Spells/Powers Becoming Obsolete With Level

[Incenjucar]

In 4th edition, spells don't scale by level or have silly and arbitrary HD limits. Sleep is just as useful at level 30 as it is at level 1. While this was a very nice change, 4e still had the problem of spells becoming obsolete, it just did it in a different way. In that edition, you replaced old spells as you gained higher level ones. They literally disappeared from a wizard's spellbook, even! This makes me roll my eyes every time I read it.

In 5e, can we not have any form of spells becoming obsolete at higher levels, pretty please? This goes for fighter "exploits" too. The idea of a fighter suddenly forgetting how to cleave once he learns whirlwind attack is just as stupid as spells disappearing from a spellbook.

The few scaling powers in 4E is certainly a problem, not so much because of the "forgetting" issue but because of the inability to get better at something. However, there are a number of powers that DO have scaled versions later on in the game (though you usually have to track them down), and the skald bard (FINALLY) introduced Lesser and Greater versions of powers to the game, though this should have been in on Day 1.

 

[hanez]

Can't we let save DCs handle this somehow? It seems to me that in an at level encounter, the wizard should be able to cast sleep at a high chance of success on the weaklings, and a 50-50 chance of success on the average enemy underling and at a looow chance of success (1 in 20) on the big bad guy.

If you could keep this power dynamic through all levels, I think it would be best

 

[Szatany]

In 3.x and Pathfinder, Sleep couldn't affect a target with 5 or more HD, making it all but useless after 5th or 6th level. There are numerous other spells that likewise became obsolete at higher levels, such as cause fear, hypnotism, pattern spells, and so on. I was never fond of this, to put it kindly.

In 4th edition, spells don't scale by level or have silly and arbitrary HD limits. Sleep is just as useful at level 30 as it is at level 1. While this was a very nice change, 4e still had the problem of spells becoming obsolete, it just did it in a different way. In that edition, you replaced old spells as you gained higher level ones. They literally disappeared from a wizard's spellbook, even! This makes me roll my eyes every time I read it.

In 5e, can we not have any form of spells becoming obsolete at higher levels, pretty please? This goes for fighter "exploits" too. The idea of a fighter suddenly forgetting how to cleave once he learns whirlwind attack is just as stupid as spells disappearing from a spellbook.

Well first of all it seems that 5e will use vancian slot system again instead of power system of 4e (who know, maybe there will be both).
They already said that spells will not scale with level but you will be able to use a higher level slot to cast a more powerful version of a spell. So I imaging Sleep would work like it did at 1st level, but at 10th level you can cast it with your best slot and suddenly it affects up to 80 hp worth of creatures.
No spell becomes useless as you level up, but your low level slots kinda do.

 

[Cadfan]

There's a reason that earlier editions had spells become obsolete with level.

Supposedly, if the system worked right, the balancing factor that kept wizards in line was a limited number of spells per day.

But once you hit 9th level or so, you probably had more spells per day than there were rounds of combat.

So "lower level" spells had to start to suck in order to prevent you from having all the benefits of a wizard with none of the drawbacks. If only your highest level spells were full powered, then you still had a limited number of fully powered actions per day before you had to resort to your crappy back up plans (at low levels, a crossbow, at high levels, a level 1 spell).

If a spell that does d6 damage per level scaled indefinitely, a level 3 spell that deals d6 damage per level would be approximately equal to a level 6 spell that deals d6 damage per level. That's problematic, so the lower level spells get capped.

For save or die spells, the problem is even worse, because you can't "cap damage" on them. They're all or nothing. So you have to make them go obsolete in order to encourage your players to use higher level save or die spells, and in order to keep your player from having an unlimited supply of save or die options. Sleep is close to equivalent to a save or die spell in earlier editions, because it often ends combats. So it has to be phased out so that you'll start using your higher level spells that accomplish similar ends, and so that your wizard is balanced by his limited number of fully powered spells.

So... you could come up with a system where spells don't become obsolete. But that system would need some massive changes from the old school spells-per-day paradigm, with spells divided up by levels. Having spells go obsolete wasn't a style choice, it was an important balance choice that was worked deeply into the way magic functioned.

 

[Szatany]

If a spell that does d6 damage per level scaled indefinitely, a level 3 spell that deals d6 damage per level would be approximately equal to a level 6 spell that deals d6 damage per level. That's problematic, so the lower level spells get capped.

But spells will no longer have effects dependant on caster level.

 

[Cadfan]

But spells will no longer have effects dependant on caster level.

The issue is scaling. That was just the easiest example of completely linear I could come up with off the top of my head.

TLDR for my last post: If spells scale perfectly, then limited actions per day stops balancing the wizard because his actions per day go up and the fighter's stay the same. Spell obsolescence prevents this. So does a different method of balancing wizards and fighters.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

In early D&D, I think some of the lack of scaling was deliberate for another reason besides power balance--it was to encourage casters to stock up on utility spells using those lower level slots. Having another magic missile when you have 4th or 5th level wizard spells isn't that important (depending on edition--sometimes you'd keep MM and drop sleep). But having that read magic handy in a slot was often worth it, now that you didn't need MM or sleep in combat.

 

[Gadget]

I agree that lower level spells having a cap on scaling effects was a balancing factor. After a while, the spell caster used lower level spell slots for nice utility spells that didn't need to scale (except for a choice few that were still marginally effective), thereby having more of a wizardly flair. I think it likely that spell scaling will be handled by preparing spells using a higher level spell slot to reap the increased benefit, leaving lower level spell slots only useful for utilities.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Honestly, I'd rather see spells scale than see a return of the escalating spell level/slot system. I'm fine with having Vancian magic, but that doesn't mean we need nine spell levels with countless spells of each level being cast per day. I'd rather just have spells with no concept of "spell level", and have those spells improve and upgrade as the character improves as a spellcaster. A system where you can memorize at most six spells at a time and can prepare new ones with a short rest between encounters would be more true to what I know of Dying Earth magic anyways...

Anyways, I'm a fan of the idea that, if you need to replace a power, you should replace it with a power that is similar, but different in some way. In fact, having each power have a branching tree of upgrade paths would be ideal, if a bit difficult to implement...

Something like this:

                                                  Devastating Fireball
                 Incinerating Fireball ->             or
                                                   Firestorm
Fireball ->               or
                                                 Delayed Chain Fireball
                   Delayed Fireball    ->             or
                                                  Fire Mines

 

[Szatany]

The issue is scaling.

But there will be no scaling, so there's no issue? Unless I misunderstand (which I probably do )