in our party has burning hands itself. However, the bard has thunderwave, which he most recently used on a big swarm of crawling claws and before that on a giant crayfish thing. And the wizard has magic missile, which he casts at... well, pretty much everything. If "some people" think we're doing it wrong and that spells should be balanced assuming we're only ever going cast fireballs and firebolts with nothing in between... well, that's "some people's" problem, not ours.

There's some simple, objective truths proving you are in no way "doing it wrong". Most importantly, your group is having fun. That alone is more than enough. But also, you seem to be able to survive the adventuring day doing things the way you are doing it. If you were doing it wrong, we'd be seeing TPKs and everyone in your group complaining that D&D sucks.

 

[Barolo]

If you want to improve scaling of spells, I would suggest dropping the overscaled spells like Fireball and Lightning bolt down to a base of 5d6 and have damage spells getting a free additional level worth of scaling at the points at which cantrips improve.
So a Burning hands cast by a 5th level wizard using a 1st level slot will deal 4d6. Using a 3rd level slot it will deal 6d6. A Fireball cast using that 3rd level slot will deal 6d6 as well.
An 11th level wizard will be casting 5d6 Burning hands with a 1st level slot, and 7d6 fireballs with a 3rd level lot etc.

This idea of improving spells at the levels cantrips get boosts is really interesting. It could change the current stand that damaging spells using 1st level slots actually become worse options than cantrips at sufficiently high character levels.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

This idea of improving spells at the levels cantrips get boosts is really interesting. It could change the current stand that damaging spells using 1st level slots actually become worse options than cantrips at sufficiently high character levels.

That was part of the intent, although I've never subscribed to the view that cantrips actually make even 1st level spells pointless. Yes, at level 11, your firebolt will deal more damage than burning hands - if you're using burning hands against a single target.

 

[raleel]

Read all of this to one extent or another, and only have a couple things to add

• The DMG has a nice table for determining new spells. That actually seems like it would be a useful baseline. Only part it is missing is "no save" spells like magic missile, which I think can easily be handled by halving the dice listed there. Save for no damage could just increase the die size by 1 instead of 25% add as suggested.
• This actually seems like a really good space for Lore Mastery to exist *stands back from that grenade*

 

[TheCosmicKid]

There's some simple, objective truths proving you are in no way "doing it wrong". Most importantly, your group is having fun. That alone is more than enough. But also, you seem to be able to survive the adventuring day doing things the way you are doing it. If you were doing it wrong, we'd be seeing TPKs and everyone in your group complaining that D&D sucks.

Heck, sometimes even TPKs aren't doing it wrong. We've all played Dwarf Fortress. We know the mantra.

 

[Corwin]

Heck, sometimes even TPKs aren't doing it wrong. We've all played Dwarf Fortress. We know the mantra.

Totally true. I was just pointing out that you don't have to run spreadsheet-squeezed, min-maxed, hyper-optimized power parties to make it through an adventuring day. 5e is pretty forgiving about taking fun choices over optimal. The proof that your character choices are okay is in just that: he's doing okay.

 

[clearstream]

...but this conversation is fairly Wizard centric. This scaling damage debate does not include context of the various class spell lists, but perhaps more importantly does not take into account the Warlock spellcasting system (that automatically raises the spell slot) and Sorcerers (who know very few spells and likely would want their early level spell choices to be relevant later on in the game).

For me you raise a valid point because looking at it through a Warlock's eyes reveals additional concerns. For me, Warlock has always been narrow by design. Hit Fly and spam Eldritch Blast. It multi-targets and scales reasonably. You can meaningfully boost it with Agonising and Spear. So my first question is whether it is right to make Warlock broader? I could feel drawn to asserting something like "No class should be narrow!" but then I consider a game that has all broad classes against another that has many broad classes plus some narrow ones. Wouldn't the latter offer more overall diversity of playing experiences? On the other hand, if I'm playing a Warlock because I like the Pacts and Invocations, but it's not my goal to play a narrow class: should I be punished for my choice? The ideal approach may be that all classes offer both narrow and broad options, but you can see that structurally that is going to be difficult to achieve. It's probably hugely more manageable to have some broad, some mixed, and some actually narrow.

However, if I wanted to broaden Warlock then one way to do that might be via an invocation at 5th level. This hypothetical invocation will trade off the over-powered spell options for better scaled ones just as @Cap'n Kobold suggests. Through being Warlock-specific, it sidesteps the thorny problem of re-balancing all the other classes that have access to those same spells.

Elemental Bargain: Your 1st level and higher spells do more damage when you reach higher levels: they gain 1d6 at 5th level, 2d6 at 11th level and 3d6 at 17th level. However, your Fireball and Lightning Bolt lose 3d6 from their base damage, e.g. they do 5d6+1d6 damage when you are 5th level.

If it turned out that some specific spell was broken by this, I might narrow it by using damage types i.e. only spells of some damage types get the benefit.

 

[Corwin]

Why not just have thew warlock swap out the lower level spells he no longer finds of value for higher level ones as he advances?