D&D 5E The 5E Magic User

[Szatany]

For 5e, I think I would like a system that takes a little from vancian magic and a little from 3e psionics. (4e power system of at-wills/enc/dailies IMO works best with divine magic, as divine casters are allowed to cast this spell that often, and have no say in it).
I would prefer a system that separates spells into fast-cast combat magic and slow-cast utilities/rituals.
--Combat spells are cast with mana, they don't have to be memorized or anything. Casters have always small amounts of mana that recharges quickly.
--Noncombat magic is dealt with vancian system. Because it only deals with noncombat spells, wizards don't risk running out of spells in battle (but they very well might run out of "rituals".

So for example, a first-level wizard might look like this:
COMBAT SPELLS
Mana 1+Int (say, 5)
spells known: magic missile, ray of enfeeblement, expeditious retreat
UTILITY SPELLS
one 1-st level slot
spells known: detect magic (memorized), endure elements, floating disk

 

[Li Shenron]

I think I agree with those that said 3rd was pretty good, but the scrolls/wand availability was too easy, and therefore they got out of control.

So maybe something like 3rd, with a ritual component, and less creation/purchase of items?

I feel the same. One of my pet peeve has always been that "magic shopping" is the cause of a lot of problems. The problem is not in the spellcasting rules. But take away magic shopping and a lot of players will hate you.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I feel the same. One of my pet peeve has always been that "magic shopping" is the cause of a lot of problems. The problem is not in the spellcasting rules. But take away magic shopping and a lot of players will hate you.

Too much of a player character's "build" hinges on equipment these days. If you take Weapon Focus (Longsword), you really want o find a Longsword +3, not a Greataxe +3.

I think you wouldn't need as much if the equipment wasn't that dominant in that regard.

What I could see is that magic items do not give bonuses, but give alternate abilities. (I mentioned this before).

You find only one or two magical weapons in your entire fighter career. But this magical weapon grows with you and your character will revolve more around it than it does now. I don't believe players will miss magic item shops as much when this happens, and if a player really wants a particular item, and the DM is nice, the DM can build it as a plot point into his campaign, instead of having to put up with magic items hops.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't think I want to go back to a wizard that doesn't have at-will spells. Unless the Wizard has enough "martial "abilities that he's actually decent with a staff or a sword.

I would also prefer to keep at-wills, encounters and dailies in general for Wizardry. But I could see re-envisioning them into something more... "Vancian".

You prepare a spell, say "Fireball". Having this spell prepared, gives you a set of spellcasting option.
1) As a Standard At-Will Action , you cast something like Scorching Burst. (Area Burst 1, 1d6+STAT fire damage)
2) As an Heroic Standard Action (= ENcounter Power), you can cast Flame Burst (Area Burst 1, 2d6+STAT fire damage, MIss Half Damage)
3) As a Decisive Standard Action (= Daily Power), you can cast Fireball itself. (Area Burst 3, 3d6+STAT fire damage, 5 ongoing damage (save ends), Miss Half Damage)

I like it and I think the best bet is to split spells in groups.

Cantrips: Weak at will spells
Sorcery: Moderate strong spells that can be casted spontaneously and recharge over time (encounter spells)
Channel: Passive spells that stay on the target until the duration ends or the effect is used.
Wizardry (needs better name): Stronger spells that can must be prepared on slots.
Prayers: just like Wizardries but slightly weaker and more times a day.
Invocations: Moderately strong spells that recharge after the caster uses a second wind
Rituals: Very strong spells that require long periods of time to cast.
Incantations: Extremely powerful spells that not only take time but have expensive material costs.

Then each magic user could get the ably to cast spells in certain ways.

A wizard can cast Fireball as a cantrip, wizardry, ritual, or incantation. A sorceror, due to there lack of academic training must cast Fireball as cantrip, sorcery, or ritual.

 

[Nebulous]

I hate hate hate with a passion what 4E did to magic. Rituals being so costly to do something mundane like open a door makes no sense to me. Basically it says doing something that does not requires as much force like say a fireball that kill and injure multiple targets is less arduous then oping a door. That just breaks any believability to me and just reminds I am playing a game.

Yeah, 4e killed the magic of D&D in every way. Sure, older editions might not have been perfectly balanced, but it was always fun. I actually think that WotC is in the perfect place now to work out Fun AND Balanced at the same time. And as others have stated, they need to be careful so that wizards don't step on the toes of other classes too much. Like Knock for example. Well, maybe it takes a LONG time to cast, or has a costly component, or maybe it's not as effective as a highly skilled thief. And no Wizard should ever be able to transform into a fighting machine that outshines the Fighter.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I originally posted this over in the Vancian thread, but it was somewhat well received there so I figured I'd cross-post.

I wonder if there might be some appeal in balancing AW/E/D around increased flexibility. Something like, every spell has 3 versions, one for each level of frequency. You have x spell slots, but you can choose to memorize any combination of spells. You could memorize x at-wills, x encounters, x dailies, or some combination thereof. 3 options might be overkill, but even if you dropped it to just at-wills and dailies I could still see it working.

For example, Invisibility. The at-will version might only last until your next turn (1 round), while the daily version might last for an entire encounter (5 minutes). If there's an encounter version, it would be somewhere between those options. That's just an example of course; the standard could instead be that at wills last for rounds, encounters last for minutes, and dailies last for hours. Either way, those are just fiddly details.

So, if you had 5 spell slots, you could memorize at-will Invisibility and 4 other spells, or Daily Invisibility five times, or some combination thereof. It might be a reasonable compromise between the various editions, and it would allow players to play their casters as they prefer. Like the 3e warlock, memorize at will versions of spells. Like the 3e wizard, memorize dailies exclusively. Like 4e casters, take your preferred combination of frequencies.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I feel the same. One of my pet peeve has always been that "magic shopping" is the cause of a lot of problems. The problem is not in the spellcasting rules. But take away magic shopping and a lot of players will hate you.

I feel that magic shopping, while problematic, is the lesser issue when compared to the 3e magic item creation feats. A possible solution for shopping might be to allow it, but strictly limit the availability of what magic items are on the market. In any case, 5e should support both shopping and "no magic shop" styles of play.

The problem with the crafting feats is that they allow you to circumvent the gold limit (and potentially limited availability) of shopping. It costs 1/2 gold and a (usually) marginal amount of xp. Now granted, some players were turned off by the idea of spending xp and simply didn't craft, but those who wanted to could break the system pretty fast...

 

[Dausuul]

I once was for siloing utility and attak powers... but for a magic user, it just makes no sense. Why can i cast destructive magic in seconds, but need 10 min to open a door?

Yeah! I mean, look at the real world, where it takes just as much time to toss a grenade as it does to pick a lock. 4E can be so unrealistic.

(I do in fact think rituals should be merged back into regular spells, but this line of argument doesn't hold up IMO.)

 

[FoxWander]

I myself would prefer a system that had a limited number of base spells but each spell would have a scalable power level. For instance, a mage might know "Create Fire" and the level he casts it at would determine its effects. Cast as a cantrip you'd have a Firefinger effect. At 1st level its more like Burning Hands. 3rd level is your Fireball and at higher levels you get the Firestorm or Meteor Swarm.

Many of the existing spells already fall into this sort of system- the same basic effect at various levels. The spells I just mentioned are like that. But doing it this way eliminates much of the complexity/intimidation of playing a mage. Instead of hundreds of spells that can overwhelm players you have a core of base spells that scale with level. The "Create Fire" example would roll 9 spells into one- which is a lot easier to grasp than the individual spells PLUS all the minor variations of 'I blast it with fire'.

This could make for a much simpler spell list that still covers all the canon effects one would expect. A reworking of 4E's rituals would cover many of the one-off effects that are covered by the plethora of specific spells that exist now. Also this could easily be rolled into a Vancian style system- except you're memorized spells are chosen from the handful of base spells you know and you're daily spell allowance limit how often, and at what level, you can cast them. So if you're expecting trouble you could memorize "Create Fire" and "Call Lightning", but if you're exploring what you hope is an abandoned castle you might go with "Telekinesis" instead- which covers all the Knock and Unseen Servant type effects which have so many utility uses.

 

[Someone]

The image of the wizard, holding back before unleashing an earth shattering spell is dramatic and works well in literature, but not that well at the table, IMO. The average of a bored mage player one fight and a frustrated fighter player the second fight is not two happy players both fights.